Clamping question.

Pigman II

An odd thing happened to me the other day. Myself and another guy were driving along in his car when on the spur of the moment the driver decides he wants to get something from the shops. So we pull into a nearby pub carpark. The driver turns off the car, gets out and walks across the street leaving me to play with the radio for a few mins.

Suddenly a clamper van comes along and starts clamping every car in this 'carpark'.

By the time he gets up to our car I've got out and am already saying to him "can you give me a second. I'll get the driver and he'll move our car" But to my surprise the clamper just says "As long as you're sitting in the car you're alright."

So I get back in the car, sit in it for another five-ten minutes until the driver returns and sure enough the clamper leaves our car alone. He clamps 6 or so cars during this time, some on either side of me.

So is this correct? Can you avoid a wheel-clamping just by having someone sit in the passenger seat?

RainyDay

Presumably this is a private clamping contract covering private property (the pub car park) - so there are no general rules as to what is or is not permitted. It's down to the individual clamping company and their own policy.

astrofool

you could hire someone to sit in your car all day

Oriel

Yes, they can only clamp an unattended car.

skywalker

Why would they clamp every car in the car park? Thats only going to piss off your customers.

Pigman II

skywalker wrote:

Why would they clamp every car in the car park? Thats only going to piss off your customers.

I can only imagine that this particular strip of parking area (10 or so spots - on the right hand side of the pub) didn't actually belong to the pub. There were a few other cars parked around at the back of the pub and they were left alone. There was no walls/fenses, or markings on the ground to distinguish this as a no-parking-zone from the rest of the carpark and as it was nearer to the road than the spots round the back of the pub nearly everyone was using these 'clamper spots' rather than park round the back.

When we were leaving we noticed a sign saying 'private parking' (or something similar). However it was only about 2 feet off the ground and was being blocked by a car parked right in front of it - as well as some overgrown shrubs. Wasn't very clear at all that you couldn't park there - but thats not really the issue I'm interested in atm.

Siogfinsceal

well it kind of makes sense cos if somebody is sitting in the car its not really "unattended"

Downtime

If you are leaning against a car it cannot be clamped either.