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![]() Pedestrian Council of
Safety – Amenity – Access – Health
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Schoolzone Scandal
FoI Reveals Our Children Are Not Safe
Parking Enforcement in Schoolzones and in NSW Generally an Utter Farce “A Meter-Maid Mentality: It’s All About Revenue-Raising and Safety Be Damned” The Chairman of the PCA, Harold Scruby today released the results of a Freedom of Information (FoI) application revealing the number and value of parking infringements issued by all NSW Councils and NSW Police for the year ended 30 June 2008. 2 90 Councils did not issue one ticket for illegal parking in schoolzones 3 An average of 1.84 tickets were issued per schoolzone for illegal parking 4 The number of [P] Public Safety infringements issued was 27% while the number of [T] Traffic Flow (parking meters and time zones) was 83% of total infringements issued 5 Councils like Maitland with 106 schoolzones issued 9 tickets and Cessnock with 111 schoolzones issued 1 ticket In May 2007, the NSW Department of Local Government released its ‘Review of Parking Enforcement’. Ignoring all the available data it found: (QUOTE) ‘the review has not found any evidence that councils use parking enforcement primarily as a revenue-raising tool.’ Mr Scruby said: “This FoI has proven that in NSW, there’s a meter-maid mentality: It’s all about revenue-raising and safety be damned. There’s: No direction, objectives, priority, consistency, transparency, or accountability. There’s No auditing or Council comparisons. No bench-marking. No state-wide review. No overall management. No duty of care. “We are calling on all three Ministers (Local Government, Roads and Police) to create a taskforce which constantly monitors all Councils so that safety comes before parking meters. “They patrol, but they won’t enforce. They tell the offenders to ‘move on’. They issue warnings but they won’t issue tickets. They focus on the easy targets where there is no potential for harm, where the issuing of parking tickets is robotic and non-confrontational. “Road Trauma costs NSW over $6 billion per annum. But local Councils do not pay one cent towards these costs. That’s why the NSW Government must act immediately and take an active role in the management of parking enforcement to ensure that all Councils put safety first and meters last.” Mr Scruby said.
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