How Much Is A Dart Charge PCN?
This blog serves to answer the question “How Much Is A Dart Charge PCN?” A Dart Charge PCN is just simply a £70 penalty issued to you for not paying the river crossing charges. The blog also contains detailed information on what a Dart Charge PCN is and how you can challenge one of them.
How Much Is A Dart Charge PCN?
A Dart Charge PCN is £70 and this amount must be paid within 28 days.
A Dart Charge PCN will mean that you will have to either decide to pay or challenge this PCN. If you don’t pay the £70 and end up with a successful PCN challenge, you could get rid of the £70 PCN.
On the other hand if you don’t have a strong case to challenge the Dart charge PCN and you did actually fail to pay the tolls for using the Dartford Thurrock Crossing, you will have to pay the PCN in full.
In many cases, PCNs are not enforceable and you may be able to win your case and avoid having to pay your fine.
You could begin the process by speaking to an online solicitor for as little as £5.
What is a Dartford Crossing PCN?
The Dartford Thurrock river crossing part of the M25 Motorway route, charges a toll to motorists using the route, which is set at £20 a year for unlimited number of trips from the crossing and £10 for 50 crossings plus 20 pence for each additional crossing. This charge was established in November 2014, and must be paid (in full) by midnight of the next day you use the Dartford crossing.
If you fail to do so a PCN of £70 will be issued to your vehicle and sent to you (the registered keeper) by mail. Once you get the Penalty Charge Notice, you must send it a challenge to the charges within 28 days or pay the fine . If you send in your Dart Charge PCN challenge by the 14th day, your PCN will be set on hold at £35, in case you lose your PCN challenge. But you might want to choose to dispute your Notice of Rejection of Representations with the Traffic Penalty Tribunal instead of paying £35.
A PCN is issued for failing to follow Parking zone, bus lane enforcement and moving traffic restrictions mentioned in the Road Traffic Act 1984 and the Traffic Management Act 2004. It is also used as a punishment for failing to pay Dart Charges and Clean Air Zone charges, to encourage motorists to pay these tolls on time.
A penalty charge notice can be handed to you by a Civil Enforcement Officer or dispatched to your (DVLA) residential address by post. CCTV cameras (ANPR) and Civil Enforcement Officers observe traffic contraventions before a violation is detected and the vehicle is charged with a PCN.
You have 28 days to decide how and if you would like to challenge your Penalty Charge Notice. After 28 days if you have neither paid nor challenged your PCN, you will be sent a charge certificate from the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
If you don’t challenge a Dart Charge PCN, you should pay the fine within 28 days, otherwise, its amount will increase by 50%. A £70 PCN will be worth £105 if you pay it in the 14 days after receiving your charge certificate.
What is the procedure for appealing against a Dartford Crossing PCN?
You can submit a formal representation to your Dartford Crossing PCN by writing a letter addressed to the Traffic Enforcement Centre or by filling in the online formal representation form on the gov.uk website.
You need to brainstorm reasons for challenging a Dartford Crossing PCN from the day of the incident and list them down in word processing software or on paper. It is essential to have some authentic evidence to attach with your PCN appeal in the form of video footage of the traffic violation, medical certificates explaining your mitigating circumstances, or a copy of your paid Dart Charge crossing fee.
The evidence must be matched with the grounds for your appeal before describing the incident from your point of view. Your rough formal representation can be edited for clarity multiple times before it is ready to attach to your online appeal. You need to visit the www.gov.uk website to submit a formal representation to your PCN. You have to open this webpage to enter your PCN number and your Vehicle Registration Number. You need to click on “Search” to view your PCN details before filling in the online appeals form.
It is essential to upload authentic evidence material with your PCN challenge to describe your assertions to the Traffic Enforcement Centre and for explaining your point of view of the events which took place at the traffic violation scene. If you made a video clip of your traffic contravention, you should save snapshots from it by using a video player or video editing software.
Most video players such as VLC player allow you to slow down your video frame by frame and thus take ( a collection of) snapshots to attach with your Dart Charge PCN challenge.The text of your appeal must state whether you did not pass through the Dartford Thurrock crossing or passed through it and had already paid the charges.
Once you have proofread your appeal to eliminate any reasons for your challenge which might convey a disregard for the penalty used to enforce the Dartford Thurrock crossing charge, and checked the evidence you have added with your challenge to ensure its relevance you can submit the formal representation. You must make sure that you don’t put a reason into your appeal such as you didn’t realise that you were passing through a paid crossing route and had to pay toll charges, as this will badly damage your case.
Another way to send in your Dart Charge PCN challenge is by mail. You can write a formal representation to the Traffic Enforcement Centre on the TE7 form (Application to file a statement out of time) after downloading it and printing it out. This handwritten appeal should be composed gradually by incorporating all the available evidence material to support the grounds for your challenge and should be able to convince the council of your mitigating circumstances (or other acceptable reasons).
You should view evidence relating to your Dart Charge PCN online before writing down your appeal, so that you end up focusing on refuting the contents of the evidence about your traffic violation. Your PCN appeals form and all accompanying evidence documents (enclosed in an envelope) need to be sent to:
Traffic Enforcement Centre,
County Court Business Centre,
St. Katharine’s House,
21-27 St. Katharine’s Street,
Northampton,
NN1 2LH
The Traffic Enforcement Centre will respond to your PCN appeal and your PCN will be cancelled or you will be sent a Notice of Rejection or Representations, which needs to be received promptly in order to contest the notice with the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
How Can I Pay My Dartford Crossing PCN?
