Woman furious after being fined $136 for parking outside her home: 'No signs'
Sydney shift worker Emma Picthall said the entire situation left her 'pretty pissed off' and has called on proper parking bays in her street to combat the issue.
A furious shift worker has unleashed after receiving a fine for parking outside her own home, the same way she and her neighbours have done for years. NSW-based motorist Emma Picthall said she was shocked after finishing a long day's work late last month to find she'd received the $136 infringement notice.
The Sydney local, who resides in East Lakes in the city's south, said the cul-de-sac in which she lives makes it very difficult to park as it stands, without council forcing drivers to park parallel to the kerb instead of "nose-first", a method she said enables many more vehicles to squeeze into the densely populated zone.
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Speaking to Yahoo News, Picthall said there are no signs on the street informing locals how they are required to park, nor was she warned about the practice before she was issued the fine. She said only a few cars would be able to fit into the cul-de-sac if they were to adhere to council's rules, down from around eight vehicles as it stands.
"It's a quiet suburban area, but there's a lot of apartments, so there is no parking," Picthall told Yahoo. "I do shift work, so when I get home from work late at night, I'm parking like 10 to 15 minutes away from home and I just have to walk there.
"So they want us to park so we are parking circular around the cul-de-sac, so everyone parking as you would on a mainstream road, but in a circle, so not nose in. But then we'd lose so many spots. And it's already such a populated area."
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Having contacted Bayside Council with her concerns, Picthall said she was effectively told "too bad, so sad". "I was really pissed off, if I'm being honest with you," she said. "Because I was under the impression that we weren't doing anything wrong. There's no signs indicating that we must park parallel. There's nothing indicating anything like that.
"And they were kind of like, really dismissive about it. It just seems like a lot like revenue raising, like they couldn't get anyone else, so they've just come into this quiet little street and stung everyone."
Picthall now worries the council-enforced parking method could cause "wars" between her neighbours, many of whom she said are elderly and have mobility issues.
"I don't want my neighbours to get sh*tty about me taking up three parking spots because I'm parking parallel," she said. "So either they [council] need to implement parking bays or proper signs. I'm happy to park that way, but I don't want my neighbours to get pissed off because I'm taking up three spots.
"Council said we could get a petition together with our neighbours to ask for bays. But I'm in a very old neighbourhood. I don't think they'd even know how to do that."
Yahoo News Australia has sought comment from Bayside Council on the matter.
The Sydney woman's experience is the latest in a string of other recent, similar incidents. Earlier this week, a Canberra-base driver copped a penalty for parking in the opposite direction of traffic outside his home. He argued the fine was "an abuse of resources" and questioned its legality.
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