‘Unfair’: Complaints rise over multimillion-dollar Adelaide ticketing car
Adelaide City Council is reviewing its use of a specialist parking fine car after growing complaints about the way it is amassing millions of dollars in fines.
Moves are being made to make City of Adelaide’s Park Safe vehicle system introduced in 2021 “better” and “fairer” after growing complaints over its mounted camera system targeting high-impact areas around North Adelaide and the CBD.
The vehicle was introduced in 2021 to capture potential parking breaches with footage captured by the vehicles reviewed by trained parking and information officers who then issued fines, last financial year the system amassed $4.25 million in fines from those pinged.
Councillor Keiran Snape on Tuesday night called on the council to “seek a better, fairer, more human system” to the Park Safe system.
“I have received multiple complaints and concerns raised from the community — people are getting pinged despite not illegally parking,” Snape said.
“There are countless issues, for example people pulling out of the garage, closing the garage door, jumping into the car and being pinged despite only being absent from their vehicle for a few seconds.”
He also raised concerns over the notification process, with drivers receiving expiation notices “two to three weeks” after the offence.
“For example, a resident or visitor has pulled in to let the car pass, three weeks later they are supposed to remember the exact scenario to create a defence. That doesn’t seem entirely reasonable,” he said.
In 2024/25, Park Safe expiations returned $4.25 million of council’s total parking expiation revenue.
It was understood that suspending the use of Park Safe operations would have an immediate impact on expiation revenue for the council, resulting in a budget shortfall in 2025/26 of $1.6m.
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“I’m not saying I’m against the system as a whole, but I think we need to seriously have a look at the fairness aspect, the human element rather than just the automation,” Snape said.
His concerns were backed during the meeting with a review into the Park Safe system approved by council.
Keiran Snape is running in the state election as an independent candidate for the seat of Adelaide and will be required to take leave from the Adelaide City Council from March 2.
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