Page 1882 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 May 2009
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To give some background to the amendments in this bill, I believe it would be of benefit to the Assembly if I explained how the current arrangements for the removal of vehicles work. At present, a vehicle that presents a danger to traffic or obstructs traffic can, under certain circumstances, be removed immediately by police or authorised government officers. In particular, this applies to a vehicle that is on a road and is likely to cause a danger to the public.
Where a vehicle is neither dangerous nor an obstruction, city rangers have to form a suspicion that the vehicle has been abandoned before they can commence action to remove it. Simply having a vehicle parked in a public area for any length of time is not usually sufficient grounds for suspecting that it has been abandoned. The Roads and Public Places Act already provides some examples of what might support a suspicion that a vehicle has been abandoned, such as the vehicle being in a state of disrepair or having a very poor general appearance, including a build-up of dust or other debris. If a vehicle is left in a built-up area, the city rangers make inquiries of locals to try to ascertain if it has been abandoned.
It is very important to remember that the city rangers must suspect a vehicle of being abandoned before they can move it. That is already a requirement of section 12E of the act. It is an important initial step that the rangers must comply with, and this bill does not alter that requirement. If a city ranger suspects a vehicle is abandoned and is unregistered, he or she can arrange to have it removed immediately. This bill does not change that arrangement.
However, when a vehicle appears to be abandoned but is still registered, the city rangers have to take an additional step to try to contact the owner by sending a notice to the registered operator of the vehicle. At present, that notice is required to be mailed to the address of the registered operator. The registered operator has two days, from the date that they are given the notice, to remove the vehicle, before it can be moved to a retention area. The current regime unravels when it comes to working out precisely when the two-day period expires.
City rangers need to take into account delays for weekends and public holidays. They need to consider the possibility that the notification letter missed collection. Sometimes the residential address itself may delay mail delivery, particularly in cases where a car registered in another state is abandoned in the ACT. Of course, there may be times when the registered operator has moved but not updated their registration details, so the notice fails to reach them in any event. The end result is that the city rangers in the past have erred on the side of caution and have left some apparently abandoned vehicles in situ sometimes for up to a week, often resulting in vandalism or theft and in some instances the complete destruction of the vehicle by fire.
The bill circumvents these problems by allowing a city ranger to serve notice on the registered operator or owner by simply affixing a notice to the vehicle. The bill treats the affixing of the notice to the vehicle as the giving of notice to the registered operator. The time period for removal of the vehicle commences when the notice is placed on the car. However, should that time frame expire on a weekend, sections 151 and 151A of the Legislation Act provide for an extension of time.
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