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Parking with Care

First private toll road owners in NSW gained the right to levy fines with the full threat of licence disqualification, although the Government has assured us that only its State Debt Recovery Office has access to the details of vehicle owners. Now

The questionable scenario arrived in Newcastle recently when the private company Care Park took over the operation of what is known as the Spotlight carpark in Newcastle West. The procedure and rules for using the car park underwent a major and sudden change, and those who didn't know may well have received under their windscreen wiper something Care Park carefully describes as a payment notice. It looks like a fine, it is set out like a fine, but it is instead, Care Park says, "a demand for payment of liquidated damages for breach of contract".

The car park has long had free parking for a couple of hours for Spotlight customers, and still does, but previously a ticket dispensed as the vehicle entered the parking station was assessed at a boom gate and the parker was free to go. Now the driver must get a ticket from a machine in a corner, stipulate the duration of time required and display the ticket on the dashboard. There are plenty of Terms and Conditions and other signs on display but it is entirely understandable that a driver familiar with the former system won't read them. Why would you?

But don't get a ticket, exceed the stipulated time or don't display a ticket on the dashboard and someone Care Park describes as a parking officer will impose a payment demand for $88.

What happens if you don't pay. Care Park applies to a court for an order that the RTA furnish it with the names and addresses of certain vehicles, perhaps hundreds at a time, and since a ruling against the RTA by the NSW Court of Appeal in mid 2007 its application is granted as a matter of course. On its website, by the way, Care Park says it will "generally use and disclose your personal information for the purposes related to the main purpose for which the information was collected"! Generally!

Having gained your name and address Care Park sends a letter of demand to you at home, threatening to unleash debt collectors and solicitors if you don't pay the damages it says it is due because you didn't display a ticket. The most it could have lost on the day is $7.50, the price of all-day parking, but it assesses fair compensation as $88.

It works for Care Park because it will cost uch, much more than $88 to contest the payment demand in a civil court, and if you win it is entirely possible that Care Park will appeal.

Use the Spotlight carpark at what may be an unknown risk.

A boomgate system at the car park would be simpler and would not leave users of the car park inadvertently exposed to Care Park's demands, but on the other hand it would leave Care Park without the income of the so-called liquidated damages.

We need government to protect us from the excesses and might of private enterprise. Where are you, Nathan Rees? Jodi McKay? And where are you on this?

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Posted By: Jeff Corbett on 27/10/2009 5:04:00 PM | Comments (28)

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If you enter into a contact and break it are you not liable for the conditions of default in the contract? Its take care in what contacts you enter into and how your perform to their requirements -if you take an advantage under conditions you must perform according to those conditions - or else. (rules of a game)Personal responsible for being able to live up to agreements entered into. Of course theres always extenuating circumstances beyond ones control - then one has to examine the ability of the beneficiery of a default contract to have influenced those circumstances. But that never happens? Or do the default conditions get maximised by the winners - umm like the loser blinking at the wrong time in a poker game? free market forces dont you love them? run to your mumi and cry if you cant be responsible for your own commercial footprint? oh who is mumi here - oh our politicians? best way is to empower yourself as a consumer is just dont deal with unsavoury vendors that you feel are acting without scruples. if they have any sense of sustainable business practice -they will change! I suspect any astute politition might say the same - but that would be putting tickets on myself?

Posted by notalawyer, 28/10/2009 10:02:46 AM

Jeff - Chinese backed company "Hightrade" are probably interested in buying that car park. Then you'll get some help from the pollies. 50% of the toll paid to used the Sydney cross city tunnel goes to Hong Kong billionaire La Ki-Shing (after NSW govt support to get the contract). Don't worry about the prostitutes in Islington - it is the ones in Macquarie Street, Sydney that are the most damaging to our country.

Posted by U$er pay$, 28/10/2009 10:09:37 AM

Isn't Mackay under the cloak of invisibility that comes with the NSW Seat of Newcastle? The one she inherited from Bryce Gaudry?

Posted by Scott Hillard, 28/10/2009 10:18:17 AM

If you look at it Jeff, I personally had to go to a Sydney hospital on numerous occassions & what I found was that it cost a car $4 dollars an hour, but anything over 4 hours it was classed as a day pass that cost people $18 for a day pass. But the strange thing that went with it was that if anyone overstayed the day visit they got charged an extra $17 dollars per day without hour c until the vechiles were removed... No word of a lie Jeff, during my stay in the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, I reckon I saw at least 10 cars get towed away in a 3 day period & asked someone what was going on to which they told me any car in the carpark stayed over 5 days without payment got towed away with fines & payment to recover ones car.. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, because they wouldn't of even known if a person was hospitalised for anything & still took the vechiles that overstayed, but the worst thing was that when I came back to Newcastle after major surgery, the John Hunter Hospital raised their parking fees too a week later... I tell you now Jeff, if your going for a stay in a public hospital, get a lift !!! If your going to stay in a Sydney hospital.. Take the train mate!

Posted by The Real Tough Titties, 28/10/2009 10:24:51 AM

With State and Federal Governments absolving themselves of everything from roads to garbage collection, and having sold off most of the country's silverware to overseas opeartors, what is the point of maintaining these two tiers of Government, Local Government will control all these essential services and only take a minimum of 5 years to make any decision and that is only if they are allowed to talk outside their star chambers. What has happened to this once great country and life style. Are we really governed by the unknowing, led by the uncaring and heading to who knows where?

Posted by MizJasper, 28/10/2009 10:25:43 AM

Do "we need government to protect us from the excesses and might of private enterprise"? I say NO. We need to take full personal responsibility for our actions. Sure, Care Park should have implemented a 3 month transition for the new arrangements, and it would be a decent thing for them to forgive the first fine for each rego number. But why should "we" be protected by the government, who don't seem to be able to protect us from themselves? It is, after all, private property, and in a free country the owners are surely entitled to do what they want to, within the bounds of the law. Read the signs, make your own decision about where you park. Take full responsibility.

Posted by Abundance, 28/10/2009 10:37:19 AM

I agree, and we will not be visiting Spotlight anymore as a result. We will, as they say, vote with our feet. This would appear to be a despicable business practice.

Posted by Greg, 28/10/2009 11:03:16 AM

love these companies that send letters of demand that look like a legal document to scare most people into paying without question. i have had westpac chasing me for 12 months to pay a charge for overdrawing my debit visa.. fat chance they will get anything , it is a DEBIT visa. i can only spend my own money. if they want to hand out money to people trying to rort me that is not in my account good luck to them , but they will be paying it. they too have sent me numerous threatening letters which i have called their bluff, telling them and their debt collectors to go their hardest they will be recieving squat from me. havnt heard from them now for 2-3 months. grrrrrrrr i reckon their are heaps of people who would pay this sort of thing without question.

Posted by catlicker, 28/10/2009 11:45:23 AM

I wouldn't go bothering the premier or our local "yes-minister for silence" with such banal trvialities, they're too busy planning for next year's forced retirement.

Posted by Mr Fecal Coliforms, 28/10/2009 12:06:34 PM

Sorry, I misspelled that bloke's name. Look up a SMH article via google: "Li Ka-shing the toll collector". So it is not enough that our tolls and parking etc go to persons inside Australia - but a huge chunk are going OUTSIDE Australia. Laughable. Pollies are slime and have made Australia instead a cheap whore.

Posted by U$er pay$, 28/10/2009 12:09:04 PM

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