Free Traffic Legal Advice

I will need to help the driver submit an appeal soon.

Taking on board the comments here and tincombe's observation that the ticket text was illegible (this is true, I'm unable to read the text beneath the black print) I reached out to Gemini to help me draft an appeal, which I paste below.

I will submitting this later today, unless anyone has any further suggestions. Many thanks.

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I am writing to challenge this Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) as the driver and Registered Keeper of the vehicle. I submit that this PCN must be cancelled on the grounds of procedural invalidity, a statutory boarding exemption, and inadequate signage.

1. Procedural Invalidity: Illegible PCN and Failure to Convey Statutory Information
Under Schedule 2 of the Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (England) Regulations 2022, a PCN must clearly state the mandatory information regarding payment periods, discount periods, and the consequences of non-payment.

As shown in the attached photograph of the physical PCN affixed to my vehicle, a significant portion of the mandatory statutory text is completely obscured. The heavy, black pre-printed template text (including the warning "IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE...", the Camden logo, and "Traffic Management Act 2004") has been printed directly over the dynamic text.

As a result, the critical sentences explaining the 14-day discount period and the 28-day payment window are entirely unreadable and obscured. Because the PCN fails to clearly and legibly convey this mandatory statutory information, the notice is procedurally defective and legally unenforceable.

2. Statutory Exemption: Assisted Boarding of a Vulnerable Passenger
Even if the PCN were valid, the alleged contravention did not occur because the vehicle was engaged in the exempt activity of assisted boarding.

I had stopped my vehicle at Endsleigh Gardens for the sole purpose of collecting my 91-year-old mother from Euston Station. My mother is profoundly disabled, suffering from severe mobility, sight, and hearing impairments. She required physical assistance from station staff and myself to transfer from the station platform to my vehicle.

Under established parking law and precedent, the boarding exemption permits a vehicle to wait for as long as necessary to collect a passenger. For elderly, highly vulnerable, or disabled passengers, this exemption explicitly includes the time required for the driver to leave the vehicle unattended, enter the station terminal, locate the passenger, and escort them back to the car.

The CEO’s observation time of just 4 minutes (12:46 PM to 12:50 PM) was wholly inadequate to accommodate the assisted collection of a severely disabled 91-year-old passenger from a major, complex terminal like Euston.

3. Failure to Provide Adequate Roadside Signage (The "Green Zone" Restriction)
I parked my vehicle in good faith, displaying my Blue Badge and time clock correctly. I have since been informed that Endsleigh Gardens falls within Camden’s local "Green Zone," where standard Blue Badges are restricted.

However, under the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Regulations) 1996, the council has a strict duty to place and maintain signs that secure "adequate information as to the effect of the order" to road users.

There was absolutely nothing on the physical roadside sign, nor anywhere in the vicinity of the bay, indicating that standard Blue Badges are excluded or that "Green Zone" rules apply. A motorist cannot be expected to consult external council websites to uncover hidden local variations when the physical sign on the street indicates a standard pay-by-phone bay. Because the signs failed to convey the effect of the traffic order, the restriction is unenforceable.

4. Failure to Make Reasonable Adjustments (Equality Act 2010)
I am culturally and medically Deaf. The bay signage directed users to pay exclusively via a voice telephone number. This voice-only payment method presented an absolute communication barrier, making compliance physically impossible for me. No non-verbal alternative (such as SMS or text-to-pay instructions) was provided on the sign. This constitutes a direct failure to provide "reasonable adjustments" for disabled motorists under Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010.

For these reasons, I request that this invalid PCN be cancelled immediately.

Quick bit of background on the driver which will explain the delay in posting up.
Driver is medically and culturally Deaf and communicates in BSL (British Sign Language)
For the unaware, while BSL is based on the English language, the grammatical structure is different which makes standard written English difficult for Deaf people to fully understand.
Driver has received some help in posting this up.

TDLR: Driver parked on double yellow lines near Euston Station after checking OK with blue badge and subsequently received parking ticket.

Long version:

Driver drove from his home in Hampshire to pick up his 91 year old mother who had travelled from her home in North Wales to visit her son. Due to the mother's age and severe disabilities (sight, hearing and mobility) she didn't feel that she could manage any changes, the only direct train without changes was to Euston. The driver received help checking online for available parking before travelling and the info received was that Euston station had free all day parking for blue badge holders (screenshot dated 1 week before travel to show this information)

The driver's mother's train was scheduled to arrive for 12.30pm on 17.06.26 and the driver arrived at Euston station at 12.10 to find that the car park didn't exist - we now know that the information he received was outdated and that there was no car park due to HS2 works being carried out. He had to detour around the station, less than 2 miles but in central London this took 30 minutes, he was now worrying that his being late, his mother wouldn't have any assistance arriving at the station.

On top of this, perhaps due to the stop start slow traffic in the heat, the automatic gearbox on his car started playing up, not engaging when traffic started moving - and breaking down in the middle of London would be an absolute disaster so he was panicking at this point. Eventually at 12.40pm he found a street close to the station, Endsleigh Gardens that is apparently in Camden, the parking sign stated the following: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 6.30pm Saturday 8.30am - 1.30pm. Pay by phone 020 3003 2532 quoting location 13420. Max stay 2 hours
Obviously making a telephone call for a deaf person without clear speech was not an option, there was no app option listed. He sent the photos of the parking sign and street name to a friend asking to quickly check if parking with a blue badge was OK here. The friend checked and sent the following screenshot which stated that there was no charge for parking with a blue badge at this location in Camden.
He placed his blue badge and time clock on the vehicle and left at 12.45pm.

