New grace period to help motorists avoid parking fines

A 10-minute grace period on penalties started on Thursday, as a part of a state government package of reforms designed to introduce a fairer approach to parking fines that will save motorists money.

Treasurer Dominic Perrrottet said motorists who have paid for ticketed parking for at least an hour won’t have to panic about the impact of being just a few minutes late.

“This is a common sense approach to parking penalties that doesn’t impact road safety. People shouldn’t have their day ruined or their weekly budget compromised for a slight delay in returning to their car when they’ve shown intent to do the right thing,” Mr Perrottet said.

The grace period applies to ticketed or couponed parking, which forms the majority of overstay parking offences.

It doesn’t apply to private car parks, to meters which do not issue parking tickets and in areas such as bus lanes, clearways, transit lanes, mail zone and special event parking.

When parking penalties are imposed, motorists will soon discover they’re not as onerous as they used to be.

Last December, Wingecarribee Shire Council voted to reduce parking fines from $112 to $80 from March 1, 2019.

So far, 18 councils and five universities have opted in to start lowering their fines.

There will be three further opt-in opportunities this year – in June, September and December.