A recent report in the Auto Express has gone largely unnoticed. Tescos have parking restrictions in their store carparks. All fine and dandy; that is their prerogative after all. If customers over-stay their welcome they get landed with a fine of up to £70 for repeat offenders. Again, that is up to them. If the offender wants to give them a two-finger salute, well, Tescos will have to take the matter further through the civil courts.
Now, while I don’t much like private firms imposing parking restrictions and fining people; providing they are upfront with it and provide plenty of notice, it is beholden on the offender to behave accordingly. Tescos, it seems, don’t do as many private land owners seem to these days and clamp offending vehicles. This, at least is an effective means of securing the fine – even if it is technically trespass on the person’s property. Again, the law allows for this if the penalties are clearly signposted. If, having read the signs (because you can’t miss them if they are displayed properly) people still disobey the site owner’s rules and get clamped, well, too bad.
Oh, no, Tescos don’t do this. They get the details of the offending vehicle from the DVLA. They send warning letters and a demand for payment of a fine. They deny this:
A Tesco spokeswoman explained that the scheme was designed to prevent all-day parking. She told us: “It’s not true to say that Tesco gets access to names and addresses, because we don’t. We use a licensed agency, and the system is strictly monitored by the DVLA.”
However, the denial appears self-contradictory. It is through another agency, so that’s all okay, then. The reality is that Tescos can operate this scheme effectively without any access on their part, or the part of their collection agency, to the personal details of the drivers involved.
What worries me – as it does others who are concerned about the erosion of our civil liberties – is the abuse of information given in confidence to government agencies that is subsequently given to private sector companies for their own purposes.
With the introduction of the National Identity register, we can expect more of this and worse examples, too.
One thing all stores should crack down on is people parking in ‘disabled’ bays. My wife has a ‘blue badge’ and we just got back from a trip to a store which had 3 permit holder bays. Two were occupied by cars without permits although there were many free spaces just a few yards away.
Makes you wonder what criteria the “approved organisations” have to meet to gain admission of our MI5 files.
They ought to clamp where I live. It’d cut down on unpaid parking tickets!