Arriving at the station he found his mother being looked after by some station staff. It took some time for them to get back to the car as both have mobility issues, and when he got back to the car at 1.18pm he found there was a parking ticket on the windscreen. The ticket states observed from 12.46pm to 12.50pm a total of 4 minutes. It's felt however that the CEO was likely watching him and waiting for him to leave, quite visably disabled with mobility issues before going over to put the ticket on the car.

Apologies for the long winded explanation, some of which may or may not be relevant to any appeal.

Obviously we now know that info provided by Google can not always be relied on to be accurate, however in the case of the street parking information this was an emergency situation where the parking conditions of this street in Camden couldn't be strutinised in depth, and even now it seems an absolute minefield finding out whether you can park with a blue badge or not, we are still unclear whether he was permitted to park there with a blue badge or not.
The driver isn't a frequent visitor to London so is unfamiliar with parking rules there.

The 14 day window for a reduced penalty has passed and it's now beyond the 28 days too. No appeal has yet been made, the driver has asked friends for help and been referred to this forum.

Attached below is:
Info dated 10.6.26 about free disabled parking at Euston station car park.

[img width=800.0000610351562 height=642]https://i.postimg.cc/KjRKXnMj/Screenshot-2026-07-13-100149.png[/img]

The original PCN that was placed on the windscreen, front and back.




Photos of street name and parking sign.




Screenshots showing parking info for the location sent to the driver by a friend (time stamped)

[img width=184.00001525878906 height=600]https://i.postimg.cc/8CtxFW7s/IMG-20260617-WA0010.jpg[/img]


Any help and advice gratefully received.



*for information on how being pre-lingually Deaf affects some deaf people https://signhealth.org.uk/resources/learn-about-deafness/deaf-or-deaf/*

Thank you

Got this letter from the court today, dated 10th September. The post is terrible here so nothing unusual to get post a week late.

Good. That is one less waste of time and effort needed. The claim will now be located to you local county court and a procedural judge will make an order regarding the case.

The most basic of orders will be to set a date and time for the hearing and a deadline for the claimant to pay the £27 trial fee. They will also set a deadline for the submission of witness statements and any other evidence either party is going to rely on.

You must understand that this will never reach a hearing before a judge as DCB Legal will discontinue before they are required to pay the trial fee. As a matter of interest, considering your disability, how would you expect a (excuse the pun) 'hearing' to take place in person?

If I needed to attend court it would be with a BSL interpreter provided by the court.

Is that what you meant?

Heard back from the courts yesterday by email.

Copy and pasted below:
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Good morning,

Thank you for your email.

Please accept our apologies for the arrangement of a telephone mediation call for your appointment.

Please note the telephone call email you received is a generic email sent to all parties as all of our appointments are telephone based.

We reached out to you shortly after the appointment was booked offering you alternative arrangements for you to be able to attend the appointment comfortably but we had not yet received a response for you.

I can confirm that we have rebooked your appointment to 01/10/2025 at 1330-1630 PM instead and this appointment will be a Microsoft Teams Video call with a BSL Interpreter present.

The link for the mediation appointment will be sent to you via email on the day around the beginning of your appointment.

If you have any more concerns or need further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to us

Regards,

Tonisha
Small Claims Mediation Service
Northampton Civil National Business Centre | HMCTS
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Not sure how they reached out to offer alternatives as nothing was received.

Again, it's not paid attention to my available dates, but I've moved things around and will make myself available for the Teams video call.

I've not been in this position before, what can I expect and what shall I say? Do I mention that I do have a disabled badge and did have a valid badge on that date that had fallen to the floor? I was a paying customer at Lidl and have the receipt.

Many thanks for your continued help.

I can appreciate your frustration. You need to contact the court right away to flag both the deafness/BSL interpreter requirement and the unsuitability of telephone mediation.

Telephone mediation is obviously inaccessible for you, and the court should never have booked it once you had made them aware of your hearing needs on the N180. They can (and should) either offer an in-person mediation with a BSL interpreter present, or simply bypass mediation and move the claim to the next stage.

Here’s how I would suggest you handle it:

Please accept my sincere apologies for not replying to your response and thanking you, it must appear ungrateful but I've been otherwise preoccupied.

Thank you very much for the advice and going to the trouble of drafting an email to send to the court, I have done this and emailed all the email addresses you listed. I didn't do this until fairly recently as I've been on some medication for nerve pain (pregabalin) and it's made me quite lethargic.
I've received auto confirmation emails from all of the emails you listed, although the court ones state between 10 and 14 working days for a response if one is needed.
If I don't hear from them by Monday morning, I may need to ask my brother to call on my behalf to direct them to look at the email (who lives at the other end of the country) but I imagine that this will pose some sort of data protection issue without prior written authorisation.

In other news, I've finally got a response from the hospital that the report on my MRI scan has been completed and sent to the consultant for review, so hopefully on the route to getting whatever treatment is required and on the road to recovery.

Many thanks again, and I will update any response from the court/DCBL