St. John's wants citizens to report illegal parking

St. John's city council is grappling with how to prevent misuse of blue zone parking spaces reserved for disabled people and it's asking residents to help them issue tickets to offenders.

Councillor Gerry Colbert chairs the city's traffic committee. He said more patrols are not necessarily the answer.

"It’s a nuisance and unfortunately it is very, very difficult to catch them, ticket them, and prosecute," said Colbert.

"The only thing that we can do today at least with people with cell phones – all they have to do is call our 311 number and we can dispatch someone fairly quickly to a blue zone or to a fire lane to issue a ticket. These are really critical issues for us."

Colbert says the real solution is for drivers to respect the needs of disabled people.