Wavell Heights resident fined by Brisbane City Council for parking in own driveway

BRISBANE City Council has apparently fined one of its residents for parking her car in her own driveway overnight.

A Wavell Heights resident was fined for parking her car in her own driveway. Picture: Supplied

• Motorist to fight nose-in fine
• Residents dob in illegal parkers
• Fine for parking on footpath
• Parking fines waived by council

A BRISBANE resident has been fined for parking her car in her own driveway.

The woman and her partner, who have asked not to be named, left their Wavell Heights house on Tuesday morning to find an infringement notice “jammed” inside the driver’s side window of her BMW.

The woman’s car had been parked in the driveway of the property overnight.

The car was parked close to the house, with about three metres of driveway separating the vehicle and the road.

However the $91 fine was issued by a Brisbane City Council officer for the offence of “stop on footpath, shared path, dividing strip, or a nature strip”.

It was issued by the parking inspector at 11.03 on Monday night.

The woman’s husband told The Courier-Mail he and his wife were “quite shocked” by the fine.

“She wanted to forget about it but I raised a dispute with BCC,” he said.

“How do you get a ticket for parking in your own driveway?”

The alleged offence occurred at 10.55 on Monday night. Picture: Supplied

He also noted it was an “odd time” for a parking inspector to be patrolling the streets.

The man said he did a drive around the area on Tuesday morning and noticed other cars — also parked in driveways — had not been fined.

“I didn’t see any other tickets whatsoever,” he said.

“There was dew on the vehicles so I knew they had been there overnight.”

The man took to council’s Facebook page to lodge his initial complaint, where he was informed by a spokesman he would have to fill in an official dispute form.

A Council spokesman told The Courier-Mail it received five complaints over the past three years about vehicles parking illegally along the couple’s street, “with concerns this was causing safety and access issues”.

The last complaint was received on August 5, the spokesman said. He said while investigating the last complaint three vehicles were found to be illegally parked and all were issued a fine.

“Council takes safety complaints about illegal parking very seriously and investigates every complaint as an immediate priority,” the spokesman said.

He said parking across a driveway is an offence under the Government’s Transport Operations (Road Use Management - Road Rules) Regulation 2009, regardless of whether it is across the property owner’s own driveway.

“Parking across footpaths and verges not only blocks access to other residents and creates safety issues, including for those with prams and wheelchairs, but also risks damaging vital utilities such as water and sewerage or telecommunications,” he said.

He said anyone who believes they’ve been incorrectly or unfairly unfined should appeal.