In light of the increasing use of electronic cameras by local authorities to enforce and provide parking summonses, a bill was proposed by the Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, MK Uri Maklev, seeking to regulate the matter.

According to the bill, the authorities will not be able to place electronic cameras to enforce the parking summonses, with the exception of municipalities that have agreed and are authorized to do so. In addition, the cameras will be placed in places where it is not possible to enforce violations in the usual manner.

In addition, the bill, signed by Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni and Chairman of the Knesset Economics Committee, MK Eitan Cabel, also signed a bill that would prominently warn against these cameras.

This bill is accompanied by an additional bill that seeks to complete the regulation of the issue and is a requirement to shorten the delivery days of the summons to the recipient. According to the current situation, a summons can be sent for parking out of place or travel public transport in a period of up to three months which the gravity of the many cases in which it is impossible to remember the nature of the offense and to protect itself from it, this proposal requires that the time of sending the fine be shortened to a period not exceeding thirty days.

MK Uri Maklev explained that camera enforcement is a very dramatic thing that needs to be reached after a comprehensive discussion regarding the issue of privacy of citizens in the public sphere. In this way, the citizen does not know how to defend himself properly. The report, rather than thieves at night, is a form of enforcement that cannot be enforced in any other way. This is not a form of enrichment for the municipality, but rather a means of deterrence and we must regard it as such.

The explanatory notes to the bill state that in recent years a method of enforcement against parking offenses has been prevalent in the local authorities, using cameras installed in places where parking offenses are committed. The question of whether this method of enforcement is permitted under the law is unclear, even though it improves law enforcement and serves as an effective deterrent against parking offenses that create hazards, traffic jams and traffic hazards and endanger pedestrians and drivers.

Therefore, it is proposed to establish that a local authority will enforce a parking violation using a camera only if it is authorized to do so. In addition, the deployment of enforcement technology without an appropriate signal, harms deterrence and the ability to prevent offenses, and therefore a municipality opting to use these means must have an appropriate sign explaining all the technical means in use, in detail.

In addition, the initiators explain that the current law states that the period of time for which a fine may be sent to charge a traffic violation of parking in a prohibited place or on a public transportation route is three months, except for certain cases. In light of the local authorities’ use of cameras to document parking violations, both on fixed cameras and on a vehicle with a supervisor sitting and photographing. There is no meeting between the inspector and the driver of the vehicle, but a photographed vehicle and the fine is sent by mail to the debtor’s home.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)