Christian Ducarre received three fines totalling nearly £11,000 after driving his French hire car to London to attend his son’s wedding. The car, which was fully compliant with ultra-low emission zone emissions rules, was mistakenly classed as a heavy goods vehicle and deemed to be in breach of the separate low emissions zone (Lez) and well as Ulez. Lez covers lorries, vans, buses and coaches, and fines are between £500 and £2,000 a day depending on the vehicle’s weight.
“I had checked that the car’s emissions standard was Euro 06 and so was not liable for the Ulez charge,” he said.
Transport for London (TfL) rules require foreign-registered vehicles to be registered with its collections agent Euro Parking Collection (EPC) 10 days before travel. However, until recently this requirement was buried on TfL’s website and Ducarre was unaware of it. Moreover, hire cars cannot be routinely registered in advance since customers are not given the vehicle’s details until collection.
“I first received a fine of £1,199.59 for contravention of Lez,” Ducarre said. “I immediately messaged EPC via its online portal to say the car was not subject to Lez rules. Instead of a reply I received a new penalty charge notice stating that the fine had risen to £3,598.
“A month later, three further fines arrived totalling £2,457.02 if paid within 14 days. I wrote to EPC twice more and got no reply, by which time the amounts had risen to £7,371. When I tried to challenge the fines online, I received an error message because I’d received the PCNs [penalty charge notices] outside the 28-day appeals deadline.
“I wondered how EPC had got my details because I was aware that since Brexit, personal information of EU residents could no longer be shared with the UK.”
The fines were cancelled after intervention by the Guardian. However, the letter from EPC informing Ducarre that his car was in fact compliant with Lez and Ulez stated that EPC reserved the right to reissue the fines.
Ducarre said that the two months of uncertainty clouded the memories of his son’s wedding and had made him nervous about returning to London, where he had previously lived for 40 years. “It was so worrying thinking that I might be forced to pay such a huge sum that I felt unable to tell my family,” he said.
TfL told the Guardian that those who could demonstrate that their vehicles were compliant would have their fines cancelled. It added that it expected EPC to “act reasonably” over payment and appeals deadlines if PCNs were delayed in the post.
A spokesperson said: “The process for registering a compliant foreign vehicle before entering the TfL’s clean air zones has been in place since 2008. In this case, it is clear that the evidence should have been reviewed in a much shorter timescale and we apologise for any distress caused. We have now cancelled all the outstanding charges.”
