Could Singapore’s Land Transport Authority be planning a major revamp of its parking policy to include summon-free parking privileges for those are unable to find ‘legitimate’ parking lots?
Apparently, the LTA believes that its alright to park if you can’t, so long as you have ‘exhausted’ all means of finding such a lot, and your vehicle doesn’t cause obstruction to other road users.
Such a plan could have been sparked by two LTA officers who parked illegally at the Changi Airport Terminal 2 carpark, for reasons yet to be confirmed. LTA responded to his query about the officers by justifying their behaviour, without offering any reason for that justification.
And in Singapore, if it’s all hush-hush, for sure something must be in the works. We’re waiting for LTA to roll out this new coupon for use in times of a legitimate emergency which warrants unlawful parking.
The reader’s letter, and LTA’s reply can be read below.
I was at Changi Airport Terminal 2 earlier this month and I happened to see two LTA bikes parked illegally despite there being several other parking lots around. The bikes were parked at Carpark 2A on Level 3.
I could not see the officers standing anywhere nearby doing work and when I returned over 15 minutes later, the bikes were still there.
I suspect that the LTA officers parked there to go and eat dinner at the canteen.
While I can understand that LTA officers may need to park illegally in order to do their job as they have to park near where they are issuing summons or monitoring traffic, but they certainly can’t do so when they are on errands to buy food!
Worse still, when I sent feedback of the issue to the LTA, they gave me a lame excuse to cover for their officers and avoid having to take any action against them for the blatant abuse of authority.
Here is the email I received from them:
So basically, LTA is saying that they are allowed to park illegally as long as there are no other legitimate parking lots and if they ensure that there was no obstruction to traffic from their illegal parking.
Why would the carpark mark that you can’t park there if it never caused obstruction to traffic?
Based on their messed up logic, we can all just park anywhere if a carpark is full and we don’t block other cars and they shouldn’t summon us.
Seriously, lame excuse.
This letter was written by Brian.
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