Yellow box: your exit was clear when you entered

A yellow box junction ticket is only valid if your exit road was blocked when you drove into the box. Some councils have been wrongly issuing tickets to drivers whose exit was clear at the moment they entered — that is not breaking the rule. If you only got stuck inside the box because of something that happened after you entered, the ticket should not stand.

Legal basis

Traffic Management Act 2004 Part 6, Schedule 8; Highway Code Rule 174

How to identify this in your case

Watch the council's CCTV footage from the moment your car crosses the line into the yellow box. If the road ahead of you was clear at that exact moment — even if you then stopped inside the box — this ground may apply to you.

Sample appeal wording

Before you send this

Deadline. A late submission can be turned down without your argument being read. Check your notice for the deadline and how it is counted.
Paying may end it. Paying can count as accepting the notice and can close a challenge already under way. Part-paying or acknowledging an old debt can also revive a time limit that had expired.
The amount can change. Check what happens to the sum if you challenge — it may be held, re-offered lower, or keep rising, and fees or enforcement can continue meanwhile.
Use the official route. Use the method, recipient and form your notice specifies, with any reference, evidence and signature it asks for. Sent elsewhere, it may not count.
Only say what is true. Do not copy any statement of fact unless it is true for you, and check the legal point still applies. Delete what does not fit. It may be treated as your statement.
Careful what you volunteer. Avoid unnecessary admissions — naming the driver or accepting responsibility can remove arguments. But answer anything you are legally required to answer, and do include the evidence your ground needs.
Keep the record. Keep what you sent, the attachments, any receipt, and the reply. Note the next deadline.

Sample wording to adapt and send yourself — it may not fit your notice or the stage you are at.

Exit was clear on entry — contravention not made out under Highway Code Rule 174.

Beat It writes this argument automatically

Scan your PCN — our AI checks if this ground applies to your specific ticket, drafts a properly-cited appeal letter, and sends it for you where the council takes email — guiding you through their own online form where they use one, so you press submit. The win fee is only charged if you win.

Yellow box: your exit was clear when you entered

Legal basis

How to identify this in your case

Sample appeal wording

Beat It writes this argument automatically

Sources

Related appeal grounds

Next steps