Yes. That has always been the case.
If the inspectors came down my street they would have a field day. Caravans parked on the footpath, cars hanging over the driveway / footpath / the road. People parking over yellow lines. People parking in the T reverse junction spot. It's a quiet street with no traffic. Surprised the bin collectors haven't ratted them out.
The problem will only get worse as housing gets smaller, no garage, no driveways.
Every time I see a caravan, boat or anything other than a car blocking the footpath I call the council. It’s at the point now I have the private number for the guy who works my area and I just send him a message whenever I see it. It was at the point where small children had to walk on a dangerous road on their way home every day.
If only council was so fast to react when somebody reports the pavement has shifted or tilted due to subsidence or tree roots, leaving a 4-6cm rise in the middle of the footpath which is dangerous even to able-bodied pedestrians and makes the path completely impassable to people in wheelchairs.
I wish there was an app to report uber/taxi drivers' disgusting habits. I live close to Sydney airport. My street is constantly full of uber drivers and courtesy buses waiting for customers. I often see these drivers (just opening their car door and "hiding" behind it) peeing on the street or plastic bottles full of piss. Also, cleaning their vehicles on the street and throwing all the trash on the nature strip.
He gave me his personal cell and we crack jokes like mates lol. I never asked for it, he said he’s just bored all the time and I’m basically giving him some entertainment on an otherwise boring job. Apparently most people don’t bother reporting it because they’re doing the same shit themselves.
To add to this. I have mates who work for “the dobbers” and they said they love stopping people from being pricks, because selfishness isn’t Australian. So deciding to “investigate” the issue doesn’t mean they have to ticket, but if nobody reports it, they can’t investigate.
So I’ve been told over and over that my job as a guy walking my dog is to report it, IF by the time someone gets out there the problem still exists, they’ve done it to themselves and they need to get over it.
Can’t tell if you’re agreeing or taking the piss out of me, but either way I think it’s pathetic people park their boats and caravans on a footpath because they’re too lazy or cheap to pay for proper storage. If you can afford a boat then you can afford to store it, otherwise you’re an idiot living outside your means.
Well you’re an arsehole. My best friend has a bus stop right in front of her house. Her driveway is super steep so if she parks down the bottom when her fuel’s lower than a quarter tank the car won’t start. She has 5 kids and is a single mother who works her arse off.
Nobody has to walk on the road to get around her car but she gets fined.
And bigger cars. I have just dobbed a whole lot of houses in , as there is no footpath to walk on and you have to almost walk in the middle of the road
Still not an excuse, use public transport or two feet and a heart beat.
Owning a car and not being able to park legally doesn't give you the right to park where ever the fuck you want.
> facts don't care about your feelings
Fact is there are a negligible number of wheelchair users on the footpaths, yet you're getting your knickers in a twist over them and cheering on councils fining people "for the wheelchair users".
Not exactly, but new home schemes are targeting builds and new houses (typically)
Since you pretty well have limited choice in new build quality you get stuck with pretty well the same issue.
Cramming a whole house on a sub 300m2 block.
Shit should be illegal
I can fit 7 cars on the driveway of the rental I am in now
Some odd replies here.
You measure your car and the driveway when buying, if it doesn't fit you don't buy. Done this exact thing a few times already, not sure what the big deal is. There's other places out there.
Was all I could afford to rent at one point and my trademate Hilux from work just wouldn't fit in the garage.
Sometimes you have no choice but you make sure you minimise how much overhang
I did when the street bays were free but if the ones outside my place were gone I had no choice but to use the driveway to a garage I couldn't fit into
And you don’t see the link between “feel entitled” and “I can commandeer public property to support my private consumption that I actually can’t quite afford on my own“?
Maybe it’s not me that needs to get a grip and look at the bigger picture here.
so put them in the goddam garage where they belong.
it's a guaranteed automatic garage anyway in the situation you are describing (new housing estate) how hard is it to press a button.
unless of course the garage is being used as storage, in which case you have too much shit.
A someone with disabled friends, I always report cars parking over the footpath. Someone in a wheelchair would not be able to get down the street otherwise. Ditto to people pushing prams
Recently had someone right out front of my kids school park right over the footpath, forcing kids to walk on to the road in front of the school busses.
I took a photo with the car over the footpath, a bus in the background and kids walking around the car.
Sent it to snap send solve. It was listed as actioned by the council in 1 day, and a few days later the car stopped parking there.
They designed as a built the house, have little room for their caravan, garage full of shit, a massive 4x4 ute and an suv.
Don't block the footpath, disabled people exist and it can be more than an inconvenience for them.
Saw one from my neighborhood trying to navigate past a van parked on the footpath on a main road with their only choice being in a wheelchair to go on the road or wait for the person to move the vehicle.
There's also kids on bikes, including adults accompanying kids on bikes. And posties on postie bikes.
Elderly people too, especially on Zimmer frames or in mobility scooters, but being forced onto potentially uneven ground can be a falling hazard, which often leads to death within months.
Haha, don't know anything about that. Would potentially be actionable against the council maybe?
Was only imagining a doddering old biddy mistaking tall grass or something for solid ground, or possibly hiding a divot etc.
Could be a bit far fetched but not impossible.
Anyone that uses sidewalks know this is a massive pain in the arse. People that drive everywhere do not give a shit and struggle to see the issue. Fine them until they realise the footpath is not for cars.
Hypothetical: You park your car like this and think “I’ve never had an issue before”. Meanwhile you also unknowingly live between a person in a wheelchair and the train station. The person in the wheelchair is having to adjust their schedule and allow an extra 10mins to go the long way around the block every single morning to get to the train station because you leave later than them and until you’re gone they can’t get down the footpath there.
Theres a reason the fines exist. Parking like this is nothing to some people and an impassable barrier to others, unfortunately the general public isn’t mindful enough of others to remember to do the right thing but they’ll remember a fine so, fine it is.
