Analysis by the RAC on Government data has found that nearly four and a half million parking tickets were issued to UK drivers by private parking companies between 2020 and 2021, which is equivalent to 12,000 tickets received per day during that 12-month period. This seems a very large amount, but in comparison to previous years it may actually seem comparatively low. Due to the travel restriction brought on by the Covid-19 lockdowns, typical car journeys were down by as much as 22%. As a result, the amount of parking tickets distributed went down from almost eight and a half million in 2019 to the four and a half million I mentioned earlier.
Director of the RAC, Steve Gooding, said ‘With the country and economy in various states of lockdown, we’d have expected to see the number of keeper details being sought by the private parking sector falling quite dramatically.’ But he went on to describe the 12,000 tickets issued per day as extraordinarily high considering most of the UK has been following the lockdown guidelines.
Unfortunately, with this rate of parking tickets being unloaded onto UK motorists, some of whom live in Newbury, we will have to be as diligent as ever when finding places to park. It is imperative that driving schools give their pupils adequate information on appropriate parking practices, so that they are less likely to get pinched by one of these private parking firms. The RAC discovered last year that these firms dish out a new ticket every four seconds!