Driver's $116 parking fine plea divides Aussies: 'Suck it up'
'Can I still be charged if I'm parked not impeding traffic or even on the road?' the driver said.
A puzzled driver’s question about a $116 parking fine he received in a popular beach town has divided Aussies, with many urging the man to just cough up the cash.
The motorist said he was slapped with the fine for “stopping in a no stopping zone” in Noosa, Queensland, in late October after he “parked off the road in one of the car parks they offer for free”. A photo posted on a local Facebook group on Friday shows his white SUV sitting between two other parked cars on a nature strip with a faint yellow behind it.
“Can I still be charged if I’m parked not impeding traffic or even on the road?” the driver asked. “Is there any way I can go back to them and contest this? I don’t remember seeing any signs that said no stopping near the island.”
Driver told to 'suck it up'
The man’s request was quickly met with backlash from residents of the popular tourist town, many of which sternly pointed out where he had parked “is not a car space”. “Really. There are yellow lines and parked in a garden bed. It’s not a car park,” one woman said. “You’re lucky you only got non stopping zone ticket. Just because you park in car park doesn’t mean you can park anywhere in there.”
“You are in a garden … suck it up,” another simply stated, while another commented “Yellow line means no parking all over Australia” and the council is “well within their rights”.
Locals sympathise with driver over 's**t rule'
Luckily the driver, who appears to be a tourist, didn’t take the criticism to heart. “So due to the faint yellow line that means you can’t park there?” he laughed. “Gotta love Noosa, good to know that the $116 will go towards repainting the line — not. So is there anything I can do or just pay it?”
Several other locals sympathised with the man, saying they had copped a parking fine in the same spot. “I've gotten the same fine for parking a scooter there too. Not much you can do. There are signs and a yellow line…” a woman wrote. “It’s a s**t rule but they’ve been getting people like this for years,” someone else added.
The driver could contest “as the yellow line is not very well maintained”, another person argued. “There simply isn’t enough car parks for what’s needed,” a fourth pointed out. “It’s not even full school holidays for all schools yet and yesterday was shocking to find a car park.”
According to the Noosa Council, it is illegal for a driver to park their car on a nature strip, footpath or in a parkland anywhere in the shire.
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