parking at charge points

Effects

I was passing the charge points at John Rogersons Quay and Forbes St. the other night. Noticed that the parking bay says nothing about it being for electrics only. Has that not been rectified yet? Seems crazy that ICE cars can block the chargers if they choose to.

Main reason I actually took notice was because a taxi had driven onto, and along the footpath to park up on the pavement. Parked up there so he could charge his Leaf. A passerby had taken a photo and an altercation took place, with a very aggressive taxi driver. He was claiming it was against the law to take his photo, that the cars parked on the street were breaking the law, and he was allowed to drive on the footpath to get to the charger. He ended up calling the Gardaí about it.

I didn't wait around to see what the outcome was, as I was headed for a meeting. Doubtful the Gardaí would entertain him about having his picture taken, but they also don't seem to have many issues with footpath parking.

innrain

I don't think you can right a wrong with another wrong but I understand the frustration. File this incident at road rage category as is no different. The EV charging marking and enforcement is passed from ecars to DCC with pathetic lamentations. Meanwhile people get to make their own laws and rules as those paid or elected to do so couldn't care less.

Gant21

SUV’s should be exempt.

liamog

In order for it to be illegal for a non charging vehicle to parked at a charger the space must be marked according to SI 444 of 2015. https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/si/444/made/en/pdf

This consists of white text indicating ‘Electric Vehicle Charging Only’ or ‘EV charging Only’ which is at least 350mm high. When eCars place a charger on DCC street they don't take ownership of the accompanying parking space. It's up to DCC whether they want to mark the space for exclusive use, it's then also up to DCC to enforce the rules.

From OPs example, the driver had no right to drive on the pavement, and there is no restriction on taking a photo of a car/driver in a public place.

Gumbo

Those spots are not EV spots just yet. They are free for all,with regards to parking there. It’s unfortunate but DCC/ESB need to paint the ground or else it will keep happening.

mfceiling

They are going to do it shortly. I emailed ESB about this recently.

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682028#Comment_118682028

Yes, it was noted in a recent newsletter alright.

sooner rather than later hopefully for those that need it.

considering their location, it could open up an EV to many of the apartment owners there.

cannco253

Ecars said they would be painted “next week” at the recent IEVOA webinar if I remember correctly, looks like it still hasn’t happened…..not that anyone would be surprised by that

_dof_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682156#Comment_118682156

Parked there tonight as it happens, all chargepoints marked available in the app before I arrived. That was true, but only because 3 or the 4 spaces were ICEd. I plugged into the AC socket on the first unit, so now all 4 parking spaces were occupied, with only 1 EV, me.

I had just plugged in and a taxi arrived and drove up onto the path and plugged into the CCS. My charge rate was then reduced to only 3kW. I assume that when he finished it went back up to the max 6.6 that my car can take since the car was mostly charged when I got back a few hours later. Another taxi was parked on the path at my chargepoint and a second taxi had nosed into the other one with the back of his car out in the driving lane.

It was chaos, all for the want of a bit of paint. Mind you the gullys are higher than the road surface in front of the chargepoint so there's a huge puddle a couple of inches deep that my cable was sitting in.. so they'd need to wait for a good dry spell to be able to paint it.

Atlantic Dawn

Crazy situation.

Non EV owner query...do you still have to Pay & Display while the EV is charging?

_dof_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682599#Comment_118682599

In Dublin yes, but at that location only until 6pm so I was okay for free parking after that time. In other parts of the country it's a mixed bag, some local authorities allow free parking while charging and others don't. Some even allow EVs to park anywhere in local authority parking spaces for free, like Waterford. The policy wouldn't typically be signposted, so you would need to research it online or call the local authority to find out. Another mess.

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682156#Comment_118682156

They have an TODO called "Paint Rogersons quay next week". Every time they look at it, it's next week.

ted1

Why would they put an AC charger on a high speed one? Surely a stand alone AC one would be better.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118683949#Comment_118683949

It comes with the unit, I've seen the same model used in the UK (Osprey), they however charge 40p/kWh which strongly discourages people from actually bothering to use the AC except in a real emergency, here eCars charge the standard AC rate (on these models), so you may as well park and plug in for 3 hours and physically block the space. I think it was a sop to Zoe drivers.

slave1

just over 5 years EV driving, never seen one of those cables in use

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118685774#Comment_118685774

They could put a blanking plate over it. It’s crazy to put an AC charger on such an expensive piece of kit that’ll charge several vehicles in the time someone charging at sub 7kwh does.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686164#Comment_118686164

They only started installing them about 18 months ago, we're talking about the sites that were upgraded from 2x22kW AC to a DC Charger.

cannco253

I was in Athlone yesterday and went to the 50kW charger in the city centre. 2 marked spots in front of the charger, both were empty.

I parked in one and started charging (I had the Leaf with me so was on Chademo). Another Leaf parked in beside me and plugged into the AC side, took a few attempts to get going but started in the end.

It's a pay and display car park so I presumed you needed to pay (which I did) even if you're charging. Asked the other driver and was told "I always park here and never pay"

On the other side of the river at a 22kW point, I saw a BMW PHEV driver charging, had the cable stretched diagonally underneath his car so they could reach the plug, first time I saw that and still can't figure out how they did it.

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118680994#Comment_118680994

There's no restriction to taking pictures in a public place. Posting people's personal data is against the law and reg plates are personal data, not that it matter as social media is built on breaking GDPR. No excuse for the taxis parking on the footpath

Effects

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686429#Comment_118686429

Reg plates are not personal data that can be used to identify an individual.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686429#Comment_118686429

Reg plates on photos taken by an individual and posted on social media is not a GDPR issue for the individual, it would only become an issue when combined with other data that the controller (in this case the social media entity that receives the photo) holds that can be used to identify the individual.