This is definitely getting worse and having other flow on effects - the nice front yard is dying off replaced by concrete all over as houses have 3 and 4 and 5 cars now and there is no room on the street and some standard driveways only fit 1 or 2 cars. Throw in larger tradie trucks or vans etc and you hate to hold an event around here as guests are parking streets away!
Yup. Visit literally any new development area and they're all like this. 1.5 width streets that are almost impossible to navigate once everyone is home from work. All these new houses have 1 or even 2 car garages and they're NEVER used to store cars. EVER. Always floor to ceiling filled with garbage so the cars get parked on the driveway and streets instead. 20 years after the suburb is finished being built and now you've got teenagers getting their P's and getting their own cars and then it turns into an absolute cluster fuck.
I sound like an old man but in the early 2000s we could still play footy or cricket on the road and you’d be completely safe, could see a car reversing or turning into the street from a mile away and you had plenty of room with not many cars on the street. Goodluck now… take away that plus take away backyards and front yards and its no wonder we have some of the problems we do.
Yeah even as a nerd I'd be riding my bike in the street, riding my bike to school in primary school. Kids would play cricket with wheelie bins in the cul-de-sac. Make shift ramps dragged out into the street to do jumps off with skateboards, etc.
Do that today and you'd be dead after 15 mins when you get crushed by some cunt in their spotless F150 that has never had anything but groceries in the tray.
I hardly blame parents for preferring their kids stay the hell away from roads in modern suburbs, which means more screen time...
We build our houses as if pubic transport is walking distance and usable by the majority, we build our public transport as if it should be avoided and everyone uses cars, we build our roads... well we sometimes build our roads.
As someone who walks my months old baby, this shits me to tears. It's very dangerous having to walk off path, onto the road with the pram. Inconsiderate, rude, entitled and oblivious all in one.
If you're OK with people parking like this, you're a cunt. You're basically saying "fuck you, my car is more important" to wheelchair users, parents with prams, and all other footpath users.
I'm always careful not to obstruct a footpath, and I certainly dont like it when people do, especially when the alternative is that pedestrians would need to use the road to get around. Disabled people, parents with kids and prams etc, it's rude and dangerous to block a footpath in many situations.
Do you set up a camera and play it back just so you can justify parking over the sidewalk to yourself? How the hell could you possible know when it is or when it is NOT dangerous? (Hint: You can't. So stop parking over the sidewalk boomer)
I don't park over the "sidewalk" (what are you, an American?) or even the footpath. I am one of the fortunate few who actually does have enough parking for my car so I never need to park my car in such a way that it overhangs the footpath. Lucky me.
But I recognise that in our over-crowded suburbs, many people are not that fortunate. I don't care about this issue because it effects me personally, I care because I don't like bullies and martinets piling on to attack people and dob them in to councils to get them fined over what is in *most* cases trivial technical violations of the law that hurts nobody. We live in a car-culture society where a family of four might easily have five vehicles and we build houses with parking for one or two if you're lucky. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
Bullying people because their vehicle overhangs the footpath by a few centimetres, or even in some cases all the way to the road, does not make us good people.
And I know when it is safe and when it's not because I have [the world's rarest superpower](https://i.imgur.com/fIVQIj8.jpg), because I walk on footpaths myself and because I'm not an idiot. Most people live on quiet back streets where it is not dangerous to step onto the road to cross the entire two metre width of a vehicle. Or even to walk down the middle of the street for tens or hundreds of metres. And that applies equally to parents with pushers or prams, kids on bikes, people of mobility scooters (who in my personal experience can often be a menace to pedestrians), and even in many cases wheelchair users.
If you're forcing people out onto busy main roads, that's not on, and egregious cases of *repeated* poor parking that blocks the footpath on main roads should be fined after a warning. But if you're dobbing in your neighbour because a pedestrian had to take a step to the right to move around their car, then YTA.
Whenever you see this you can use snapsendsolve app for an easy report. I bloody hate when people consider the sidewalk their parking space, especially busy small streets.
Sometimes, generally I only use it for someone who does it constantly so they send an officer to check, it seems to stop them fairly well so I guess they do.
This goes down to cities not mandating parking zones on developers. Large apartment complexes must have underground parking. I am not advocating anyone to park obstructing the foot path but this i problem is created by city planners by not requiring developers to build sufficient parking while building houses or apartments.
Where there is actually a footpath I agree that we shouldn't park over it but people are getting fines for parking on their driveway in the same manner where there is NO footpath at all.
The area of land between the private property boundary (where your front yard ends) and the street (where cars are allowed to drive/park/etc ) is **public land** (not part of a private lease or title).
Do not park on or restrict access to public land, or any easement whether or not it has a specific walking surface (footpath).
It annoys the ever living fuck out of me.
There used to be a house who did this frequently near me. It was on a busy street with a tiny sand verge and no footpath on the other side.
It meant you had to dismount your bike and walk on the busy road to get around their bullshit.
They had about 6 cars in their driveway and it was always their crappy work vans that were in the footpath.
That simply wasn't parked in their driveway it was parked on the footpath, just because your tyres aren't on the footpath doesn't mean shit when that much of your car is directly above the path.
I was in Collingwood just yesterday and had to help guide someone in a wheelchair onto Langridge street and around a car that had parked across the footpath. Completely inconsiderate.
We live in a culdesac which is not a flat road but a hill. This guy has a huge truck and comes and goes each day and it has a backho loaded on the back. He parks it at the top on the footpath or on t he road so you have to do a 3 point turn to drive around it
https://preview.redd.it/0fwv920yc3ad1.jpeg?width=2100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e6342a83f0137fba8680cc00ef57426c98d1c2c
This is one place I have complained about
IMO the authorities need to enforce more penalties on anti-social behaviour. What is happening at the arse end of the world it truly astounding. Social manners and etiquette are non-existent here. I can only compare to Europe and the US, so not sure if Australia has always been full of rude people. Also, old people here are beyond toxic. My guess is they are the resultant product of decades of compliance and having no heart/ soul.
I think both sides can be true at once
The resident could literally have no other choice (besides selling their car).
