AA Proposes Regulation of Private Clamping

Van Clamped In Dublin City Centre

We are quite used to the sight of clampers in many parts of Ireland. Mostly these are controlled by the local authority. Motorists may not love them but there is a need to keep parking spaces available and at least the local authority’s charges are controllable and accountable. But private clampers are a different matter. They have become a scourge in Britain where their behaviour has been deplorable. We now have evidence of some bad practices creeping in here – as heard on the Joe Duffy Liveline programme recently. The AA has put forward a proposal to the Transport Minister to intervene before it gets worse and regulate the sector now.

Private clamping is now in regular use in many locations in Ireland. It is entirely reasonable that locations like apartment complexes, sporting facilities and commercial premises should be entitled to ensure that they have access to their own parking spaces. Clamping can be simple, cheap and effective.

But it can also be exploitative, intimidating and unfair. This should be stopped by regulating the sector now before it develops into the same sort of problems that have occurred in Britain.

The AA has called on the Minister for Transport to introduce new rules for private clampers. We would like to see the industry compelled to hold to certain standards, which in our view should include the following:

  1. Private clamping should only be permitted under licence from the local authority.
  2. Clamping personnel should display clear ID, as is now required by private security personnel since 1st September.
  3. The permitted fee should be pegged to the fee charged by the local authority in the same area. In the event that the particular local authority does not operate a clamping system, the fee should be pegged to the average national charge for local-authority controlled clamping schemes. It is envisaged that a private clamp fee should be no higher than a public one, although an argument may be made about whether smaller companies should be allowed charge somewhat more.
  4. There should be a clear structure for complaint or appeal. Private clampers should be brought under the auspices of the parking appeals system of the relevant local authority where applicable, or of the Dublin City Council clamping appeals process where a local authority does not have one of its own. The DCC appeal system has been working effectively and can accommodate the additional volumes. The experience with respect of local authority clamping schemes is that numbers of appeals are small.

Local authorities themselves frequently use private clamping in locations like public housing where spaces need to be preserved for residents.

However the AA has become concerned that leaving the practice unregulated means that there is no protection against rogue behaviour. This has become a serious problem in the UK where it is not uncommon for scenes of downright deception and intimidation to occur, and motorists have been charged sums like €500 for de-clamping. Spurious additional charges for ‘tow truck cancellation’ and other such pretexts happen all too often. Since 2005 the British government requires clampers to obtain a licence from the Security Industry Authority, but despite that improvement there are now plans for tighter regulation and enforcement.

Thankfully we have not yet developed the same problems as the UK but nor do we have even primary licencing in place. The AA is receiving a growing number of complaints about clamping and for the first time we are hearing stories comparable to some of the bad practices occurring more regularly in the UK.

The AA urges the Department of Transport to examine this issue and to implement a solution. This has not yet become a very serious issue but intervention now would be timely and would put the legitimate business and its legitimate customers on a more secure footing.