By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A student nurse who incurred $660 of parking fines in a school zone near Dandenong Hospital has had the bill waived by Greater Dandenong Council.
The nurse, who was fined while working at the hospital, told Seven News she’d assumed the school zone didn’t apply due to the Covid-linked shutdown of schools.
She had unknowingly transgressed several times until receiving the infringement notices in the mail.
Greater Dandenong mayor Jim Memeti said the council contacted the nurse to waive and convert the fines into an official warning.
“When enforcing these rules, staff are not aware of the driver’s occupation. This can only be determined through a process of appeal.”
The council didn’t comment on whether it would issue parking permits for hospital staff during Covid.
However Cr Memeti said the hospital could “resolve the problem” by making its “noticeable” on-site car parking free to its staff.
“Council has done this by waiving parking permit fees in its own multideck car parks.”
At the time, the school zone protected children of essential workers were still attending Dandenong North Primary School.
“There are sufficient children attending that a crossing supervisor is required to be on duty and, therefore, the parking restrictions must be enforced,” Cr Memeti said.
“Council’s parking management officers are concentrating on the ‘red signs’ (such as) No Stopping and No Parking on school days, and the notices were only served on school days.
“Red signs are traffic safety signs to protect both motor and pedestrian traffic.”
He said sending infringement notices by post sometimes leads to multiple notices issued before the first one is received.
“This is not an ideal situation but is forced upon us by the current circumstances.”
When asked about the issue, Premier Daniel Andrews said hospital staff shouldn’t be fined while saving lives.