And it can be inconsiderate to park across the footpath. The world is already fucked enough for people in wheel chairs without the footpath getting blocked
It's the law, it's always been the law, and it's there for a reason
As someone who has several friends who are vision impaired, the number of times I've seen one of them fucked up by a prick who parks like this is beyond counting.
Anyone who parks across footpaths like this is a cunt, who deserves every cent of any fine they get
Well the sidewalk is not actually yours. So technically you are illegally parked.
In these cases a common sense approach is best.
- Is the vehicle there for more than a reasonable time?
- Is the vehicle able to park safely off the sidewalk? Either on the street or in the driveway?
I used to be a ranger.
General rule is, discretion, don't give out a fine for this, even though it's technically illegal, similar to jaywalking.
However, if the situation is ACTUALLY dangerous, I.E. it does force pedestrians out onto the road to get around, especially near a blind corner, then you would take action. I would say the first action is to knock on the door, point out the danger, ask them to move it. If they're not home or they refuse, only then would you issue a fine. It is really rare.
What u/JamesMeem says he did was perfectly fine and I commend him for it. I wish that all people in authority used their discretion more to ignore "no harm, no foul" technical violations of the law instead of being the sort of A1-grade asshole that mindlessly applies the law regardless of circumstances.
Some people actually don't care what the law is, they would be just as happy punishing good people for violating awful laws as bad people for violating necessary laws, they get off on the punishment itself regardless of the reason. You can usually tell these sorts from their inflexible thinking, especially those who say "the law is the law" as if that settles the issue.
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It’s clearly illegal and everyone knows it. The controversial bit is at the end: “What if you don't have enough room in your driveway to fit the car in and council won't provide a street parking permit?" So the people saying “simple - park on the road” are wrong. They legally can’t. This doesn’t seem a satisfactory situation. We have the same situation with 2 cars, 1 parking lot and 1hr street parking, although we at least have night parking on the street.
Seen heaps of selfish cunts park overhanding onto the footpath, sometimes even completely blocking it. No thought for any elders people, disabled people, or parents with prams, who can't walk around their car as easily.
Walking around my neighborhood, some seem to do it as a once off, others are regularly doing it.
Today’s housing blocks are so small they often position the house as far forward as legally allowed to give the illusion of a backyard. Driveways and off street parking suffers as a result. Not to mention the shit state of the economy meaning you often have 3+ people sharing a house, each with their own car.
We live in a suburb that's mostly grass verges with a thin strip of paving. We live uphill from our daycare centre. When someone tries to cram that third car into their driveway and ends up across the pavement, I have to either push the pram uphill on the verge, which often gets soft and boggy when it's been raining, or if that's blocked too we get forced out into traffic.
The stupid thing is we're not even that hard up for on street parking, people just want to cram all their cars into the driveway rather than walk maybe 50 metres, and they'll block a footpath to do it.
Dicks.
Yep. An arsehole in my street does this constantly even though there is more than a metre to his rolling garage door (ie it doesn’t swing out). The only reason I don’t dob him is because i’m pretty sure he’s a pensioner without much money. But it shits me every time I walk down with my daughter’s stroller.
I fucking love it, the amount of times I have to run on the road because cars parked over footpath is infuriating, I'd hate to be someone with a mobility issue/wheelchair/pram around here. Sometimes I actually do a bulk report to snap send solve if it's a dozen on one street and usually a few weeks later that path is suddenly clear so I suspect my council actually acts on it. Safer foot traffic, revenue for council to line their pockets with and hopefully occasionally improve things, good outcome.
Well first off the footpath is not your driveway so get fucked.
Secondly this actually does mess with people regularly - people in wheelchairs and mobility scooters and the vision impaired are not that uncommon and you 100% will make life harder for them.
I work in public spaces and events a lot and you are not allowed to block tactile paving as a blanket rule because it’s a legitimate and likely safety risk. Footpaths are really no different.
Maybe they start also fining the houses with empty driveways and cars on the street that belong to that property. So a double whammy to help solve the on street parking. So often driveways are empty, or only one car and another on the street because they cant be bothered to swap around.
Yeah the across path parking isnt really ok but if you look at the rest of the st on that pic, there was no other option, full of cars parked on the curb.
It looks like they already tried and had 1 or 2 cars already there trying not to park on the street.
I still think maybe unused driveways need something charged if its an issue for the whole street like this pic seems to be.
I live on a busy street and my partner reverses into our driveway for safety reasons as there is very little visual coverage for oncoming traffic due to people parking on the street. People have already crashed into other due to speeding while that person being crashed into waits for my partners to park in the driveway.
My car doesn’t physically fit in our driveway and we don’t have a garage. Due to the busy road it also makes it not feasible to swap. Probs don’t fine people like you said, it’s not always because people are lazy.
Correct. But I am legally allowed to do so and don’t see why I should be punished for doing something completely legal and not immoral. I have no problems parking on the street but I also think I shouldn’t be fined for buying a perfectly road legal car.
I probably meant more the driveways that can fit two cars if they have 2 registered to that address. If it can only fit one then its serving its purpose. But a lot of driveways are able to fit more than one car, they just stay empty for some reason.
So if more on your street were encouraged to park in their driveway it would help, right? Do you notice if your neighbours are using their driveways or just parking on the street because they dont want to reverse into their driveways for the busy road too?
Most of the driveways in my street are one car only as it is an old suburb and yeah they will also reverse.
That being said my neighbour has a lot of visitors whether they be boy toys or what, I don’t actually know the relationship but they are always parking on the street when they have the largest driveway on the entire block. Yeah it pisses me off but I just accept that’s a public street and I just need to deal with it.
In new builds there is barely enough room for a small car to park outside of the garage...
Can't park on the road because it blocks the road, can't park on the verge can't park in your driveway....
Pretty fucked if you ask me
Smaller property
More properties, more properties More rates..
Since bin collection is outscored at least in my council..
It's a no brainer for councils.
