On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:20:02 +0100, nightjar wrote
(in message
giganews.com>):
>> When the council remove an apparently abandoned car, do they simply wait a
>> week and then crush it, or do they pass the details to the police at some
>> stage so they (police) can contact the owner? I'm assuming that it was
>> still identifiable by its number-plates.
>
> They are under no obligation to try to trace the owner of a vehicle that is
> classed as abandoned. A notice warning of the removal of the car is attached
> to it and, if nobody removes it or contacts the Council to say it is not
> abandoned within a week of when the notice is attached, it is removed.
>
>> Supposing that it had been stolen and then abandoned: the owner wouldn't
>> have any way of knowing that the car had been found and crushed.
>> Presumably the council have to make that assumption to give the owner the
>> benefit of the doubt.
>
> Had it been reported stolen, it would have been on a database of stolen
> vehicles and the Council would have had a duty to contact the owner.
In both cases, this is a stupid law. One of those "there's a problem, what
can we do quickly" things that was never thought through. So you go off on
holiday, while you are awy your car is nicked and abandoned, and you come
back to find it's been crushed by the council. Away for a fortnight, what
chance do you have of responding to something up to a week before you might
reasonably know you have something to respond to ?
What about people that work away all week, so have little chance to say
anything about it. Drive off to work Sun evening, get back Friday evening and
find car gone, report it to police, council crushes car on Monday morning and
gets notification from police not to do so on Tuesday or Wednesday.
I suspect that this same law is the one that allows a council to enter onto
your own private property, remove, and crush what they think is an abandoned
vehicle - without even bothering to tell you. I know a few people who have
off-road competition vehicles which to a casual observer could be seen as an
old beaten up abandoned vehicle - some of them have spent years putting the
things together (though they usually don't look battered and abandoned until
they've been used for a bit after that).
I have a friend that had his car stolen by a council in London - it was
legally parked, but they took it away and painted yellow lines where it had
been. Fortunately for him, it was noticable because he worked nights (hence
an unusual parking pattern for that area) and an administrator at the pound
recognised it and could vouch for the fact that it was legally parked.
This law is bad, and needs serious ammendment - it's just too easy for a
council to remove and crush a vehicle without the owner having a reasonable
chance of doing anything about it.
