Wednesday 17 September 2008

[Others.024] No, you can't park your car on the drive way in front of your house!!??

On 28/8, we parked our car on the drive way in front of the house, between the road and foot path/front fence. Surprisingly we received a ticket as below (some details masked out to protect our privacy):

We contacted the authorities and was told it's illegal to park our car on that part of the drive way as that's council's property and going to court would be the only way to get this resolved if we refuse to pay it.

As we are very busy and the time and energy to be spent on court would be much greater than the $81, we decided to pay it. As shown below, the description is "Stop on/across driveway/other access to/from land".

Had a quick chat with a few neighbors and found that there's at least 5 other cars on the same street on that day who have been parking their car on the drive way for ages, also received the same $81 ticket.

What I can't understand is a few days later, as shown in photo below, one of our neighbors still "bravely" parked their car on the drive way that belongs to council. Are they asking for another ticket??

And we thought it was just our council been crazy, until I saw this report from this week's local paper. As below, even the Ryde council is doing it. And it seems that they are much more reasonable as at least they gave the residents a few $0 warnings before issuing the ticket! And how come theirs is $80 and we have to pay $81??!!

The original report is available here.
I think Mr Germanos mentioned in the article might have stronger case than us, as theirs is a busy road with bus stop right in front of their house. Ours is a quiet street and technically we can safely park anywhere on the road, as long as it's not on the council part of the drive way or the nature strip!

So be careful with your parking. And the title is correct: No you can't park on the driveway "in front" of your house! You can only park on the driveway that's "inside" your front fence because you could be blocking the foot path. Don't forget that part of drive way belongs to council, not you!

3 comments:

Brooklyn Row House said...

And yet, here in Brooklyn NY, cops won't ticket you even if you park on the sidewalk. Ain't exciting enough police work for them, I guess.

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Unknown said...

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