Public Parking Height Barriers

[John52]

equitable - 2018-09-28 10:41 AM

 

Do the members consider the practice of many local authorities installing height barriers to exclude motorhomes amounts to discrimination, especially in cities and areas of outstanding beauty?

 

Its discriminating against vehicles not people.

Just like Goods Vehicle bans.

 

[John52]

GJH - 2018-09-29 8:13 AM

 

ColinM50 - 2018-09-28 4:18 PM

 

Keithl - 2018-09-28 3:37 PM

 

 

http://www.motorhomeparking.co.uk/

 

Keith.

 

Jeez, that must be the worst and most unreadable website ever. I managed half the first couple of lines then gave up. Could the author not use shorter paragraphs? Or sentences? Or even a sensible page size? Or a better font? There may be some useful info there but I'm not wasting my time trying to find it.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder :-D

Perhaps you would like to build an alternative to show us all how it should be done. I, for one, would be most interested.

Like most who criticise, though, I don't suppose you could be bothered to put in the effort to design an alternative, never mind do the research to obtain the information it relies on :-D

Have a nice day :-D

 

Absolutely agree

There is no better lesson than a Good Example

[John52]

GJH - 2018-09-30 8:45 AM

 

Rayjsj - 2018-09-29 9:49 PM

 

747 - 2018-09-28 5:26 PM

 

Many car parks also have a 1.5 Ton weight limit on vehicles, which means many big cars and 4 x 4's are parking illegally.

 

How does the car park attendant know the weight ? Does he/she guess ? Silly restriction just put ' no HGV's.

They don't know necessarily.

The limit comes from the Road Traffic Regulation Act. It was updated in 1984 to 3050 Kg but some councils have had no other reason to change their parking orders so haven't wasted money doing so. They sometimes simply don't enforce the regulation strictly because the limit also reflects the fact that the car parks concerned are designed for cars, not larger vehicles, so is designed to stop use by commercial vehicles.

Where attendants are uncertain they tend to err on the side of caution. It is, of course, easier for them to tell that a van/motorhome is over the limit than it is for a car.

 

I recall when Goods Vehicles had to be weighed unladen at an official weighbridge, the weight painted on the side, and tax charged on the weight.

It was a terrible British system. Any operator who added safety features like side rail guards / load securing restraints / bed for the driver / etc not only lost the equivalent weight in payload but had to pay extra road tax on it too. >:-)

People moan about EU law but this is one of many examples where it is better than ours was before we joined. Far more sensible to class them by Gross weight, not unladen weight.

[John52]

equitable - 2018-09-29 10:48 AM

heavy fines for camping overnight in car parks.

 

How do you prove 'camping overnight' *-)

I parked up on a posh street in Scarborough. Some Victor Meldrew neighbourhood watch type saw my van, thought I was up o no good, and called the police (lol)

I told them I was abiding by the law by not overnight sleeping on a car park.

The copper told me flat out

'I couldn't care less where you park. Parking enforcement is the council's job and they are not working tonight' (lol)

[GJH]

John52 - 2018-09-30 10:39 AM

 

equitable - 2018-09-29 10:48 AM

heavy fines for camping overnight in car parks.

 

How do you prove 'camping overnight' *-)

I parked up on a posh street in Scarborough. Some Victor Meldrew neighbourhood watch type saw my van, thought I was up o no good, and called the police (lol)

I told them I was abiding by the law by not overnight sleeping on a car park.

The copper told me flat out

'I couldn't care less where you park. Parking enforcement is the council's job and they are not working tonight' (lol)

Such proof is one of the difficulties councils have. Current trend is to ban motorhomes completely between certain hours (e.g. 11pm to 8am) then it is a simple matter of ticketing any motorhome in the car park, no matter what use is being made of it.

[W3526602]

Hi,

 

I think it was Ilfracombe that had a no campers policy along the sea front. Or was on no goods vehicle?

 

Whichever ... I was in a Mk.1 Ducato van, fitted with a bed, and wanted an ice cream.

 

How does a Bentley compare in size and unladen weight to a small panel van?

 

I have pondered on fitting a folding caravan onto flat-bet truck. perhaps a Ford P100. No doubt the box from a trailer tent could be lifted off it's chassis, and nailed to the gunnels of a LWB Land Rover?

 

602

[michaelmorris]

The OP talks about discrimination. Well of course it is discrimination because the the use of a height barrier discriminates against vehicles that won't fit under the barrier!

 

I think the OP needs to clarify whether they mean 'discrimination', 'unfair discrimination' or 'illegal discrimination'.

 

Whether an act is unfair is surely a matter of opinion based on your perspective.

 

Whether an act or policy is illegally discriminatory or not depends whether or not it discriminates against people on the basis of their age, sex, religion, ethnicity, colour, marital status or sexual orientation.

I suppose one could argue that, because motorhomes are disproportionately owned by people over 60, then height barriers are de facto age discrimination, but I suspect you might be on a sticky wicket on that one. :-D