More rates less actual work
LOL, you think rates even slightly pay for the cost of Waste collection in Australian Local Councils.
More strangely you imply that rates are only for the purpose of waste collection and not a specific social cost that all property owners need to pay to provide ALL services for the community that the property exists within.
If for a short time it’s okay, think quickly just pulling in to drop off or pickup something (5mins max) is okay.
Longer periods of parking the vehicle just starts to become a general obstruction you start to get to a stage where you start to force pedestrian traffic into vehicle traffic or in some instances make it impossible for a disabled person to continue their journey without having to turn around to find an area where they can detour the obstruction.
In Queensland you are able to park like this for a legitimate purpose that isn’t just for parking, think a tradesperson completing work on the property where the drive way is not fully accessible. Though in order to do this they are required to clearly mark off the obstruction so that a regular person could spot it from a reasonable distance.
I don't see how the length of time makes any difference. What if someone in a wheelchair rolls up five minutes after you parked and needs to get past? It's ok to make them wait 10 minutes? Point being, any time after you park is "a stage where you start to force pedestrian traffic into vehicle traffic"
Nope. I’m not risking my life nor that of my dog because you’re only going to be 15 minutes or so.
Why should I navigate onto a main road just because you’re too lazy to park elsewhere?
It’s a matter of life and death now? Jeez tone it down fella. Mayb for a wheelchair u could make this argument without sounding like a wanker. WALK around champ
This thread is a great example of what's wrong with Australia.
You're all *begging* for the government to intervene and issue fines.
Instead of talking about concerns and maybe convincing people to think differently, you just want government to solve your problems by making laws and slapping fines.
This is exactly why we are such an overrgulated nanny state. Red tape everywhere because the Australian public begs for it....
What the fuck is talking about it going to do? A majority of the pricks that park this way aren't on Reddit, let alone this sub. You want a little segment on ACA or sunrise? The quickest and simplest way is for the laws to be enforced.
Ah yes, open discourse. Every inconsiderate assholes favourite thing.
No one is begging the government to intervene, it’s already the law and has been for a long time. People who break laws open themselves up to punishment.
If people weren’t assholes and gave a fuck about their fellow Australians they wouldn’t need to worry about getting fines.
I generally agree. However for many people it may not be safe to talk to the neighbourhood junkie who parks his shitwagon on the footpath, or the local methed up tradie. Sure 8/10 the person is likely reasonable and unaware of their actions but most people don’t want to risk the confrontation.
Any car parked like that deserves to be keyed. Footpath is not for parking, you inconvenience walkers, runners, cyclists, and most important, those who are mobility-impaired,.
Yes. That has always been the case. If the inspectors came down my street they would have a field day. Caravans parked on the footpath, cars hanging over the driveway / footpath / the road. People parking over yellow lines. People parking in the T reverse junction spot. It's a quiet street with no traffic. Surprised the bin collectors haven't ratted them out. The problem will only get worse as housing gets smaller, no garage, no driveways.
Every time I see a caravan, boat or anything other than a car blocking the footpath I call the council. It’s at the point now I have the private number for the guy who works my area and I just send him a message whenever I see it. It was at the point where small children had to walk on a dangerous road on their way home every day.
If only council was so fast to react when somebody reports the pavement has shifted or tilted due to subsidence or tree roots, leaving a 4-6cm rise in the middle of the footpath which is dangerous even to able-bodied pedestrians and makes the path completely impassable to people in wheelchairs.
There has to be financial incentive, whether that’s you making a donation or the opportunity to collect money from fining somebody.
Use the app
I wish there was an app to report uber/taxi drivers' disgusting habits. I live close to Sydney airport. My street is constantly full of uber drivers and courtesy buses waiting for customers. I often see these drivers (just opening their car door and "hiding" behind it) peeing on the street or plastic bottles full of piss. Also, cleaning their vehicles on the street and throwing all the trash on the nature strip.
What is the app
They might mean the Park Scan solve app
snap send solve - your council may or may not pay for the usage of the app. if they do, the results are A LOT more streamlined.
Ohhh yes I have heard of this app but forgot about it . Thank you. I am going to look this up.
You know that guy really dislikes you, right?
He gave me his personal cell and we crack jokes like mates lol. I never asked for it, he said he’s just bored all the time and I’m basically giving him some entertainment on an otherwise boring job. Apparently most people don’t bother reporting it because they’re doing the same shit themselves.
To add to this. I have mates who work for “the dobbers” and they said they love stopping people from being pricks, because selfishness isn’t Australian. So deciding to “investigate” the issue doesn’t mean they have to ticket, but if nobody reports it, they can’t investigate. So I’ve been told over and over that my job as a guy walking my dog is to report it, IF by the time someone gets out there the problem still exists, they’ve done it to themselves and they need to get over it.
That's pathetic.
Can’t tell if you’re agreeing or taking the piss out of me, but either way I think it’s pathetic people park their boats and caravans on a footpath because they’re too lazy or cheap to pay for proper storage. If you can afford a boat then you can afford to store it, otherwise you’re an idiot living outside your means.
Well you’re an arsehole. My best friend has a bus stop right in front of her house. Her driveway is super steep so if she parks down the bottom when her fuel’s lower than a quarter tank the car won’t start. She has 5 kids and is a single mother who works her arse off. Nobody has to walk on the road to get around her car but she gets fined.
“Anything other than a car”
Cars parked on the street on a blind corner………
And bigger cars. I have just dobbed a whole lot of houses in , as there is no footpath to walk on and you have to almost walk in the middle of the road
and huge cars
Yep. More people. More share homes too.
The foot path isn't your private property so you should use due care and not park on it.
Yes true, but new builds are stupidly too small and can have smaller cars just about touch the garage door and be on the footpath.
That's a reason not an excuse, people in wheelchairs what do they do?
No one is forcing them to buy em.
Having fewer houses available than are needed is literally, without hyperbole, forcing people to buy them.
