Dobbed in by a parking Frog

Parking ticket avoidance is just going to get harder. Photo / Doug Sherring

Avoiding parking tickets is set to become more difficult thanks to some pesky Kiwi ingenuity.

Monkeyroom, a Palmerston North-based innovation hub, is preparing to release its new roadside sensors, known as Frogs.

The solar-powered Frogs, which are mounted on the surface of pay and display carparks, know if a car has not paid for parking or exceeded its time limit, and use radio waves to communicate with the nearest parking meter.

The parking meter then alerts a parking warden, via the internet, to the offending vehicle.

Monkeyroom marketing manager Shareena Sandbrook said the firm had appointed a distributor for the Frogs.

"You will be seeing [Frogs] in New Zealand very, very soon," said Ms Sandbrook.

Non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements meant she could not name the local authorities that would soon be using the Frogs in this country.

A Wellington City Council spokesman said its parking team was considering introducing the Frogs, or similar technology made by other companies, to the capital's streets.

"One of the things that interests us is the fact that Monkeyroom is a New Zealand company," he said.

Ms Sandbrook said Monkeyroom had been working closely with Palmerston North City Council in the development of the product.

Council for Civil Liberties spokesman Michael Bott said the fact that local authorities would consider using the Frogs was an example of councils "being absurd" and "especially greedy".

"[The Frogs are] really part of a surveillance society gone mad," said Mr Bott.

He said parking wardens had granted six minutes of leeway in the past to motorists exceeding the time they had paid for parking, but that had been whittled down over the years.

His organisation would not need to campaign against the Frogs, Mr Bott said, as the public was likely to do that.

"This is really oppressive and I don't think most ratepayers will stand for it - it's obnoxious."

Ms Sandbrook said her father, Monkeyroom founder Don Sandbrook, got the idea for the Frogs after seeing a parking warden chalking car tyres and thinking, "There must be a better way of doing it."

She said Monkeyroom was also negotiating with distributors in Europe and Canada.

Yesterday, the Herald revealed that the Auckland City Council had fined motorists $4.2 million in one year for driving in bus lanes, despite drivers being given no clear indication of when they could enter the lanes to turn left.

A city council spokesman said Auckland was not planning to use the Frogs.