Traffic Monitoring Services

So you have received a letter of demand from Traffic Monitoring Services?

This website explains the process of successfully appealing and getting off illegal fines issued by Traffic Monitoring Services. Do not blindly follow the appeal instructions on the back of your Traffic Monitoring Services fine, or the appeal instructions on the Traffic Monitoring Services Pty Ltd website. Instead, follow the instructions on this website.

Traffic Monitoring Services specialise in putting infringement notices on car windscreens in Secure Parking car parks. In Western Australia I believe they may also wheel clamp your car if requested to by the car park owner.

Infringement notices or letters of demand from Traffic Monitoring Services should be handled the same way as other companies on this website. Please see the links at the left to navigate this site.

Traffic Monitoring Services are known to enforce parking at the following locations:

- Fairfield McDonalds (NSW)

- Stanmore McDonalds (NSW)

- Woolstores Freemantle (WA)

- Elsternwick McDonalds (Vic)

- South Melbourne McDonalds (Vic)

- Fountain Plaza Erina (NSW)

On the FAQ page of Traffic Monitoring Services, when talking about its appeals process it says "genuine parkers are never penalised by TMS". And on the "About Us" page, it says "Our policy is to be totally professional in all our dealings with the public. Genuine parkers who have business with you will not be disadvantaged." So if you are a genuine parker (i.e. you parked to shop or use the services of the car park owner such as MacDonald's and didn't park there for example to commute to the city), then presumably they will accept any appeal from you if you state or can show you were a genuine parker.

If anyone has an example demand notice or letter from this company, can they please email to me after blacking out your name and address first?

TMS letters of demand examined

Refer to this letter of demand from Traffic Monitoring Services. It starts off well in the first paragraph referring to "a vehicle registered in your name". Well that's OK, as it is your car. But it starts digressing in paragraph 4 when it threatens you court action if "you fail to pay". Hang on a second, what if you weren't the driver? It makes no reference of what to do if you weren't driving.

Paragraph 4 also runs into grief when it says "if such proceedings are commenced they will include a claim for our costs (including legal costs)". Now it qualifies that with the statement "to the extent that costs are recoverable by TMS in the jurisdiction". The issue here is that in some jurisdictions of Australia such as small claims under $500 in Victoria, legal costs are not recoverable at all. Of course many people wouldn't know that, and some in Victoria would assume that legal costs would have to be paid by the driver after reading this statement, but that is not the case, which is why I say it is arguably misleading.

After the vehicle owner received the above letter, the owner wrote to Traffic Monitoring Services to dispute the debt and ask for a copy of any alleged contract, a breakdown of the debt, and proof that they were the driver. Traffic Monitoring Services wrote back to the owner with this letter. The issue I have with this letter is that it doesn't provide any of the information that the owner asked for. And it continues to demand payment from the owner when TMS provided no proof or evidence that the owner was driving. The ACCC Debt Collection Guidelines for Collectors and Creditors provides that:

-"Requests by debtors for information and/or documentation about an account should not be ignored"

- "In certain circumstances, failure to provide information may constitute misleading and deceptive conduct or unconscionable conduct"

- "Further communication with a debtor, after the debtor has formally denied liability and/or stated an intention to defend any legal proceedings brought against them, is not appropriate".

The letter also states at the bottom that "Secure Parking does not consider from your correspondence that the amount is not due or should be waived". However, the vehicle owner's letter to Traffic Monitoring Services never asked for the fine to be waived. It simply asked for proof that the debt belonged to the owner, for a breakdown of the debt, and for a copy of the contract. It appears to me that Traffic Monitoring Services did not provide the requested proof because they have no such proof.