Park down the street stop being lazy
Probably no 'down the street' option
Still not an excuse, use public transport or two feet and a heart beat. Owning a car and not being able to park legally doesn't give you the right to park where ever the fuck you want.
I'm sorry. You seem to have put your stupid in the wrong reply.
That all you got did your feelings get hurt, facts don't care about your feelings
> facts don't care about your feelings Fact is there are a negligible number of wheelchair users on the footpaths, yet you're getting your knickers in a twist over them and cheering on councils fining people "for the wheelchair users".
Park properly. Heaps of people have prams. It’s basic courtesy towards your fellow man.
Yeah bro, I'll just drop a cool mil I have tucked up in my arsehole to buy a bigger block. Could you reach up and grab it for me?
Not exactly, but new home schemes are targeting builds and new houses (typically) Since you pretty well have limited choice in new build quality you get stuck with pretty well the same issue. Cramming a whole house on a sub 300m2 block. Shit should be illegal I can fit 7 cars on the driveway of the rental I am in now
There is always the road. As inconvenient as it can be.
True brother I will simply buy a big landed house in Melbourne on my median ass income
Some odd replies here. You measure your car and the driveway when buying, if it doesn't fit you don't buy. Done this exact thing a few times already, not sure what the big deal is. There's other places out there.
Was all I could afford to rent at one point and my trademate Hilux from work just wouldn't fit in the garage. Sometimes you have no choice but you make sure you minimise how much overhang
Best thing to do is park it on your neighbours lawn. I mean it has to go somewhere right ?
You'd minimise it by parking on the street.
I did when the street bays were free but if the ones outside my place were gone I had no choice but to use the driveway to a garage I couldn't fit into
Any overhang is illegal. It's the law.
Except the cost of living crisis...
Is no excuse.
LOL, literally not being able to afford something better is not an excuse?
It’s no excuse to park on the footpath. You can park some where else.
Or sell your car…. It’s not actually compulsory to own one
Parking on the street might be a bit less extreme.
It’s not compulsory to live in a house either yet most people feel entitled to that.. Jesus Christ get a fucking grip.
And you don’t see the link between “feel entitled” and “I can commandeer public property to support my private consumption that I actually can’t quite afford on my own“? Maybe it’s not me that needs to get a grip and look at the bigger picture here.
I stole your car because my car isn’t good enough is the same argument.
That's literally not the same argument
I ripped up the foot path to put in a pool. I couldn’t afford a bigger house. And it’s not like people can’t go around. Is that better ?
No. Lol. I don't think you know what you're talking about any longer so, have fun.
That's so not
Sure, they can always sleep under a bridge.
Maybe their car would be better. But if they have the money to buy a house I’m sure they will figure out how to park in the street.
By that logic, I could buy an apartment or unit with no off street parking and park anywhere I want because “what else can I do?”
Maybe park in the garage as it is intended.
So park inside the garage.
They wouldn’t need to be up against the garage door if they were parked in the garage
so put them in the goddam garage where they belong. it's a guaranteed automatic garage anyway in the situation you are describing (new housing estate) how hard is it to press a button. unless of course the garage is being used as storage, in which case you have too much shit.
Hint - don’t buy a new build.
Hell no. My next property is going to be 1200m2 block No worrying about shit all of these cramped nonsense places.
A someone with disabled friends, I always report cars parking over the footpath. Someone in a wheelchair would not be able to get down the street otherwise. Ditto to people pushing prams
good on you
Recently had someone right out front of my kids school park right over the footpath, forcing kids to walk on to the road in front of the school busses. I took a photo with the car over the footpath, a bus in the background and kids walking around the car. Sent it to snap send solve. It was listed as actioned by the council in 1 day, and a few days later the car stopped parking there. They designed as a built the house, have little room for their caravan, garage full of shit, a massive 4x4 ute and an suv.
Don't block the footpath, disabled people exist and it can be more than an inconvenience for them. Saw one from my neighborhood trying to navigate past a van parked on the footpath on a main road with their only choice being in a wheelchair to go on the road or wait for the person to move the vehicle.
Parents with prams don't really want to be walking on the road either.
There's also kids on bikes, including adults accompanying kids on bikes. And posties on postie bikes. Elderly people too, especially on Zimmer frames or in mobility scooters, but being forced onto potentially uneven ground can be a falling hazard, which often leads to death within months.
> being forced onto potentially uneven ground You mean like every single footpath in Melbourne?
Haha, don't know anything about that. Would potentially be actionable against the council maybe? Was only imagining a doddering old biddy mistaking tall grass or something for solid ground, or possibly hiding a divot etc. Could be a bit far fetched but not impossible.
I’m able bodied and don’t have kids. I don’t want to walk on the road either.
Not even a question. Don't park over the footpath.
Im curious what the space between car and house is
“…which *some argue could* pose problems for people trying to pass along the footpath”?
Anyone that uses sidewalks know this is a massive pain in the arse. People that drive everywhere do not give a shit and struggle to see the issue. Fine them until they realise the footpath is not for cars.
*footpaths
They dont park blocking the road though. So i do think they understand
Hypothetical: You park your car like this and think “I’ve never had an issue before”. Meanwhile you also unknowingly live between a person in a wheelchair and the train station. The person in the wheelchair is having to adjust their schedule and allow an extra 10mins to go the long way around the block every single morning to get to the train station because you leave later than them and until you’re gone they can’t get down the footpath there. Theres a reason the fines exist. Parking like this is nothing to some people and an impassable barrier to others, unfortunately the general public isn’t mindful enough of others to remember to do the right thing but they’ll remember a fine so, fine it is.
This is definitely getting worse and having other flow on effects - the nice front yard is dying off replaced by concrete all over as houses have 3 and 4 and 5 cars now and there is no room on the street and some standard driveways only fit 1 or 2 cars. Throw in larger tradie trucks or vans etc and you hate to hold an event around here as guests are parking streets away!
