New app helps you avoid getting parking fines

Councils are raking in millions of dollars in extra revenue because of simple mistakes drivers are making. But there’s help on the way

Councils are making roughly $50 million a year from motorists misreading parking signs, according to new research.

Software developer UbiPark estimates that roughly one in four of the $190 million in NSW parking fines are a result of confusion, and it now has an app to address the issue.

The developers claim the new app, available in the App and Google Play stores, uses new parking sign scanning tech that can decipher even the most confusing parking signs.

Misreading confusing parking signs is costing drivers millions of dollars every year.

UbiPark CEO Mosstyn Howell said, “We know that parking in Australian cities is hard enough at the best of times. When you finally find a park, the last thing you need is to have to translate multiple parking bylaws only to find you can’t park there after all.”

UbiPark app can decipher confusing parking signs instantly.

After the driver scans the parking sign, the award-winning app uses Artificial Intelligence to analyse the driver’s location, time of day and local laws to give real time accurate information to motorists.

It is being rolled out across Sydney suburbs in phases as part of a pilot program, with Chatswood already live.

The company’s recent survey found that almost three-quarters of Sydney motorists found parking signs unnecessarily confusing.

The majority of the confusing parking signs were in the CBD and the inner city, which takes in suburbs such as Surry Hills and Darlinghurst.

Constantly changing parking conditions are confusing to motorists.

Other areas where confusion reigns includes the Eastern Suburbs, North Sydney, the Inner West, Western Suburbs and Northern Beaches.

Sydney’s confusing parking signs were highlighted several years ago when a resident shared a photo of an inner-west parking sign that looked like four different signs all in one.

Jesus Sydney take a chill pill pic.twitter.com/uJwfOhGFZH

— Dean Nye (@Dean_Nye) August 11, 2018

In this instance there were different parking conditions for school drop off times, weekends, Saturdays and Sundays. Several conditions changed throughout each day.

A Melbourne TikTok user @omar_sbai recently revealed a sneaky way to avoid getting a ticket, telling his followers all they needed was an old parking fine.

He filmed himself placing the old parking ticket on his windscreen, claiming it would deter parking inspectors from issuing another fine.