A car too far

By Bridget Cook
THE director of a Cranbourne childcare centre believes a car left abandoned on their nature strip is an accident waiting to happen.
Director of Westernport Childcare Centre Joe Giacco said a car had been dumped on their nature strip for the past two weeks and was a traffic hazard.
“It is parked right next to our driveway,” he said. “When you are leaving the building you don’t have a decent view down the road and of oncoming traffic.
“If someone gets killed I don’t want it to come back on us.”
But despite several calls to the Casey Council over the past two weeks, Mr Giacco said not much had been done.
“The council has come down once and put one ticket on it,” he said.
“Someone parks their car in a dangerous spot for two minutes sometimes and they get a fine, yet some clown has parked the car here for two weeks and only received one fine.
A council spokesperson said that on 1 March, a council authorised officer attended to the parked car and an infringement notice was issued for an offence against the Road Safety Road Rules Victoria for parking on a nature strip.
“The vehicle is currently registered and owner details have been requested from VicRoads,” the spokesperson said.
“As no further offence has been committed at this point in time, council is unable to take any further action until it establishes that the vehicle is, indeed, abandoned.”
“If the vehicle is found to be ‘abandoned’ an impound notice will be issued allowing the owner a period of time to remove the vehicle, generally 7-14 days.”
The council investigated 681 reports of abandoned vehicles in 2010.