Yup. Visit literally any new development area and they're all like this. 1.5 width streets that are almost impossible to navigate once everyone is home from work. All these new houses have 1 or even 2 car garages and they're NEVER used to store cars. EVER. Always floor to ceiling filled with garbage so the cars get parked on the driveway and streets instead. 20 years after the suburb is finished being built and now you've got teenagers getting their P's and getting their own cars and then it turns into an absolute cluster fuck.
I sound like an old man but in the early 2000s we could still play footy or cricket on the road and you’d be completely safe, could see a car reversing or turning into the street from a mile away and you had plenty of room with not many cars on the street. Goodluck now… take away that plus take away backyards and front yards and its no wonder we have some of the problems we do.
Yeah even as a nerd I'd be riding my bike in the street, riding my bike to school in primary school. Kids would play cricket with wheelie bins in the cul-de-sac. Make shift ramps dragged out into the street to do jumps off with skateboards, etc. Do that today and you'd be dead after 15 mins when you get crushed by some cunt in their spotless F150 that has never had anything but groceries in the tray. I hardly blame parents for preferring their kids stay the hell away from roads in modern suburbs, which means more screen time...
We build our houses as if pubic transport is walking distance and usable by the majority, we build our public transport as if it should be avoided and everyone uses cars, we build our roads... well we sometimes build our roads.
This is the same as parking a car in the middle of the street
As someone who walks my months old baby, this shits me to tears. It's very dangerous having to walk off path, onto the road with the pram. Inconsiderate, rude, entitled and oblivious all in one.
If you're OK with people parking like this, you're a cunt. You're basically saying "fuck you, my car is more important" to wheelchair users, parents with prams, and all other footpath users.
I'm always careful not to obstruct a footpath, and I certainly dont like it when people do, especially when the alternative is that pedestrians would need to use the road to get around. Disabled people, parents with kids and prams etc, it's rude and dangerous to block a footpath in many situations.
> it's rude and dangerous to block a footpath in many situations. Point taken. And it's not rude and not dangerous in many, many more situations.
Do you set up a camera and play it back just so you can justify parking over the sidewalk to yourself? How the hell could you possible know when it is or when it is NOT dangerous? (Hint: You can't. So stop parking over the sidewalk boomer)
I don't park over the "sidewalk" (what are you, an American?) or even the footpath. I am one of the fortunate few who actually does have enough parking for my car so I never need to park my car in such a way that it overhangs the footpath. Lucky me. But I recognise that in our over-crowded suburbs, many people are not that fortunate. I don't care about this issue because it effects me personally, I care because I don't like bullies and martinets piling on to attack people and dob them in to councils to get them fined over what is in *most* cases trivial technical violations of the law that hurts nobody. We live in a car-culture society where a family of four might easily have five vehicles and we build houses with parking for one or two if you're lucky. It sucks, but that's the way it is. Bullying people because their vehicle overhangs the footpath by a few centimetres, or even in some cases all the way to the road, does not make us good people. And I know when it is safe and when it's not because I have [the world's rarest superpower](https://i.imgur.com/fIVQIj8.jpg), because I walk on footpaths myself and because I'm not an idiot. Most people live on quiet back streets where it is not dangerous to step onto the road to cross the entire two metre width of a vehicle. Or even to walk down the middle of the street for tens or hundreds of metres. And that applies equally to parents with pushers or prams, kids on bikes, people of mobility scooters (who in my personal experience can often be a menace to pedestrians), and even in many cases wheelchair users. If you're forcing people out onto busy main roads, that's not on, and egregious cases of *repeated* poor parking that blocks the footpath on main roads should be fined after a warning. But if you're dobbing in your neighbour because a pedestrian had to take a step to the right to move around their car, then YTA.
I would say it's always rude, but not always dangerous.
Whenever you see this you can use snapsendsolve app for an easy report. I bloody hate when people consider the sidewalk their parking space, especially busy small streets.
Does this actually lead to fines or similar?
Sometimes, generally I only use it for someone who does it constantly so they send an officer to check, it seems to stop them fairly well so I guess they do.
Yes always or at least a warning as you get tracking
Imagine you were in a wheelchair and trying to get past.
Yeah please don't park on footpaths. People in wheelchairs need to go on the road and in many cases this is super unsafe for them.
This goes down to cities not mandating parking zones on developers. Large apartment complexes must have underground parking. I am not advocating anyone to park obstructing the foot path but this i problem is created by city planners by not requiring developers to build sufficient parking while building houses or apartments.
Start with those tradies in the CBD and their idiotic trucks plus shit sticking out front and back....
Some of the few people with a reason to actually have a car there. They gotta do their job, put the onus on all the office slobs who drive in.
Where there is actually a footpath I agree that we shouldn't park over it but people are getting fines for parking on their driveway in the same manner where there is NO footpath at all.
The area of land between the private property boundary (where your front yard ends) and the street (where cars are allowed to drive/park/etc ) is **public land** (not part of a private lease or title). Do not park on or restrict access to public land, or any easement whether or not it has a specific walking surface (footpath).
Those surfaces are not suitable for wheelchairs etc.
Whether they are suitable for wheelchairs or not is irrelevant. Do NOT park on or obstruct public land without authority to do so.
Cool, then the public land need to be taken care of by the council. Oh wait out councils are useless and only good at giving fines.
Agreed that is stupid
I reckon people who think parking on the footpath is okay, also think it’s alright to stop on a pedestrian crossing when queueing in traffic
That's punishment of different people and unethical
People that do this are selfish and blocking access for people that need mobility aids and/or prams
It annoys the ever living fuck out of me. There used to be a house who did this frequently near me. It was on a busy street with a tiny sand verge and no footpath on the other side. It meant you had to dismount your bike and walk on the busy road to get around their bullshit. They had about 6 cars in their driveway and it was always their crappy work vans that were in the footpath.
That simply wasn't parked in their driveway it was parked on the footpath, just because your tyres aren't on the footpath doesn't mean shit when that much of your car is directly above the path.
I was in Collingwood just yesterday and had to help guide someone in a wheelchair onto Langridge street and around a car that had parked across the footpath. Completely inconsiderate.
