By BRIDGET COOK
THE City of Casey will push for tougher penalties for truck drivers who park for extended periods of time in residential areas, to ensure they are not ruining neighbourhood amenity.
At last week’s Casey council meeting, Councillor Rosalie Crestani received unanimous support for her motion to write to the Minister for Roads advocating for an increase in penalties associated with parking trucks in residential streets.
Ms Crestani said at present, it could be cheaper for an operator to break the local law than pay for truck storage.
“Storing a truck costs can vary and be upwards of $600 a month, so an infringement of $87 is not a big enough cold hard slap to prevent ongoing infringements,” she said.
“If the same truck was charged $87 once a week for a month, the total would only be about $350.
“That’s still cheaper for an operator to break the local law than pay for parking.”
Ms Crestani said this was not about targeting those who abided by the law, but only those who did the wrong thing.
Currently drivers of a long or heavy vehicle are prohibited from stopping in a built-up area for longer than one hour unless permitted by signs, the local council, or when dropping off or picking up goods.
“At this point I want to highlight that there is a numerous amount of operators who abide by the law and operate their business in an ethical fashion,” Cr Crestani said.
“This isn’t about diminishing businesses; the economy is a high priority.
“This is about looking after the amenity of our great city and creating conditions that help support those to make better choices to do such.
“Furthermore, ratepayers shouldn’t have to pay for damage caused by trucks doing the wrong thing too, such as damage to footpaths and kerbs.
“By advocating this increase in infringements, it will hopefully reduce infringements issuing and the flow-on effect will further protect our neighbourhoods, as well as reduce damage and the costs involved.”
VicRoads Director of Vehicle and Road Use Policy James Holgate said VicRoads had no plans to review the current penalties.
“The parking infringement penalty for this offence is consistent with similar parking fines as set out in the Road Safety Regulations 2009,” he said.
“Victoria carried out a comprehensive review of these, and other, regulations in 2009.
“During this process, councils were extensively consulted. No proposals were put forward as part of this consultation process to increase these parking penalties.
“If a local council believes there is a problem at a particular location or with a particular offender, it has the option to pursue the matter in court where higher penalties are available.
“Existing legislation provides for a court imposed penalty of up to $433.”
