Currently drivers at the moment are regularly being slapped with extortionate amounts for seemingly innocent actions.
Private parking fines are due to be capped at £50 this year only if a government legislation goes through,meaning that later this year car park operators will have to display their prices more clearly, introduce a fairer system of appeals, and give drivers grace periods for lateness.
This crackdown comes after thousands of drivers have criticized private parking operators for making it difficult for them to appeal fines and tickets regardless of circumstances.
Many drivers are afraid of where to park their cars in fears that parking in just the wrong spot may lead them to receiving a ridiculous fine.
Like in one instance where a man was handed a £100 when he opted to eat his takeaway meal in the adjacent car park as there was no space at the McDonald's, only stopping there for 16 minutes.
Drivers are also afraid of having to visit the same car park to avoid these ridiculous fines as some car park systems run on a 'first-in last-out' basis. so for example if you were to visit a car park at 9am for 10 minutes and visit again later at 5pm for 10 minutes, the system will claim you stayed for 8 hours. These systems incorrectly issue tickets as they fail to log all the times you entered and all the times you left, and despite this clear flaw, this system appears to be common place.
As in one instance woman fined £40 for returning to an Asda car park for no more than 5 minutes to pick up baby's nappies after they claimed she had parked there for 5 hours.
Another instance a man was wrongly fined over mistakes made by the car parking firm, Smart parking, after they accused him of several instances of overstaying only showing documents of him entering but never leaving. They accused him of leaving his car overnight in a car park behind Tesco Express, they also showed him in one period entering 20 time without ever leaving and on another occasion showed him entering the car park in October but never leaving until 6 months later in April of the following year. He was forced to pay £136 in order to stop debt collectors from paying a visit.