Michael McAleer answers your queries
From Sylvester Murphy:
It appears the legality of wheelclamping cars on private property has still to be determined by the Irish courts. After parking at an apartment complex recently I succeeded in getting a partial refund of a declamping fee from a well-known Dublin parking control company because I had no notice of an additional €45 charge for declamping between midnight and 6 a.m. on top of the €90 fee shown on the warning notices on the property. I was refunded the €45.
On the basis of English case-law, I may have been entitled to recover the full €135 declamping fee plus a sum for damages, had I chosen to pursue the matter through the courts. The current English position, as decided in the case of Vine v Waltham Forest (2000), established that the clamping of a car is trespass to that car and is therefore unlawful unless it can be shown that the owner of the car consented to the clamping. To establish that consent existed, the car clamper must show that the parker knew of, and assumed the risk of, being clamped.
The court clearly made the right of the clamping company to clamp a vehicle dependent on the implied consent of the motorist who parks being aware of the notice (warning of clamping).
An intriguing point arises from this case: what if the motorist places a sticker on the windscreen, or possibly the wheels themselves, stating in the clearest of terms that they do not consent to any clamps being placed on the vehicle?
The court found that the clamping required consent. That consent was inferred, and no more, from a notice. An explicit denial of consent might lead to interesting cases.
Scotland effectively made wheelclamping illegal in Black v Carmichael (1992) when the judge ruled that the practice was "extortion and theft".
I'm not making the case for irresponsible parking, but motorists should be aware of arbitrary and illegal infringements of their rights.
We have been told that clampers are within their legal rights to clamp. In Dublin, for example, if there are notices about parking rules and clampers place a warning on the car prior to clamping (thereby informing the parker), they are legally entitled to clamp. The key seems to be prior notification in the form of a sticker on the car.
As for private property, the common-law offence of trespass may apply and property owners are apparently entitled to clamp with impunity, although this may be open to challenge.
Also open to question is the levy - it too may be open to challenge. The property owner is entitled to impose a "reasonable deterrent" but what this is depends on the courts. In terms of farmland, an electric fence is permitted for animals but it's not accepted as a "reasonable deterrent" for humans.
From AA member:
My husband and I have been members of the AA for several years and every year we simply paid our premium by direct debit. However, this year a letter from the AA said that, as we had called them out seven times, from now on every call out would cost €70. Apparently the advertised "Home start free for a whole year" covers only six call-outs for a normal member, and seven for associate members.
According to the AA's Conor Faughnan, there's a "fair usage policy" rule in the membership agreement whereby those making over six call-outs in a membership year (seven with associate members) can be charged for subsequent call-outs.
This is to avoid abuse of the system and Faughnan stresses that every case is examined on its merits. "We always look at the individual cases and where someone is just having bad luck with a particular car we will not charge them. However the policy is there to avoid people abusing the service to the detriment of all users." He says that the proportion of those who call out the AA more than seven times in one year is less than 0.5 per cent of our 100,000 rescue calls a year.
From Karin Barrett:
What would you advise, by way of first-hand motorcycle, for a lady of 160 cm (in shoes) who wants to tour? I've found that BMWs are all too high, even with the lowest possible seat, and others are just too heavy for me to handle comfortably. Surely there must be a suitable choice out there. I got my licence years ago on a BMW 500 without trouble.
Our motorbike expert, John Wheeler, responds: "Given your preference for BMWs, I wonder if you have tried the F 650 CS 'Scarver'. Unlike the standard F 650 which has an 840mm seat height, the Scarver's seat height is 750mm. Many riders have found that, when the machine of their choice has a slightly too-high seat, even adding a 10mm thicker sole to their boots, can make a world of difference.
If that doesn't work, you will find the lowest seat heights on the cruiser style machines such as the Honda VT 750 DC (675mm), Honda VTX 1800 (693mm), Kawasaki VN 1600 Classic Fi (680mm) or the Yamaha XVS 650 Dragstar (695mm).
Send your queries to
Motors Help Desk, The Irish Times, Fleet Street, Dublin 2 - or e-mail them to motorshelp@irish-times.ie