Disproportional parking fines

Umm..because bridges and tunnels like that are hugely expensive to maintain and not used by most drivers so those that do, pay for the upkeep. It's literally always been chargeable and there are massive and frequent signs. It's much easier now than back when you had gridlocked toll booths and scrabbled around for change.
I do agree the apps are both a blessing and a problem. I've had to set them up on my parents ' phones, add in their reg numbers etc as they got caught out in poor signal areas and are not tech savvy. There should always be a low tech way to deal with things.

The dartford crossing hasn’t been £1 since the 90’s 😂 it’s £2.50 but yeah I don’t understand why we have to pay to use it at all. Remember when it was built they said as soon as building costs were recouped it would be free?!? Instead we sold it to France. That’s right France own our toll road. We should start recharging them for all the dingies they allow and even encourage to land on our beaches!!!! Save billions

The QE bridge was HELL before they got rid of the kiosks. Its taken at least an hour off the time it takes.

Just imagine the delays if there were kiosks at Dartford.

A peage token scheme would be great to have here but we aren't joined up enough.

Having a fantasy now about magical tolls on the A3 that allow traffic to flow freely.

The Dart Charge is to manage demand. It is basically to discourage some people from using it to prevent the sort of congestion it was built to reduce.

that ain’t working out so well is it 😂😂 seems to be getting worse since the knightmayor started charging for the Blackwall tunnel

The Dart Charge is to manage demand. It is basically to discourage some people from using it to prevent the sort of congestion it was built to reduce.

There are quite a few roads in the UK that require payment for one reason or another. I’ve paid twice to cross the Mersey today and one of those crossings required me to go online to pay.

Road tax doesn’t pay for roads and hasn’t directly since 1936. It isn’t called road tax anymore - although annoyingly the government still use that name in some literature. It’s Vehicle Excise Duty and it is basically a tax on the emissions that your car is capable of making. Money collected goes into the big pot of tax collected and can be spent wherever the government chooses to spend it.

YABU for calling the m6 toll the Birmingham Bypass, what sort of name is that?

I don't know anyone else who has the number of fines you have. I think there's a common theme..

You used to be able to challenge punitive private parking charges / fines with POPLA because they were "not a genuine pre-estimate of loss". Not sure if that flies now though. Look at Private Parking forums for ideas if you can appeal those two, if the machines were genuinely broken.

Other than that, there's no such thing as road tax, you are paranoid about data selling in the age of GDPR, and "it's not my fault I forgot", are not excuses that most people sympathise with. Adult up!

If you phone Dartford Crossing, they’re usually really reasonable. I’ve paid the £2.50 after the deadline more than once. I have ADHD and honestly, I rack up £££ in this kind of thing every year. Automate whatever you can, London Congestion Charge, Dartford, all of it.
Private parking fines are the worst, but most of them end up with debt collectors eventually, and at that point you can usually set up a direct debit and pay a token amount. It’s grim, but manageable.

but you started your post specifically saying "I agree OP" but she wasn't fined for any of the things you say you agree with - people being penalised for an avoidable or easily made mistake while driving or parking. She was fined for forgetting to pay a toll she knew about, for deliberately stopping somewhere she knew she wasn't supposed to, and then for not challenging fines she could have disproved.

I agree with you that often authorities are too quick to fine for genuine mistakes but even if someone sorted such instances out with "the government" as OP wants, it wouldn't help her because none of her fines were unfair. You don't have to guess the exact circumstances, level of signage etc. because OP has specified them. She isn't saying "I didn't know you had to pay the toll" or "The taxi rank wasn't marked", she knew she wasn't supposed to stop there but she did. She isn't saying she wasn't given a chance to appeal an unfair fine, she's admitted they gave her a 2 week chance, both times, and she couldn't be arsed to sort it.

At some point people have to take responsibility for their own actions!

Heh, luckily for everyone, I don't drive. But I do ensure DP has all the necessary apps set up.

The risk with that is number plate cloning - depressingly common in urban areas.

I’ve twice been victim to this and by not having autopay I was able to get a crime number and challenge the tickets (tedious but the only way to have the fine cancelled) without a penny leaving my bank account. In on case well over £100 would have disappeared from my account within 48 hours and I’m unusual in watching my accounts fairly closely.

I’d happily use a peage token within the car but definitely no autopay for urban charges.

I would support a sizeable honour for anyone who can unify the seven or eight parking apps needed to perform the exact same function in different car parks/charge areas.

Why did you post when you KNOW you aren't in the wrong?

Can someone in government please take note that you don't like it when there's a consequence when you repeatedly do the things they're trying to avoid people doing?

Is it anyone else's fault you think you're above the rules and full of 'excuses' that are just very normal everyday circumstances and in no way exceptional or particularly challenging to manage alongside basic expectations?

