Parking on nature strips (between your property and the roadside) is far safer to the public with improved visibility for the driver and pedestrians.
However despite the obvious safety concerns, parking on the nature strip is not permitted under our parking laws and you can be fined by parking inspectors or the City Rangers.
The diagram with this article attempts to illustrate the danger posed by forcing vehicles off the nature strip onto the road. Most suburban roads don’t even have line markings making even more obstactles for pedestrians and drivers to negotiate.
There seems to be no public safety reason to force vehicles to park on the road instead of safely off the road. In the countryside its normal to park off the road as far as possible for everyone’s safety, but on suburban street this logic is not applied for some reason.
Plus, homeowners must take care of this area of nature strip and especially with drought conditions it is probably better to improve this area with a hard standing.
Forcing vehicles of the road onto property also poses a significant risk of death or injury particularly to infants and children from reversing vehicles.
I wonder what Pedestrian Council of Australia has to say about this?
Whats more important? Blank green squares of nothingness in front of our homes and apartments or dead children?
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What’s Your opinion?
How parking law enforcement is dangerous to children
In Ngunnawal our roads are so narrow that it’s hard for vehicles to use the road at all if the cars don’t park on the nature strips.
Yep, I take your point and agree with it. I just don’t think it is so widely applicable as to warrant change. It’s based on one typical scenario which is not what all roads are like and which assumes that cars drive in the right lane, which in a recent post we’ve established isn’t polite.
It might be fair enough to say that orderly nature strip parking should be allowed on your street and others like it. But my gut says the necessary road rules about when that is and isn’t allowed would add a layer of complication that the world doesn’t need, and, more importantly, that people would see it as a green light to park where ever they want, thus creating a different kind of danger. It’s not like it is or would be policed heavily. Then you’d just have this argument reversed with people starting to post that nature strip parking is dangerous and cars should be on the road. I can’t see a net gain for society, just a change. With that in mind I like it like it is, all spacious.
mutley…again said :
Thousands.
But we don’t hear anything about it in the media because it’s all part of an ACT Govt cover-up……..
How many kids in Canberra have been killed in this way over the last 5 years?
The “Pedestrian Council of Australia” consists of Harold Scruby and a fax machine. Scruby is a chronic attention seeker who during the 1980s called himself Ausflag and wanted to change the Australian flag. The Sydney media love him and are constantly seeking his comments whenever anything to do with motoring makes the news.
AstralPlane said :
The point is this diagram is supposed to show a typical scenario where it would be better to allow cars to park on the house owners front nature strip (obviously not across footpaths or other locations where line of site becomes an issue).
I live on a straight, wide road next to a school and its 50 zone – I didn’t get a ticket but have seen kids come very close to being hit “Back…and to the left?” as Woody so eloquently put it. The stopping distances and line of sight show of the diagram are from the street. Perhaps a coroners report – for the skeptics – would be a little more scientific…
Woody Mann-Caruso said :
Take you medicine woody before you comment again
I’m not quite with you because I think that’s too simplistic. Just move the car in your second drawing over to the left lane and sight lines are exactly the same. Space is nice, why bugger up a perfectly good nature strip for no gain? And Granny’s got a point. Round our place, for example, people park all over the place – I’ve seen kids ride their bikes out onto the road to avoid riding through the skinny bit of the nature strip between the car and the hedge. That’s bound to be more dangerous than cars parking on the road where they should be. Have a look at the construction areas of Lonsdale St – you can’t walk on the footpath sometimes because the cars block the way.
Seems to me that you’d need to regulate it pretty heavily if you were to allow cars to park on the nature strip. Otherwise some car drivers just assume that they can do whatever they like because they have a car. They don’t think much about what goes on while where away from where they’ve parked, so a simple convenience for them can result in hours of inconvenience for lots of people.
I think I like it how it is, nice and simple – cars go on the road. And for crying out loud, there’s so much road already. How much more of the world should we devote to cars?
PS I say the above as a confirmed petrol head (while there still is some), evidenced by the spare diff/axle and various other bits stored out the front of my place.
Ban cars totally – then we can all sleep soundly at night knowing that there aren’t thousands of children being run down and killed in the ACT each and every day anymore.
Nutjob. Once the kid gets hit, does he go back…and to the left? Back…and to the left?
You too, huh?
blank green squares of nothingness??
not out the front of my place.
try dust bowl.
if people visiting me want to park there, it looks better than the dust….
I would prefer nature strip parking, as long as it doesn’t interfere with footpaths; as it is much more difficult to get past if you are a person with a disability requiring a wheelchair, or a parent with a pram, or a little kid on a set of wheels.
In this case, parking over the footpath often forces the pedestrian off onto the road which could be far more dangerous.
People have started to park in the road in the merging lane just after the lights at Majura Ave and Cowper st. This one is an accident waiting to happen, as cars speeding up to merge are faced with a row of parked cars.
I’d prefer nature strip parking.
One contrast I noticed when moving between Brisbane and Canberra is that noone parks on the street here, not in the suburbs. I dunno why, but they just don’t.