"Drivers deserve better": Huge win for motorists over parking fines
In a move to stop unsuspecting drivers being hit with unfair parking fines, NSW councils will soon be banned from issuing a fine without a physical ticket.
Finance Minister Courtney Houssos will legislate to effectively ban ticketless parking fines after council raked in $155 million in sneaky fines last year.
Ms Houssos will introduce legislation later in September, which will require parking rangers to attach an “on-the-spot notification” to a car which gets a fine either in the form of a sticker or a traditional parking ticket.
Ticketless parking fines were first introduced under former Premier Gladys Berejiklian in 2020, with councils issuing a whopping 822,310 ticketless parking fines last financial year, up almost 50 per cent from the year before.
Ms Houssos said forcing councils to leave a note telling drivers they had been fined, rather than waiting for a fine to come ion the mail weeks later, was a victory for common sense.
"No one ever likes to get a parking fine, but the idea you only find out about a fine weeks later doesn’t pass the common sense test,” she said.
“Frustration among drivers and community members about the ticketless parking system is high – and that’s fair enough. The ticketless parking fine system was introduced by the previous government without regard for the impact on drivers and families,” she said.
NSW Premier Chris Minns also backed the move, saying, “Drivers deserve better than the current system."
In certain limited circumstances, rangers will be able to issue a fine without leaving a ticket, but only if they install new-warning signs, which could include areas where there is no phone reception, like national parks, or in timed enclosed car parks.
NRMA Spokesman Peter Khoury said the government’s changes will rebuild public confidence, saying, “Ticketless parking fines removed transparency and made it almost impossible for motorists to contest their fine if they felt they had a legitimate case.”
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