Free Traffic Legal Advice

Quote from: 666 on June 28, 2024, 04:22:40 pm

I was an instructor in a previous life, and find this instructor's conduct appalling. The OP should consider a complaint to the DVSA.

As it is a large driving school a complaint to their management would seem appropriate (I imagine it's a franchise model but there should still be some oversight).

I agree with both of you, but as of this morning, after I've told him clearly that this is not my responsibility he has stopped messaging me, I will leave it there unless he continues communication. As bizarre as this all is, I don't know what he's going through, maybe he's just having a terribly bad week. I also doubt he will do this to other students, he will obviously be aware of his mistake to bring me to that car park and will be more careful in future.

I don't understand wha you are worrying about. You would have been the liable party in a breach of contract dispute with the PPC. This is simply a matter of contract law (civil). Nothing to do with criminal law.

However, there is no outstanding debt as far as the PPC is concerned so the matter is closed. As for your instructor, unless he has a valid contract with you as his client that specifically covers your liability for private invoices from a third party, then he should take the matter up with his lease company or if he's feeling lucky, try and sue you in the county court.

As far as you are concerned, the matter is closed.

I'm not worried or concerned anymore, it's closed and thank you all for clarifying that. This extra talk is just about me coming to an acceptance that I could have been liable if his contract with his lease company was different than it is, and if they had not paid immediately, or if he had appealed it. That fact still doesn't sit completely right with me given the context of what happened, but it is outside the scope of the advice of this forum so I'll leave it there.

Thank you again everybody.

I know the main question has been answered by all three of you, so this is veering off the topic. I am beginning to agree with what all of you are saying about liability normally being with the driver. Ok, let's say I also agree that the driver is usually the person behind the wheel.

Within the context of a lesson, obviously a student can do all manner of stupid things..... speed, verge onto a bus lane, stop in a yellow box, or in a red zone... the list is endless. I know it is possible that the driving instructor has no control to prevent this in a timely manner or if at all even if they have their own controls. So the instructor is not always in control of the car, but equally at some times he has all the control. In my case the instructor told me to go there and at any point he could have told me to leave or stop and I would have followed his instruction. I now agree that this doesn't absolve me of my own responsibility to notice that I am going onto private land, but it is fully in his capacity to prevent it and he has all the time in the world to do so. I would argue that we were both the drivers in this context then!

Quote from: H C Andersen on June 27, 2024, 09:33:10 pm

To continue the seafaring analogy, that ship sailed when the lease company paid the parking charge.

A small clarifying point, which doesn't detract from your other points: it seems from the OP that the instructor is the one who paid, not the hire company.

DWMB2, he has sent me an invoice of the lease company paying the fine and then later a text message that says "I have paid the PCN". Maybe there is some openness for interpretation. I read it as he has paid the invoice to the lease company who have paid the issuer. I have communicated with him after that with that interpretation and he has not disputed it yet.

Hi all,

I have a question about who is liable for a parking charge notice issued during a driving lesson.

I am a licence holder and a new driver. I have not driven for several years from when I first obtained my licence. I took up some refresher lessons a couple months ago with a large motoring school. As part of these lessons the instructor directed me to a car park of his choice where we practised bay parking for the better part of an hour on multiple occasions. I did not see any parking notices, although I would expect to have missed it because I was following my instructor's direction and because I am inexperienced. My instructor made no comment about any signs or limits to period of stay and repeatedly brought me to this car park.

It is now a few months after my last lesson with my instructor and as of the last few days out of the blue I have received aggressive communication from him telling me for the first time that his car has been issued several PCNs back in April and since I was the driver of his car at the time that I am liable to pay them. He has provided evidence that these PCNs were issued during our lessons and I don't doubt that. Up until just now, I had received no communication about this matter, not from the instructor, or from the ticket issuer or from the motoring school.

I have read the contract for the private ticket issuer. It states that the driver is liable and that payment of the fee is admission of liability. There is no explicit definition of who the driver here is, it's not clear that it must be the person behind the wheel in a car with dual controls. I don't consider myself the driver when I am being told where to go and what to do and where I am not disobeying any instruction given, the instructor is in control of the vehicle. Secondly, the instructor tells me that his lease company has paid the private ticket issuer and that he has paid the lease company.

My view of this is that the instructor has admitted liability by choosing to pay the invoice his lease company has issued him with and that he should take this up with them. My view is also that he should have appealed this in the appropriate time window and notified me months ago if he believed he was not at fault or that I was at fault. So I think the instructor is imagining that there is a personal debt here and trying to come after me for it.

I have asked some people I know including another instructor and the advice is that he's a chancer and in the worst case he can try and fail to take me to small claims court on this. I think this advice is solid. To an extent I don't know why I'm writing this, I suppose the communication from my instructor simply reads as too shameless for a driving instructor unless he honestly believes he is in the right. He hasn't said anything on that topic yet, just threatened me with talk of debt collectors.

Thank you for any replies.