TMS lawyers

Another vehicle owner received this letter from Botten Dnistriansky Kellis lawyers (BDK Lawyers) who represent Secure Parking and Traffic Monitoring Services. I have the following problem with the letter from Botten Dnistriansky Kellis lawyers. Firstly, they are claiming that the vehicle owner is responsible for debts accumulated by anyone else who drives the vehicle, simply because the owner allowed the other person to drive his/her vehicle. This is not so. Secondly the letter from Botten Dnistriansky Kellis lawyers claims that to avoid legal proceedings being issued against the owner, the owner must pay $80. Again, this is not so. Legal proceedings could only be issued against the driver of the vehicle, not the owner. As it is clear from the wording of this letter that Secure Parking and TMS do not know the identify of the driver, it stands to reason that Secure Parking and Traffic Monitoring Services would not be able to issue any legal proceedings against the owner of this vehicle.

TMS Debt Collectors

If you do not pay the demand from BDK lawyers, then you will receive a demand from ICM Partners who are TMS's debt collectors.

Ownership of TMS

It was revealed in an article in the Australian Financial Review on 11th November 2011 that Traffic Monitoring Services is a fully owned subsidiary of Secure Parking. Traffic Monitoring Services staff drive cars fitted with cameras hooked up to Automatic Number Plate Recognition software that feeds straight in to a system that automatically generates breach notices from the road. The Secure finance team handles the breach notices and collects payments. Secure Parking’s chief financial officer Allison Yeoland says Traffic Monitoring Services is “expanding quite rapidly and now services 23 sites”.

Code of Practice

Secure Parking and TMS agree to abide by a Code of Practice. Under the code of practice, TMS and Secure Parking agree to certain ways of operating including the following which I have extracted from the document:

• • Drivers who inadvertently breach the terms and conditions of the car park are to be given the benefit of the doubt

  • The terms and conditions of the car park are to be clearly displayed in the car park, including at any of the entrances of the car park, which includes any fees associated with the use, whether authorised or not, of the car park

  • The additional charge associated with a breach notice will be fair and reasonable taking into account, the potential lost income to the landlord from the unauthorised use of their car park, the cost of obtaining the driver's registration details and that of the associated administration in seeking payment of a breach notice

  • Unless the driver is a known repeat offender of the terms and conditions of a car park, Secure and TMS will err on the side of cancelling a breach notice, where the driver can demonstrate that they were a valid user of the car park (e.g. a shopper at a shopping centre car park), they were unduly delayed in returning to the car park, through no fault

See also the related TMS document titled Authority to issue non-compliance breach notices and why we issue them. This document states "Secure Parking is always willing to consider any individual case, for example if it can be demonstrated that a parker was in fact a customer of the business or if there is some other reason why the breach notice is unfair".

Traffic Monitoring Services in the press

17/02/2014 Dandenong Journal - Loraine Doran unfairly fined when returning to her car to pick up her daughter at Dandenong Plaza in Melbourne. Traffic Monitoring Services who manage the car park for Secure Parking admitted the fault and said "we will hopefully have the system fixed in the future".

04/04/2013 Central Western Daily - Orange City Council will take legal action in the Supreme Court against the management of the Orange Central shopping centre in a bid to fight Traffic Monitoring Services imposing a three-hour daily parking limit introduced last year.

19/04/2013 Maribyrnong Leader - McDonalds to charge for parking at its Victorian Restaurants. Secure Parking company to manage paid parking at McDonalds, and will use its subsidiary Traffic Monitoring Services to put fines on driver's windscreens.

17/04/2012 Caulfield Glen Eira Leader - Time expires at McDonalds Elsternwick. Traffic Monitoring Services employed by McDonalds in Elsternwick to issue fines to McDonalds customers who exceed their allocated time to eat a Big Mac.

08/11/2012 Central Western Daily - Orange Central parking revolt. About one third of the centre’s businesses have spoken out about the three-hour daily parking limit which they say is not being administered correctly. Charter Hall spokesperson said in the “unlikely event” that a shopper’s parking time was inaccurately monitored customers could appeal the infringement notice with Traffic Monitoring Services. “Genuine customers are never penalised by Traffic Monitoring Services,” she said.