Motorists across the UK are being hit with thousands of fines every day in 2022 as private parking operators aggressively charge drivers.
When issuing fines, private parking firms, the police and councils must make a request to the DVLA for approval before issuing a fine.
The DVLA doesn’t charge public sector organisations to send a request, but for private parking companies, it costs £2.50 to retrieve information about them.
In some cases, parking fines can be as much as £100, while in London, it can vary between £80 and £160. However, the fees can be reduced if paid within 14 days.
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For private parking companies to request a fine, they need to submit a V888/3 request
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According to a Freedom of Information request, private parking firms made up the majority of parking ticket requests to the DVLA.
In order for private parking companies to issue a fine, they need to submit a V888/3 request form to the DVLA, based on data from This is Money.
The form gives private parking companies the contact details of the vehicle which has breached the terms and conditions of a car park including an address to send the parking ticket to.
For the ticket to be successfully issued, private companies need to show a copy of the agreement between the landowner and the car parking company as well as photographs and copies of notices and tickets.
A parking enforcement officer will also need to show DVLA auditors where and when the ticket has been issued.
The FOI request detailed how the DVLA earned £13.18million from private parking requests in 2020. This increased by 81 per cent to £23.9million in 2021 and £30.18million in 2022.
This totalled 5.2 million requests in 2020, 9.5 million in 2021 and 12 million in 2022 - around 33,000 a day.
If drivers were fined £100 every time a private parking warden sent off a request to the DVLA, and drivers didn’t appeal, they would have spent £520million in 2020/21 on parking fines and more than £1billion in 2022/23.
A DVLA spokesperson said: "While a fee is charged for requesting vehicle keeper details, this is set to recover the cost of providing the information.
"This means that the cost is borne by those requesting the information and not passed onto the general taxpayer."
While private parking companies were most likely to make a claim to the DVLA, councils ranked second with Manchester City Council slapping drivers with 456,270 fines between 2020 and 2022.
Following Manchester was Brighton and Hove City Council, which saw a rate of 98,583 fines issued per 100,000 people, Claims.co.uk reported.
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Parking fines can be as much as £100 and £160 in London
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Reading Borough Council came in third although its issuance rate was far smaller than the councils topping the list.