You should be aware of the fact that you can pay your Dartford Crossing PCN fine at your nearest payzone outlet, on the telephone or online. Your Dart Charge PCN fine can be paid online on the gov.uk website (using Visa Card, Master Card, Direct Debit, or Maestro Card). This payment method saves time and is more precise as your details are entered directly into an electronic database.
You need to click on “Start Now” after opening this webpage to initiate the PCN fine payment online. On the next page after clicking “Search” you will be shown your Penalty Charge Notice information and in the next window, you can enter your payment card details. You must remember to wait for 24 hours after your PCN is issued before attempting to pay it.
What will happen if I don’t pay my Dartford Crossing PCN within the 28-day limit?
You should not ignore traffic contraventions or the Penalty Charge Notices resulting from them or cultivate a careless attitude towards paying toll charges such as the Dart Charge. As per your driving license rules, you are not only bound to abide by Parking, Bus Lane, and Moving Traffic contravention codes but also restricted by paying road tolls such as the charges for using the Dartford Thurrock crossing.
If you neither pay your Dartford Crossing PCN within 28 days nor decide to appeal against it, you will be sent a charge certificate from the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. The charge certificate increases your PCN fine by 50%, which means you will be paying £105 (or £75) now. You should pay the charge certificate within 14 days as it cannot be appealed and ignoring the charge certificate may result in the filing of a court order (for recovery of debts) against you by the Traffic Enforcement Centre.
You will be sent a “Notice of Debt Registration” and a witness certificate from the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, if you don’t pay the charge certificate amount within 14 days. The unpaid amount will be treated as a debt with the Traffic Enforcement Centre at the Northampton County Court.
The court order for debt recovery enforces that the charge certificate amount must be paid in full within 21 days or the county court will have to use additional powers to recover the money from your possession which means employing Enforcement Agents to (contact you or) visit your personal premises.
Can I Dispute A Dartford Crossing PCN with the Traffic Penalty Tribunal if the Traffic Enforcement Centre dismisses my appeal?
Yes, you can dispute the decision of the Traffic Enforcement Centre in your “Notice of Rejection of Representations” with the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal website requires you to enter details given on your Notice of Rejection of Representations, after opening this webpage.
You can watch this instructional video here to learn about your challenge process. The video clearly explains how to use the online service offered by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. On the Traffic Penalty Tribunal webpage, you will first have to select the type of PCN you were served by the Traffic Enforcement Centre(shown on the bottom part of the page).
Here you need to select “Dart Charge” to proceed to the next page.
After clicking on your specific type of Penalty Charge Notice, you should select “England” (Outside London). In the window which opens up, you should click on the orange box which reads “If you don’t agree with the PCN, you can make representations against it”.
After viewing the instructions on the following page, you need to click on “Start your appeal here” at the bottom of the webpage You will then be required to enter your Vehicle Registration Number, the reference number from the “Notice of Rejection” letter from the Traffic Enforcement Centre, and your PCN number for which the appeal was rejected on this page.
You can use the online service to challenge multiple “Notices of Rejection” simultaneously. You will require a valid email address to create an account on the Traffic Penalty Tribunal website. You have to upload a copy of your “Notice of Rejection of Representations” letter to your application by using the Traffic Penalty Tribunal’s online portal.
If you have received more than one Dart Charge PCN within the last 10 days or so, they can be challenged with the Traffic Penalty Tribunal together, but you must obviously have different grounds for contesting each of these Penalty Charge Notices as well as unique evidence material for contesting each unpaid Dart Crossing charge notice.
You can upload evidence such as video clips of your traffic violation scenes (taken from inside your vehicle), medical certificates from a certified General Practitioner, maps of the area showing the exact distance your vehicle travelled inside a no-entry zone, and scanned copies of “pay and display” tickets. You should construct a strong appeals case to communicate your mitigating circumstances or to deliver your assertion that the traffic violation never occurred.
The Traffic Penalty Tribunal should be able to ascertain the legitimacy of your situation by viewing evidence material uploaded to the PCN appeals system.
Your appeal of the “Notice of Rejection of Representations” should be submitted to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal within 28 days of receiving your Notification of Rejection from the Traffic Enforcement Centre. You must avail yourself of this chance of a free and independent hearing of your case.
You will be able to contact the Traffic Penalty Tribunal adjudicator during the formulation of your appeal. The result of your appeal will be communicated to you within 14-28 days of submitting your representation. If the adjudicator decides the case in your favour, the Dart Charge PCN(s) will be cancelled by the Traffic Enforcement Centre.
Conclusion
This blog post addressed the question “How Much Is A Dart Charge PCN?” A Dart Charge PCN is just £70 if you pay it within 28 days and £35 if it is paid within 14 days but it is best to be able to challenge your PCN so you don’t end up paying anything at all. You require evidence to challenge a Dart Charge PCN such as a video clip that shows you didn’t breach the Dartford Thurrock river crossing at all or a copy of your £10 permit for the use of the crossing.