The Metropolitan Police Service has been empowered to remove parked vehicles from on-street locations in London since 1839 whilst powers for police forces outside London to remove parked vehicles are of long standing. Powers to clamp certain categories of illegally parked vehicle in central London are contained within the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. Research into the effectiveness of wheelclamping was undertaken by TRL over a 7 year period commencing in 1982. The results of this research were disseminated through reports and conference papers. This report brings together many of the results from that research and details current practice exercised by the Metropolitan Police Service in deploying deploying these two deterrents against certain categories of illegally parked vehicle. This study was undertaken shortly after a small number of London Boroughs assumed responsibility for most on-street parking enforcement in Permitted Parking Areas and Special Parking Areas. At the time of the study there was an insufficient number of boroughs applying wheelclamps/removing vehicles to produce meaningful results. (A)
Abstract