A Parking " Freebie " !

Its easy to see that this is an election year. Yesterday a new regulation came into force that allows a ten minute period of grace after your parking meter expires before the council ranger can legally write you a fine.  Of course, that ensures that there will be many heated arguments on the validity of the watches in use to establish that ten minutes have elapsed.

This only applies to street parking and is unlikely to be granted in store car parks or in commercial car parks that are outside council control and this grace period will only apply to parking meters that grant parking for an hour or more.

There seems every chance that some people will misinterpret this new rule and think that it applies to all sorts of other parking infringements.   It certainly is not applicable to parking on clearways, stopping in bus lanes or transit lanes, parking in mail zones or where streets are marked to restrict special event parking.  Nor is it applicable to parking meters that do not issue tickets to establish the timing end of paid parking.

The thinking behind it is to grant fairness in a system that is not a safety issue but merely a social necessity to filter the available parking spots across the widest spectrum of motorists.  It also has the added benefit of not costing the state government any revenue as the income from parking fines flows to the council in which the parking restrictions apply.

It will certainly add to the frustration of parking rangers by adding a new dimension to issuing fines. The efficiency of writing a fine on the evidence of an expired meter is over and that ranger will be required to wait the expiration of the grace period.  It will obviously slow the time taken to cover whatever range of streets is under each ranger's control and consequently many people seriously overstaying their time allocation will escape the penalty.

The days are long gone when street parking in major cities was without restrictions.  We are fast reaching the stage where just about every citizen above the age necessary to obtain a driving license is now the owner of a car - and uses it for personal transport.  That shiny new car is now within the financial reach of most people and we can only hope that when the era of self driving cars eventually arrives we will embrace a shared fleet use to restore sanity on our roads.

Until that happens, the parking of cars offers an opportunity for vote gathering legislation to enhance the prospects of the government, and the opposition is quick to promise that should it win the coming contest it will ensure that this measure remains in place.   The only loser in this equation are the councils which can expect a drop in parking fine revenue.