Parking Ticket - how to dodge yours

This page explains how to dodge your Council or private Parking Ticket.

Have you received a parking ticket from an Australian government agency (e.g. council or police), or from a private parking company? If so, you've come to the right place.

The options to challenge your private parking fine is explained on the faq pages of this website. Whilst the options to challenge your government parking fine is explained on this page.

Parking Ticket from government Agencies

The options between the two sorts of tickets varies somewhat. All government agencies offer an appeal services to appeal your ticket. If there were genuine mitigating circumstances, government agencies will often come to the party and withdraw the ticket.

Parking Tickets from private companies

However, with private parking companies, their appeals are almost always refused. Their appeal mechanisms are put in place merely to get you to admit you were at fault and to obtain your name and address, so that they can then send letters of demand to you. However, in the end, even if you don't send your appeal, they will still get your name and address from the roads and vehicle registration office in your state. Rather, the reason for appealing your parking ticket to a private company is to force them to stop sending your demands. If they keep sending you demands after you have denied liability for the parking ticket, then the company risks falling foul of consumer protection laws.

It is important when appealing a parking ticket issued by a private company not to give away who the driver was. This is because it is up to the company to prove who the driver was (which it usually cannot). So if you do decide to appeal your parking ticket, then it should be written in the third person. "I am the registered owner of the vehicle. The driver ...".

You will see my template carefully words the parking ticket appeal so that it is not admitted who the driver was.