As some of you may know, this e-petition was mentioned by Honest John (The Daily Telegraph's Motoring advice columnist) on Saturday as he is also staunchly against the new legislation in Clause 56 and since then the petition has jumped from 160ish to over 1,400 signatories.
We are also getting some traction from Facebook and Twitter. Anything you can do to help is good for all of us!
I know there have been some detractors on various forums in the electronic ether so we'd like to remind you all of four points:
1) This only relates to parking on private land (supermarkets etc).
2) Parking on private land is covered by civil contract law.
3) By parking a vehicle in a private car park the driver is entering into a civil contract with the owner.
4) The registered keeper of the vehicle is NOT involved in that contract (The keeper and driver may be the same person but legally they are two separate entities).
So this new legislation will hold the registered keeper, even although they had no part in the civil contract, liable for the parking charges/penalties in the event the driver can not be identified.
The BPA are using the "name the driver or you'll pay" tactic even although as the registered keeper played no part in the contract they are under no obligation to become involved in a civil case.
This is my problem - I do not condone parking in contravention of the contract with the owner - I am against a fundamental change to civil contract law.
Likewise, the legislation requires the parking operator to meet certain conditions before they can pursue the registerd keeper BUT it places no burden of proof on them to show that these conditions have been met nor does it provide a system of dispute resolution where these conditions are not met.
I created the e-petition for these reasons and the many more listed by the different consumer groups who also oppose this but seem to be doing nothing about it.
All the best.
'tang.