I wasn’t talking about the OPs specific instances. I was talking generally. I think there are too much fining, too much complexity and too much punishing people for genuine errors. I don’t know enough about the details of why the op was fined (was there adequate signage, was it confusing or presented too late etc etc) to comment on the specifics.

Oh come on, in which of OPs scenarios did she
"not have enough time to process information before making an error which results in being fined"?

That argument might work if she was caught in a yellow box grid, or accidentally drove in a bus lane or something, but not in any of the examples here.

She didn't have any issue in "processing" that she needed to pay for the DC, she just forgot to do so.

With the second, she didn't accidentally drive into the taxi rank or not realise what it was, she knew it was there and that she wasn't a taxi, but decided to use it anyway.

With the last two, she didn't make an error when actually parking, if the machines were broke there was nothing else she could have done - she was charged because she took more than 14 days (TWICE!) to "process the information." That's not a split second error.

If you take more than a fortnight to "process" that you need to contest a fine if you don't want to pay it (after already incurring three other fines within a short period) then you probably shouldn't be driving. Or allowed out unaccompanied.

Read the OP. She said she saw the sign but forgot afterwards.

Are you sure you should be driving 😜

I agree OP. We are now in a situation where local councils set up more and increasingly complex systems to fine people to make up for the fact they are struggling as they’ve not been able to increase council tax sufficiently for many years

We also now live in a society where technology makes it easier to monitor people so we are using that to issue more and more fines.

The rules to avoid being fined are getting harder and more difficult to follow and often don’t take into how account human brains work (perhaps deliberately) in that sometimes they don’t allow you enough time to process information before making an error which results in you being fined.

I had no problem with fining people for blatantly and deliberately breaking rules, but what we seem to have moved towards is a state where the minute you make a mistake you are fined which feels to me quite unpleasant society to live in. I can only see this getting worse as technology improves unfortunately. It’s all a bit dystopian.

ok you've lost me now

you're old enough to have children and you've never heard of a road in england needing payment? it's not that unusual.

I also don't get your explanation about your friend - you were picking her up from the station but you put her luggage in your car and drove off without her to the taxi rank? Why didn't she get in as well if the whole reason you were there was to pick her up? How much luggage did she bring with her on the train that the two of you combined couldn't carry it? £170 does sound like an absolutely massive fine but presumably that's to detract people from doing exactly what you did.

You had 14 days to pay or appeal both the other 2 so they are completely on you. You're too "super busy" to spend 5 minutes writing an email to save yourself £160 but not too busy to get on MN to moan about it? If you had evidence (e.g. screenshot of you phoning them to say the machine was broken or just a photo of it) they'd have probably wiped them, so it's just silly not to.

How did you get one, and then still not think 'shit another fine and I've just remembered I didn't pay the first one right I'm going to sort this one right now or I'll miss this one too!'

If three separate fines weren't enough to make you sort yourself out then it's funny you're still arguing they are too high - clearly they're not or, as everyone else has said, you wouldn't have got the fourth!

The Dartford Crossing isn't just a road though is it? It's a bridge and a tunnel. Similarly to the Humber Bridge, Second Severn Crossing, Tyne Tunnel, Tamar Bridge, Mersey Tunnels, M6 Toll, there's a toll. It's part of the funding mechanism for their construction and maintenance of these "extra ordinary" structures. There is no assumption that all uk roads are free to use, especially major river /estuary crossings.

There are signs on the approach to and after the crossing re Dartcharge over several miles!

Presumably you used some sort of route anber. They tell you where toll roads are.

Most major bridges and tunnels have had tolls for 50 years!
The first time I crossed at Dartford I forgot to pay. I received a letter saying as it's a first offence, pay within seven days. Sorted.

On street parking fines are literally going to a fund which benefits the community. The revenues go to local councils and are invested in transport related services.

Road tax is not allocated to be spent on roads, as we do not generally have hypothecated taxes in the UK. Vehicle tax goes into the common tax pot, and may be spent on anything the government funds - e.g. health, education, benefits. So it is not reasonable for me to assume taxing my car means even public roads are proportionately maintained.

The toll section of the M6 was not publicly funded and the tolls go to the private body which built and maintains it. So separate from road tax.

I may be fortunate, but in my area it takes less than 5 minutes to pay a parking fine online (from experience...), which is not a big time outlay to prevent the fine escalating.

As others have said, parking fines need to be significant in order to have any deterrent effect. Otherwise they would simply be premium parking charges, and we could all gamble whether the original charge was worth paying at all.

Getting an occasional parking fine is not unusual but you kep getting them.
I have had 3 that I can remember in over 30 years of driving (and parking). I park in City centres several times a week and manage to not get a fine