Free Traffic Legal Advice

Thanks for the advice guys.

As it's a work vehicle I'll advise him to check with work to see if the first NIP was received within 14 days. If it is within 14 days, then there's no grounds to appeal (realistically and reasonably) and therefore he should just accept his fate.

If after 14 days, I'll come back on here for further guidance

Generally speaking, is it worth pursuing to see the evidence and whether the device was calibrated recently? I don't fancy sending him down paths with minute chances of success.

A NIP must be served to the driver or Registered Keeper within 14 days of the offence. Since the police don't know who was driving, it is sent to the RK.

When a NIP is received "late" we almost invariably find that the recipient is not the RK, and a NIP has been sent to the RK, who has nominated the driver. There is no time limit on any subsequent NIPs.

Is your relative the RK? If in doubt, does he have the V5C (logbook) and are his details correct?

Ah, that didn't occur to me, this must be his work van as he has confirmed he is the Registered Driver, but the Registered Keeper.

So presumably, the NIP was sent to the company within 14 days, and then they responded to confirm that he was the driver at the time and thus the NIP today.


I will advise him to check with his company to see the date stamp of the very first NIP to see if it falls within 14 days or not. Appreciate that he's only defence is a memory of the speed not being displayed on the digital board, so nothing tangible at all, if we presume he was right in that regard, how would one even appeal these?

Thanks for your thoughts and input, I'm pretty much aligned in your thinking; in that there has been no changes in the RK therefore she was the one whom got fined back in 2022, and subsequently can't reasonably plead for leniency on the second (technically third) PCN when she left the zone on the Sunday.

Bit of a stretch to bank on the adjucator recognising that the first offense in 2022 was by the partner, and the two this time round was my SIL. 

You've shown us page 1 of the Notice of Rejection. Please post up the remaining pages.

Quote from: Charsiu on August 27, 2024, 01:41:19 pm

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Quote

Our records show that a Penalty Charge Notice - YJ38857187 was issued to you on 09/07/2022 which you paid. We believe this was sufficient notice given to you to make you aware of the ULEZ and the need to correctly purchase a charge for each day of entry into the ULEZ

The wording of the sentence above suggests that the reviewer may have waived the second PCN, had they looked at the correct PCN charge in question and realised there was not enough notice for my SIL to realise the penalty.
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The TFL website shows PCN Y338857187 to be a ULEZ PCN for the same car, that was paid in 2022. The V5c was last updated in Feb 2021 so the RK hasn't changed. Hence it's hard to see how your sister can now argue that she was unaware of the ULEZ? It's the expansion of the zone that she fell victim to.

What exactly did your represenations say?

There was another 7-8 pages of the rejection, so I had just linked to the album on my previous post (Remaining Pages). But here it is again REMAINING PAGES AGAIN

It didn't occur to me to check the "incorrect" PCN, and you are absolutely right! Their vehicle was caught in ULEZ back in 2022, I noticed the e-mail receipt was to the husband - I wonder if he ever told her back then! 

In this case, I might just tell her to just pay up - bit much to ask TFL for leniency when the car was fined previously,  not plausible in their eyes which I understand.

My representation was essentially stating the facts of the events (as I have on this post) and asking for leniency and waiving of the second PCN. The PCN from 2022 completely skewered that for both my SIL and myself, I suspect she's having words with the other half!

So my SIL received the rejection letter today, but confusingly it quotes a PCN and date not related to her case:

Our records show that a Penalty Charge Notice - YJ38857187 was issued to you on 09/07/2022 which you paid. We believe this was sufficient notice given to you to make you aware of the ULEZ and the need to correctly purchase a charge for each day of entry into the ULEZ

The wording of the sentence above suggests that the reviewer may have waived the second PCN, had they looked at the correct PCN charge in question and realised there was not enough notice for my SIL to realise the penalty.

Anyone know of a way to ask TFL to re-review the above, without having to proceed to the next formal stage?

To clarify the sequence of events in terms of payment and issue dates:

Friday 23rd June - ENTERED ULEZ
Sunday 25th June - EXIT ULEZ

Wednesday 3rd July- First PCN Received (XJ31432319)
Wednesday 3rd July - First PCN PAID

Friday 5th July - Second PCN Received (XJ31678760)




Link to first page - got problems with image link not loading up in the post

Remaining Pages

TFL seem to think that there is a possibility that your car has had a change of registration. There's a known issue with the DVLA and the ULEZ databases in cases of a change of VRM, whereby a vehicle's emissions status and or data doesn't necessarily transfer to the new registration for several months. And sometimes never. Affects private plates, new VRMs from the DVLA due to cloning and vehicles imported from abroad. TFL manually updates their database in such cases.

Your car has a Northern Ireland VRM. Does any of those scenarios apply here? EG is it a private plate as opposed to the original VRM?

Did you say anything in your formal representation to suggest there has been change of VRM? Or that the car is actually ULEZ compliant? The copy of the reps you posted above on July 8th suggest you didn't?

Your car is a diesel. A diesel car doesn't actually have to be fully Euro-6 compliant to be exempt. It just has to meet the Euro-6 NOx standard and PM (Particulate Matter) standards.

Hence they want to check the V5c logbook. And the certificate of conformance if there is no emissions data.

Incidentally "Nitrates of Oxide". Long time since my school chemistry, is there even such a thing? I believe they meant to say Oxides of Nitrogen.

I'm checking with my sister, but I'm pretty sure the VRM is the original number. The vehicle model does match when we check against TFL's website so just assumed the penalty is completely legitimate. I'll get her to send me the documents to respond either way - turns out I can upload to the original appeal on their website, so no need to post to their physical address! 

We received a response today through the post, date marked 23rd July which leaves us a less than a week to respond.

Seems like an almost generic response asking for vehicle registration details and makes no mention of our previous appeal and situation. There's no mention of how we can submit the paperwork electronically, which means we'd have to photocopy the paperwork and then physically send to a PO Box address.

Worth getting Royal Mail signed for delivery just to get the proof of delivery?


Response Letter