Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi All,

On a Saturday Evening During an Arsenal home game my electric car was very low on battery and the nearby petrol station was occupied so whilst driving around near emirates stadium I drove into a restricted area because I saw a recharge point inside the restricted zone (St Thomas's Road).

Picture of visible electric station before entering the restricted zone: https://imgur.com/a/JJ3mrUE

I don't live in London but I did see the road sign and was unsure what it meant. I didn't think much of it anyway as my car was low on battery and the recharge station clearly looked like it was for public access.

After recharging and driving away a camera picks up a video of the alleged contravention: https://imgur.com/a/JJ3mrUE

PCN Letter: https://imgur.com/a/yMrSIoc

Is the recharge station for permit holders only?
Was I wrong in presuming that it was a publicly accessible electric station?
Am I at fault? If so, is a low battery a valid excuse to make an appeal? (Bearing in mind the local fuel station had 2 pumps and both were occupied).

I would appreciate any thoughts.
Thanks

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The council's evidence is a video recording of the vehicle leaving a LTN past a one-way sign which did not apply to their direction of travel i.e. along St. Thomas's in the direction of Monsell.

Their allegation is based upon a deduction that the car must have entered the area passing a flying motorcycle sign at some point.

The OP has identified that point as Gillespie Road at its junction with St. Thomas's, in effect the opposite end of St. Thomas's to where the video was taken. This is a two-way restriction which, according to the plan, exempts BB holders and is covered by a camera.

GSV shows that this point does not exempt BB holders in either direction.

IMO, if the council allege that this is where the contravention occurred then produce the video recording from the camera at this point and state the correct location in the PCN i.e. Gillespie Rd.

@H C Andersen makes a valid point, the video:



shows this location: https://goo.gl/maps/Mug6UwVFiVvnVvP39

So @ElectricMan23 you can't have been travelling to the charging point, it looks like you were caught when you were driving out of the area? Could you please clarify?

Well, the sign is in the Highway Code and you're required to know what it means, so being unfamiliar with it is obviously no excuse. If you'd charged up the car, the mitigation of having no juice left is gone, so we're really left with strictly technical arguments.

At this point we might as well just wait for the Notice of Rejection and see if that document gives us anything to work with. Also, please stop bulk-quoting everything, it makes the thread unnecessarily lengthy and hard to navigate.