Ask an expert


poncho

What is the definition of a parked vehicle?
I've received an infringement notice because I stopped for 1 minute and 17 seconds which was interpreted as "Parked in area marked by a broken yellow line". I was in the vehicle with the engine running picking someone up.
The penalty...$60.00. (78 cents a second) Is this for real?.

ABayliss

Unfortunately, the offence here is "stationary vehicle offence infringement", so while the vehicle was not left unattended, it was still illegally stopped there.
While we can sympathise with you, the reality is that you cannot stop on yellow lines for any reason, so I'm afraid it would appear that the infringement notice would stand.
However, there is nothing stopping you from writing in asking for the fine to be waived due to the brief length of time you were stopped and making the point that the vehicle was not left unattended.
In our experience though, the law is fairly black and white in these circumstances and the authorities are usually quite inflexible.

GhostWalker

Dear AA Community,

My wife thinks she was treated unfairly by a Parking Warden who gave her an infringement notice while she was dropping off our children at Avondale College which is a huge school with not enough roads to drop of the children.

We believe there is a difference between parking and dropping off passengers who need to get to school. Also, my wife would have left the yellow line in 2 seconds flat if not for the warden who stood in front of her car. Please can you kindly advise us if we have a good chance of waiving this infringement notice this due to the circumstances of this congested school area and the way the warden stood in front of a moving vehicle just to take her plate number off.

Anon

Please see the above response to the previous question as it is relevant to your query.

Anon

maac, you can write in to the council if you have a reasonable excuse, I admit to doing this on a few occasions, mind you you need to write a convincing story and I can think of a few you could of tried, ....mind you when I received a speeding ticket the issuing officer made a mistake with the rego, so it certainly pays to check all the details are correct, the ticket of course was cancelled.

Sometimes with minor infringements the council will respond to an explanation and write the ticket off, it is worth a try, they are not complete bar-stewards.

poncho

I wrote to the council, but they were unwilling to change their stance so I paid up. The ridiculous thing about broken yellow lines and the law that states that it is illegal to stop on them is that at traffic lights vehicles have to stop on them waiting for a green light.
Technically, everyone stopping at red lights and doing so on broken yellow lines are breaking the law.
It is absurb to say the least.

Anon

Question for ABayliss, I was of the understanding that a ticket has to be placed on the vehicle before it has legal status, could you please clarify this for me, thank you

ABayliss

Hi sanjeet83. No, the ticket does not have to be placed on the vehicle. Bearing in mind that tickets can be blown away in the wind, washed away with the rain, removed by pranksters or have the motorist claim they never received them, it would not be practical for the law to require that tickets must be placed on vehicles.