More Accidents Caused by Parallel Parking

In the last 12 years, in the City of Yarra there have been a lot more collisions involving parallel parked cars (302 accidents with 80 going to hospital), compared with angled parked cars (9 accidents with 3 going to hospital) according to Victorian Road Crash Data published by the State Government.

We asked Council four questions at the 13th of August council meeting including what evidence they had used to determine that angled parking was dangerous.  Considering our questions were submitted to Council over 24 hours before the meeting, we were very disappointed that Council made almost no effort to answer any of the questions. In response we wrote a joint letter to Council expressing our disappointment and reiterating our questions.  We were offered a phone call to discuss our concerns.  We politely declined expressing that as the issue is of great concern for a large number of individuals and businesses, we preferred to have an answer in writing so that we can definitely state this is what we asked the council, and this is their reply. 

Council has sat on our letter for 4 weeks and we have heard nothing.  Given the council has refused to be transparent and provide the evidence that they used to determine that angled parking is dangerous for cyclists, we decided to investigate the collisions involving cyclists with parallel and angled parked cars.  We found the following information in Victorian Road Crash Data published by the State Government:

In the last 12 years (01/01/2012 – 02/04/2024) the following accidents with cyclists have occurred in the City of Yarra:

• 6 collisions with cars leaving angled parking with 1 requiring the cyclist to go to hospital
• 3 collisions with cars entering angled parking with 2 requiring the cyclist go to hospital

During the same period of time:

• 259 doorings where the car door of a parallel parked car was opened into the path of a cyclist.  68 of the doorings required the cyclist going to hospital
• 24 collisions with cars leaving parallel parking, with 6 required to go to hospital
• 19 collisions with cars entering parallel parking, with 6 required to go to hospital

i.e. There were 302 accidents and 80 hospitalisations involving parallel parked cars while only 9 accidents and 3 hospitalisations associated with angled parking. Why does Council insist that angled parking is so much more dangerous than parallel parking? 

The council has sent out numerous letters to the community stating that the replacement of angled parking was informed by the 2021 Community Vision in which 86% respondents wanted to see “a lot more active and sustainable transport options” rather than “a lot more cars and parking spaces”.  This does not translate to residents wanting to see “less parking spaces”.  This is a serious misinterpretation of survey results.

In the light of all the above, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Council‘s plan to remove angled parking is ideologically driven and is based neither on hard evidence nor on specific agreement by residents to reduce available parking spaces. It begs the question, what other decisions is this council making without any basis?

The Fitzroy Residence Association (FRA) recently held a Meet the Candidates event for the MacKillop (Fitzroy) ward.  Stephen Jolly and Charlotte George were present.  Unfortunately, the other 2 candidates, Belle Gibson and Renee Smith were unable to attend.  When asked about the removal of angled parking the candidates had the following responses:

• Stephen Jolly said that if he and another 4 independents in other wards were elected, angle parking would not be removed, otherwise if he was elected without the balance of power, he would be advocating that angled parking not be removed from Fitzroy.
• Charlotte George said that the angled parking may need to be removed from some streets in Fitzroy to make room for dedicated bike lanes.

If this is an important issue to you, you may wish to ask the candidates for your ward what is their stance on the removal of angled parking.

Questions asked at the Council Meeting 13th August

The questions the four residents asked at the 13th of August council meeting and Council’s response can be heard by viewing this linked video.  The questions about angled parking begin at the timestamp of 16:30.

Letter Sent to Council Reiterating Our Questions

A copy of the letter we sent to Council reiterating our questions and why we believe it is important they are answered can be viewed here . Please note in the letter that the link to the VicRoads website no longer displays the page with the quote “one of the biggest risks to bike riders is car doors being opened into their path”.  VicRoads has moved it to this page.