We live in a culdesac which is not a flat road but a hill. This guy has a huge truck and comes and goes each day and it has a backho loaded on the back. He parks it at the top on the footpath or on t he road so you have to do a 3 point turn to drive around it
https://preview.redd.it/0fwv920yc3ad1.jpeg?width=2100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e6342a83f0137fba8680cc00ef57426c98d1c2c This is one place I have complained about
I report that when I see it. It's fine temporarily, but when some asshole does it as an all day parking spot they can cop the fine.
how/where do you report it? I see this everyday all around my place.
Snap and Solve.
yeah its literally illegal for the car to be there more than 6 minutes unattended
We probably have to do what the UK does and just use the front yard for parking. So remove fences and concrete it.
IMO the authorities need to enforce more penalties on anti-social behaviour. What is happening at the arse end of the world it truly astounding. Social manners and etiquette are non-existent here. I can only compare to Europe and the US, so not sure if Australia has always been full of rude people. Also, old people here are beyond toxic. My guess is they are the resultant product of decades of compliance and having no heart/ soul.
I think both sides can be true at once The resident could literally have no other choice (besides selling their car). And it can be inconsiderate to park across the footpath. The world is already fucked enough for people in wheel chairs without the footpath getting blocked
It's the law, it's always been the law, and it's there for a reason As someone who has several friends who are vision impaired, the number of times I've seen one of them fucked up by a prick who parks like this is beyond counting. Anyone who parks across footpaths like this is a cunt, who deserves every cent of any fine they get
Well the sidewalk is not actually yours. So technically you are illegally parked. In these cases a common sense approach is best. - Is the vehicle there for more than a reasonable time? - Is the vehicle able to park safely off the sidewalk? Either on the street or in the driveway?
\*footpath
I used to be a ranger. General rule is, discretion, don't give out a fine for this, even though it's technically illegal, similar to jaywalking. However, if the situation is ACTUALLY dangerous, I.E. it does force pedestrians out onto the road to get around, especially near a blind corner, then you would take action. I would say the first action is to knock on the door, point out the danger, ask them to move it. If they're not home or they refuse, only then would you issue a fine. It is really rare.
You are either a bad or fake ranger. The law is precise and clear.
Discretion exists and in real life is used all the time. By all levels of law enforcement.
What u/JamesMeem says he did was perfectly fine and I commend him for it. I wish that all people in authority used their discretion more to ignore "no harm, no foul" technical violations of the law instead of being the sort of A1-grade asshole that mindlessly applies the law regardless of circumstances. Some people actually don't care what the law is, they would be just as happy punishing good people for violating awful laws as bad people for violating necessary laws, they get off on the punishment itself regardless of the reason. You can usually tell these sorts from their inflexible thinking, especially those who say "the law is the law" as if that settles the issue.
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The fines are just treated like a parking fee. Enforcement is too uncommon to be a genuine deterrent.
It’s clearly illegal and everyone knows it. The controversial bit is at the end: “What if you don't have enough room in your driveway to fit the car in and council won't provide a street parking permit?" So the people saying “simple - park on the road” are wrong. They legally can’t. This doesn’t seem a satisfactory situation. We have the same situation with 2 cars, 1 parking lot and 1hr street parking, although we at least have night parking on the street.
The sidewalk is not your property. Very easy to understand
I believe it's the same or similar here in NYC.
If I can get around it I'm fine with it, but if you make me go onto the road I hope u get fined.
Seen heaps of selfish cunts park overhanding onto the footpath, sometimes even completely blocking it. No thought for any elders people, disabled people, or parents with prams, who can't walk around their car as easily. Walking around my neighborhood, some seem to do it as a once off, others are regularly doing it.
Today’s housing blocks are so small they often position the house as far forward as legally allowed to give the illusion of a backyard. Driveways and off street parking suffers as a result. Not to mention the shit state of the economy meaning you often have 3+ people sharing a house, each with their own car.
My opinion is, do the crime, do the time.
We live in a suburb that's mostly grass verges with a thin strip of paving. We live uphill from our daycare centre. When someone tries to cram that third car into their driveway and ends up across the pavement, I have to either push the pram uphill on the verge, which often gets soft and boggy when it's been raining, or if that's blocked too we get forced out into traffic. The stupid thing is we're not even that hard up for on street parking, people just want to cram all their cars into the driveway rather than walk maybe 50 metres, and they'll block a footpath to do it. Dicks.
Good. The footpath is not for parking your car across it. Don't know why anyone would find this surprising.
It is about time. If you call cops they now never turn up for an illegal parking - they use to.
even snap send solve wont do anything about illegal parking most of the time
So many fucking nanny-staters, curtain twitchers and wowsers in this thread just *itching* to have the government fine their neighbours.
Yep. An arsehole in my street does this constantly even though there is more than a metre to his rolling garage door (ie it doesn’t swing out). The only reason I don’t dob him is because i’m pretty sure he’s a pensioner without much money. But it shits me every time I walk down with my daughter’s stroller.
I fucking love it, the amount of times I have to run on the road because cars parked over footpath is infuriating, I'd hate to be someone with a mobility issue/wheelchair/pram around here. Sometimes I actually do a bulk report to snap send solve if it's a dozen on one street and usually a few weeks later that path is suddenly clear so I suspect my council actually acts on it. Safer foot traffic, revenue for council to line their pockets with and hopefully occasionally improve things, good outcome.
I think all caravans should be pissed off and not allowed to park on the road either . Some streets have so many of them it’s ridiculous
Well first off the footpath is not your driveway so get fucked. Secondly this actually does mess with people regularly - people in wheelchairs and mobility scooters and the vision impaired are not that uncommon and you 100% will make life harder for them. I work in public spaces and events a lot and you are not allowed to block tactile paving as a blanket rule because it’s a legitimate and likely safety risk. Footpaths are really no different.