In short: boards.ie can host a picture of a car with a reg plate, it cannot host the picture and create a database saying that Joe Bloggs owns a car with reg plate 202-D-12345 without Joe's permission

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686517#Comment_118686517

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686692#Comment_118686692

An easy example of information that could be used to indirectly identify someone is an individual’s license plate number. The police (a third party) can quickly match a name to a license plate number.

The qualifier “reasonably” is an important one. Methods of identification that are not present today could be developed in the future, which means that data stored for long durations must be continuously reviewed to make sure it cannot be combined with new technology that would allow for indirect identification.

Any information that can lead to either the direct or indirect identification of an individual will likely be considered personal data under the GDPR.

https://gdpr.eu/eu-gdpr-personal-data/

liamog

There was nothing on that page that says an individual can't take a picture of a vehicle with a registration plate in a public place.

The responsibilities of GDPR do not apply to individuals going about personal business, it's spelled out on the very site you linked.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686692#Comment_118686692

In short: boards.ie can host a picture of a car with a reg plate,

since you are a boards mod is it fair to assume that what you have posted is boards.ie legal opinion and not just your personal opinion?

_dof_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118683949#Comment_118683949

It's the best of both worlds. If you have a long dwell time, you want an A/C charger with no overstay limit. If you need a quick charge (like the taxi drivers discussed above) then the 50kw DC charger is good enough. They replace the 2x22kw AC units with them so they still provide support for that low power long charge use case.

I'd prefer if they installed hundreds of low cost AC chargers all over central Dublin (and other cities), since people travelling to the city centre will usually spend a few hours, shopping, at a show, at college or a business meeting or a medical appointment or whatever. An A/C chargepoint is ideal for that. There are an embarrassingly small number of AC chargers in the centre of Dublin for on street parking spots. And ecars have said they are not going to install any more new ones.

If they keep installing these dual charger types, it's good, but they are much more expensive than AC charepoints so they won't install anywhere near enough of them. A mix of these and cheap AC chargepoints on every street and car parks would be best IMO.

_dof_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686164#Comment_118686164

you'd have seen me using one yesterday :) Ideal for what I needed, I was parked up for around 4 hours, so a DC charger with 45 minute overstay was no use to me, I needed an AC charger with no overstay.

_dof_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118686251#Comment_118686251

If there are 2 parking spots marked in front of the chargepoint and only one car can use the DC charger at a time, then there's nothing wrong with the other spot being used by a car charging on AC.

I'm assuming only CCS or Chademo can be used at a time on these chargepoints, at least the app showed both CCS and ChaDeMO as in use when the taxi was charging on CCS and I was charging on AC (I think).

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118688010#Comment_118688010

As a volunteer mod, I can only answer to the forum charter, if you want an answer to boards legal position you'd need to ask the helpdesk. We have a number of well established threads consisting of pictures (and videos) of other peoples cars in public places, so until their situation changes I'll maintain my viewpoint.

The point I was making was more around the GDPR responsibilities being on the service hosting a picture, and not on an individual who happens to take one in a public place.

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118687242#Comment_118687242

When it's posted to online it's a breach of GPDR.

Effects

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118689759#Comment_118689759

Can you explain further?

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118690058#Comment_118690058

It's legal to take pictures in a public place and for an individual to store them, but once it's online it's using someone else's personal data without their consent.

Effects

I'm not sure a court would agree with you there.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118690351#Comment_118690351

If it's a topic you are interested in discussing may I suggest you post in the legal discussion https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058109451/legal-discussion

Until such time that boards stop the other threads with pictures of cars in public places any pictures posted will not be removed by me as the moderator of this sub forum.

Can we now get back to the topic of parking at charge points.

Effects

So who is it that I should email about getting the spots painted? I don't have an electric car yet, but it's ridiculous that non electrics can block them. Not to mention the damage caused to pavements by heavy loads, not intended for them, driving on them.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118691949#Comment_118691949

I'd suggest your local councillor, it's a DCC responsibility

zg3409

Same spot, taken by vehicle owner. I suspect the taxi driver was worried about being reported to taxi regulator and getting hassle. You can look up taxi info online with reg and get driver name etc. I am not sure what regulator would do but if the same driver had multiple incidents then in theory they could do something. There was the case of a criminal taxi driver who said he needed his licence to earn money and was fighting getting it withdrawn due to criminal record...

ELM327

It could actually be good. If these photos became "viral" online then maybe DCC would actually bother to mark the spots in accordance with the SI.

DCC are anti car however, including BEVs, so I expect them to not bother marking the bays until tuesday. Tuesday of what week is up to you!

kanuseeme

People will be rushing to VW, in fact double and treble parking outside to hand over 36 k just so they can mount a foot path to get a charge to do their normal drive.

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118877959#Comment_118877959

Well to be fair to them they replied to an email I sent at the end of January stating that they would be painted next week.

Effects

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118877769#Comment_118877769

I looked up the taxi plate number, and the person it was registered to wasn't the guy who was driving it. But I think that's common enough, when some one owns the plate, but other legally registered drivers are using the car on a rental type basis.

I passed there on Saturday evening and that same red car was parked there at the time.

mfceiling

To be honest that is one of if not the stupidest places to ever have put a charger.

If they had moved it a further 200 metres down the quays there is no parking spots there. Just put it there and put large green boxes there and leave the double yellows in place either side. Most ICE drivers wouldn't bother parking there then. Where it is now is basically just another space for whoever gets there first.

AndrewJRenko

Mod Note: Snip see note in post #33 https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118691152/#Comment_118691152

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118878368#Comment_118878368

They also said that at the IEVOA video call a month ago, "next week" were the exact words!