Unfortunatkey , i got a PCN in the post due to parking on a yellow line while collecting my son from school. I had 2 sleeping children in the car ans had nowere else to par... If i had made my son walk home from school or walk across the road alone i would be considered a bad parent, if i left my v]=baby and toddler in the car unattended i would be labled a bad parent. I waited in teh car on a single yellow line while waiting for school to finish and was photgraphed my the smart car.What are parents supposed to do? We only want to be good parents and law abiding citizens and we are penalized for our efforts, provide adequate parking !!!

Wake the children up, perhaps?

Mel, maybe you should have left the car indoors and walked. The exercise would be great for all of you.

Hasn't Ricky posted here yet? He must be slipping!

It seems to me that Richmond Council uses its Smart Car as a revenue maker.

In February I needed to move about 2ton of broken hardcore from my daughterÂ’s house. My daughter lives right on a mini-roundabout on a busy main road in Hampton. She has a dropped kerb and a cross-over to gain access to her front garden. The pavement outside her house consist of 2 paving slabs (4ft) close to her front wall and beyond that a tarmac strip (also about 4ft) before the kerb.

I was loading the hardcore by wheelbarrow into a trailer attached to the back of my car. The length of my car and tailer was too long to be in the front garden and, apart from the roadway on the roundabout, the nearest parking space was some 200yards away round the corner. I decided that the safest procedure would be to place my car and trailer parallel with the road on the tarmac part of the pavement. This still left about 4ft of pavement between my vehicle and the garden wall leaving ample room for any pedestrians (even with wheelchairs) to pass without having to go onto the road. Just my luck, this is when the Smart Car came past and took pictures of my car and trailer. The driver did not attempt to approach me or even to get out of the car, he just took the photos and drove off.

When I received the PCN I telephoned the Council to explain that, although I appreciate that the letter of the law says that I was in breach of it, I felt that the mitigating circumstances might be taken into consideration. I was told that they would still not be prepared to cancel the PCN. I asked them to suggest what alternative I might have used and they said that either I should have parked round the corner and wheeled the hardcore the 200 or so yards (I am almost 68years of age,) or my daughter should have got a builder in to remove it. (Apart from the cost, a builder would have had to park on the mini roundabout thus causing congestion.)

I am appealing through PATAS but do not hold up much hope as I understand that the Adjudicator must work to the letter of the law and can rarely take mitigating circumstances into consideration.

As a matter of interest, the place round the corner where I could have legally parked with my wheels on the pavement because of white lines painted on the pavement, the balance of pavement between my car and the garden fence would have been less than 2ft. Anybody with a wheelchair or pushchair would have been forced to go on the roadway to get past me.