Maybe they start also fining the houses with empty driveways and cars on the street that belong to that property. So a double whammy to help solve the on street parking. So often driveways are empty, or only one car and another on the street because they cant be bothered to swap around.
Please yes
Yeah the across path parking isnt really ok but if you look at the rest of the st on that pic, there was no other option, full of cars parked on the curb.
Park in the nearest spot and walk. Or buy a car that fits on your property.
It looks like they already tried and had 1 or 2 cars already there trying not to park on the street. I still think maybe unused driveways need something charged if its an issue for the whole street like this pic seems to be.
I live on a busy street and my partner reverses into our driveway for safety reasons as there is very little visual coverage for oncoming traffic due to people parking on the street. People have already crashed into other due to speeding while that person being crashed into waits for my partners to park in the driveway. My car doesn’t physically fit in our driveway and we don’t have a garage. Due to the busy road it also makes it not feasible to swap. Probs don’t fine people like you said, it’s not always because people are lazy.
To be fair it was your choice to buy a vehicle so large it doesn’t fit in your driveway
Correct. But I am legally allowed to do so and don’t see why I should be punished for doing something completely legal and not immoral. I have no problems parking on the street but I also think I shouldn’t be fined for buying a perfectly road legal car.
You're not being fined for buying a car, you're being fined for parking like a self entitled dickhead.
Calm down, no one will punish you if you haven’t broken the law.
I probably meant more the driveways that can fit two cars if they have 2 registered to that address. If it can only fit one then its serving its purpose. But a lot of driveways are able to fit more than one car, they just stay empty for some reason. So if more on your street were encouraged to park in their driveway it would help, right? Do you notice if your neighbours are using their driveways or just parking on the street because they dont want to reverse into their driveways for the busy road too?
Most of the driveways in my street are one car only as it is an old suburb and yeah they will also reverse. That being said my neighbour has a lot of visitors whether they be boy toys or what, I don’t actually know the relationship but they are always parking on the street when they have the largest driveway on the entire block. Yeah it pisses me off but I just accept that’s a public street and I just need to deal with it.
That’s your problem for choosing unsuitable housing
In new builds there is barely enough room for a small car to park outside of the garage... Can't park on the road because it blocks the road, can't park on the verge can't park in your driveway.... Pretty fucked if you ask me
It's the councils who approve the new builds and let developers get away with it.
Smaller property More properties, more properties More rates.. Since bin collection is outscored at least in my council.. It's a no brainer for councils. More rates less actual work
LOL, you think rates even slightly pay for the cost of Waste collection in Australian Local Councils. More strangely you imply that rates are only for the purpose of waste collection and not a specific social cost that all property owners need to pay to provide ALL services for the community that the property exists within.
Why aren't they parking in the garage?
If for a short time it’s okay, think quickly just pulling in to drop off or pickup something (5mins max) is okay. Longer periods of parking the vehicle just starts to become a general obstruction you start to get to a stage where you start to force pedestrian traffic into vehicle traffic or in some instances make it impossible for a disabled person to continue their journey without having to turn around to find an area where they can detour the obstruction. In Queensland you are able to park like this for a legitimate purpose that isn’t just for parking, think a tradesperson completing work on the property where the drive way is not fully accessible. Though in order to do this they are required to clearly mark off the obstruction so that a regular person could spot it from a reasonable distance.
I don't see how the length of time makes any difference. What if someone in a wheelchair rolls up five minutes after you parked and needs to get past? It's ok to make them wait 10 minutes? Point being, any time after you park is "a stage where you start to force pedestrian traffic into vehicle traffic"
I mean I’d maybe forgive the postie van for parking there for half a minute. Not so much a knobhead with more cars than car spaces on their property.
This is more the activity I’m referring to
Nope. I’m not risking my life nor that of my dog because you’re only going to be 15 minutes or so. Why should I navigate onto a main road just because you’re too lazy to park elsewhere?
Please read my full comment.
>Please read my full comment. The one you edited to try and make it sound more reasonable? Not really much point now, is there.
It’s a matter of life and death now? Jeez tone it down fella. Mayb for a wheelchair u could make this argument without sounding like a wanker. WALK around champ
People on this platform are so anally dramatic.
This thread is a great example of what's wrong with Australia. You're all *begging* for the government to intervene and issue fines. Instead of talking about concerns and maybe convincing people to think differently, you just want government to solve your problems by making laws and slapping fines. This is exactly why we are such an overrgulated nanny state. Red tape everywhere because the Australian public begs for it....
What the fuck is talking about it going to do? A majority of the pricks that park this way aren't on Reddit, let alone this sub. You want a little segment on ACA or sunrise? The quickest and simplest way is for the laws to be enforced.
Ah yes, open discourse. Every inconsiderate assholes favourite thing. No one is begging the government to intervene, it’s already the law and has been for a long time. People who break laws open themselves up to punishment. If people weren’t assholes and gave a fuck about their fellow Australians they wouldn’t need to worry about getting fines.
I generally agree. However for many people it may not be safe to talk to the neighbourhood junkie who parks his shitwagon on the footpath, or the local methed up tradie. Sure 8/10 the person is likely reasonable and unaware of their actions but most people don’t want to risk the confrontation.
"Do you think it's fair to be fined for parking in your driveway?" I feel like this journo has an opinion.
Any car parked like that deserves to be keyed. Footpath is not for parking, you inconvenience walkers, runners, cyclists, and most important, those who are mobility-impaired,.
Never knew this was illegal
Never bothered me I understand people have space limitations Not a big deal I wouldn't fine them
It Is a big deal for wheelchair
And prams. And bikes. And walking frames.
I can push a pram on the grass for 2m if I need to
Well you be there for when someone who can’t needs it pushed
can you also park on your own property if you need to?
Good for you champ.
Oh well, as long as *you're* alright mate, then it's not a problem hey.
just go around it not hard
Around it? What if you are in a wheelchair, have limited mobility, are elderly, pushing a pram, a kid on a bike? Just don't park across the footpath.
Just park around it, not hard.
> just go around it not hard Looks like English is though.