Teenager's parking appeals website saves motorists £2m after overturning thousands of fines
Joshua Browder's site has been used by more than 86,000 people to appeal council parking tickets
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A teenager who set up a website to appeal parking fines has saved motorists £2 million in just four months.
Since Joshua Browder set up donotpay.co.uk, four months ago, more than 86,000 people have used it to appeal against council parking fines.
Nearly 40 per cent of them were successful, according to a poll of the site's users.
The 18-year-old IT student was quoted in The Daily Mail as saying: "I am shocked that the site has had such a large impact.
"When I started DoNotPay, I thought that it would help a small handful of family and friends. I could never have imagined that it would help reclaim millions in parking fines."
Mr Browder, who reportedly taught himself to code at the age of 12, began his site in August after he was hit with 30 parking tickets in the months since passing his driving test.
Users fill in some details and choose their defence from a list of 12 options to generate an automated appeal to the council issuing the parking ticket.
The site boasts it can "generate winning appeals to parking tickets in under 30 seconds".
Councils in England made £667 million from street parking fines last year, a 12 per cent increase on the previous year.
More than 44 per cent of that was generated by councils in London.
Mr Browder said councils were "targeting" the elderly and disabled with parking tickets.
"The elderly and the disabled are disproportionately receiving unfair tickets," he said.
"The council has a responsibility to protect these groups rather than target them and it is rewarding to being doing something to work towards that."
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments