Cross-border initiative to tackle parking and toll offenders - status?

ronan0

Does anyone know what is the current status of this?

I know they ran a pilot project between March 2010 and November 2010.

http://www.transport.ie/pressRelease.aspx?Id=177

Then, in February 2011, they wrote off a load of unpaid tickets.

More than £1.7m in unpaid parking tickets linked to non-UK registered vehicles has been written off by the Department for Regional Development (DRD).
A Freedom of Information request revealed that since 2006, 29,689 parking penalty notices equating to £1,709,317 have now been wiped from the system.
So far this financial year, 4,033 tickets have been written off, equating to £180,771.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/drd-writes-off-17m-in-unpaid-parking-tickets-15092492.html#ixzz1OCPx5K7U

What's the current situation? Anyone in possession of any facts?

ardmacha

It depends on which jurisdiction whose charges you wish to avoid. The NI end have not been setup to follow up 26 county chancers, but may now be able to do so. But the toll people and parking people in the South are already chasing defaulters from the North using debt collectors.

Capt'n Midnight

€1.7m is peanuts compared to other money slipping though our fingers

In Dublin the fines from clamping only pay half the cost of operating the serivce.

It costs more to provide the declamping service than the money it generates. Last year, €4.5 million was collected from de-clamping, but it costs nearly double that to run the service.
...
In 2010, Dublin City Council collected €26 million from parking metres, and €4.5 million in fines for illegal parking in the city.

So roughly 1/3 of all parking meter fees is used to pay the clampers.

On the M50 1 in 10 cars isn't taxed.

New figures from the Department of the Environment show the Exchequer has lost €94m over a 15-month period.

It would be interesting to check the M50 cameras for foreign (non-UK) cars that operate regularily against those fines. 'cos I suspect that that not all of those 30,000 are people who popped over on the ferry.

It would also be intersting to check the M50 for those who are regular users but haven't re-registered and paid VRT yet. :mad:

They should be using automatic number plate recognition cameras in garda cars and pulling over people who are completely taking the píss. Even if revenue doesn't go up much taking those free loaders offf the roads would reduce traffic congestion and so benefit the whole economy.


Here's another suggestion, when a car is clamped the guards are notified / sent a picture of tax/nct/insurance. If they don't add up or there is already some warrant or whatever for the car then the car is lifted. Or in the case of tax/insurance where you can pay online the car could be left clamped for until the normal lifting period to give the owner a chance to pay.


Anyone any breakdown on parking fines by vehicle type / value to see if the demograhics match ?