TWO 91-year-old hoons were among 260,522 Queensland drivers

[K93George]

Originally Posted by DMXR6T

I unknowingly risked driving an unlicenced vehicle after returning from overseas. An employee used the car and there was an unpaid parking fine and the vehicle registration had been suspended, unknown to me. This whole approach is about revenue and not justice or road safety.

Depends on the circumstances, parking fines are handed out to prevent people from unfairly using parks, not giving others the chance to park, or it could have even been your employee stole a handicap park. The parking fine most likely would have been justified.

Now, did many months pass and he did nothing to pay the fine? Court orders and the like? The Sheriff may opt to suspend your licence or registration if you just refuse to pay the fine. That explains the suspended registration. Irrelevant you didn't know, if the council made reasonable effort to inform you of the fine, your personal knowledge of the matter, matters to no one but yourself.

No, if it was about revenue you would have a letter of demand, property taken, interest and fees applied for failing to pay the fine. Instead, your registrations was suspended because you didn't after a reasonable timeframe pay back the fine.

[XR6TCraig]

No ones arguing that a the parking fine isn't justified. You park in the wrong place you get a fine.

Whats bogus is that this that the failure of someone else to pay said parking fine could have landed DMXR6T in a life changing position unknowingly.
That hardly seems fair now does it?

[K93George]

The suspension was justified on the basis of the unpaid parking fine if reasonable effort was made to contact DMXR6T. As he was unaware of his suspension, the law allows him to be made aware of his suspension with no fine in relations to driving whilst suspended. A fair exception has now been made. In the future he can't be caught using the same excuse as he is obviously aware of his suspension. I see no issue with this.

To summarise, parking fine issued for unfair use of parks, penalty for not paying parking fine that keeps the use of parking spaces fair for all has not been upheld, further action must be taken to make sure this and all other penalties are upheld. Registration has been suspended as a deterrent for not abiding parking laws but also for not paying the fine which is in itself a deterrent. Completely logical reasoning, DMXR6T can even be excused for driving a car with suspended registration as he was not aware of the suspension.

[XR6TCraig]

Originally Posted by K93George

The suspension was justified on the basis of the unpaid parking fine

Ill stop you right there because I dont believe that a licence suspension should be justifiable for a parking fine. How can such a huge thing be justified for such a small, local government offence?

Suspension of a licence is life changing. If you know about it, it can effect your employment, as well as life outside of work, insurance companies may not see you as a viable risk after the suspension, etc.

If you dont know about it and are involved in an accident while driving, you have no insurance, which could in turn lead to bankruptcy worst case scenario. All because a car registered in your name parked for too long?

I just cant believe that this is a justifiable way to deal with the problem of unpaid parking fines in what is supposed to be a fair and democratic country?

[K93George]

XR6TCraig, his license wasn't suspended, the registration of the vehicle parking illegally was. While the sheriff can in fact suspend your license if all payment options have been exhausted that wasn't the case here.

The suspension is justified as it serves as a deterrent, lets use an example to explain this. We have an increasing number of people parking in handicap parks, they are slapped with a fine which is suppose to discourage them from taking the parks for people who have a disability. They refuse to pay the fine, now, what will discourage them from continuing to steal handicap parks, parking in front of driveways etc? Well, after many attempts to have the fine resolved, the sheriff suspends the registration or license of the offender, which is merely temporary, once the fine is paid for, the license will be reinstated.

You have merely taken a quote midsentence and used it to base your entire argument. I provided a logical sequence of why the suspension was justified.

Of course, just suspending a registration or license for a parking infringement is absurd. Not when we take into consideration the fine wasn't resolved. DMXR6T's case is an exception like the few others, the systematic discouragement of illegal parking is to prevent people from continuing to cause unfair inconvenience to others and when they do so and refuse to pay the fine, well we have deterrent for not paying the fine.

I'll leave it at that Craig, you can have the final comment.

[XR6TCraig]

I don't believe it is an appropriate deterrent for what amounts to a local council cash grab for parking somewhere for too long.
While I dont condone ignoring parking signage and I can honestly say that I have never had a parking fine, I cant stomach that this is an appropriate deterrent.

It is heavy handed. It also has the danger attached of non insurance in such cases where the owner is unaware of the cancellation. If rego is cancelled, so is CTP insurance. How would you feel if DMXR6T had collided with your vehicle and hurt you while unknowingly driving his unregistered car? His CTP wouldn't cover you. Yours may not either. You would have to pay for any medical bills yourself! All sorts of complications could arise from this scenario just because of a cash grab by a local government authority.

If you want a deterrent, there are many other options which would be more suitable. Towing the vehicle, wheel clamps, tacking the parking fine plus interest plus admin fee to a rates notice, etc, etc. These are all better options than just cancelling rego. Then there is the use of the legal system. Subpoena the owner to appear in court or pay up. The inconvenience of that alone would be enough of a deterrent!

[noflac52]

An interesting scenario!

Whilst I don't agree with burnouts on the street I also don't agree with confiscation of vehicles for what amounts to the potential to cause injury or harm rather than the actual causing of harm.

BUT!!! for the sake of this debate and the fact that vehicles are already being confiscated why not do it in this instance as well?

The fine has not been paid and the owner of the vehicle is not aware of this so he drives it unregistered thus creating the potential for undue harm as XR6TCraig has pointed out.

It seems to me that if the vehicle was confiscated at the time that the rego was due to be cancelled, as an alternative. Two things would probably happen.

1 The employee would pay the fine to get the car back and maybe save their job or

2 The owner would be immediately aware of the situation and address the problem to get the vehicle back, thus the rego is never cancelled so this situation could not exist.

What would not be able to happen is that anyone could innocently drive the vehicle, unawares that it is not registered and incurring all the problems associated with doing so!

[Boomerang]

91 eh? So I'm not too old yet ... wooo-hooo give me the smell of burning rubber!