Overly-zealous parking wardens will be banned from collecting monetary bonuses for targeting drivers with tickets.
The crackdown comes after claims that private parking wardens are earning as much as £3,000 a month in commission based directly on the number of tickets that they issue to drivers.
Under a new code of practice designed to clean up the way parking tickets are issued, parking enforcement firms will be banned from giving attendants performance-related bonuses.
The move follows after one of Britain’s biggest private parking firms, UK Parking Control, admitted that some staff had fabricated photographic evidence in order to fine innocent motorists.
Tony Taylor of Appeal My Ticket, which advises drivers on how to challenge parking charge notices, previously worked for UK Parking Control before resigning over the “appalling” tactics they used.
He said that the top performers at some of the parking firms could hand out as many as 60 tickets each and every day, earning themselves more than £700 per week in commission.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, he claimed that bonus payments were “widespread” throughout the parking industry. He said: “It is going on throughout the industry. No warden is going to take the hassle they receive on their weekly wage.”
However, British Parking Association boss Patrick Troy, said that the practice of offering financial incentives to wardens for handing out parking charge notices was “wholly unacceptable”.
He said: “We want to make it easier for motorists to park in whichever car park they use when they go about their daily business.
“By making private car parks as similar to local authority ones as possible life becomes much simpler for the motorist.”
In response, UK Parking Control stated that a “limited” number of pictures at some of its car parks had their timestamp altered by employees, and has promised to refund affected drivers.
Earlier this month, a new law was introduced which allows drivers who park their cars in private car parks a ten minute grace period after their ticket expires, before a fine is allowed to be issued.
Previously, it was down to the wardens’ discretion how much time a motorist would be allowed, with thousands of complaints launched by drivers finding themselves on the receiving end of hefty fines.
The policy covers both the end of free parking periods and the end of paid-for time and applies across all of Great Britain in a move similar to a measure already applied to council-owned car parks from April this year.
Drivers have been urged to ensure that they keep their tickets on them as in case that a penalty notice is issued in the post the ticket will provide necessary evidence to support the appeal.
