You can be fined $60 for parking in own driveway depending on the material used, lawyer warns – paving is always better

AN ATTORNEY has educated her viewers as to why people get tickets for parking in their driveway - and it has to do with composition.

Parking in a driveway is luxury, as it's a guaranteed spot away from the street.

Though, some drivers in Buffalo, New York have been fined $60 for parking in the driveway, collectively confused as to why they're being issued a ticket on their own property.

Alex Mario, an attorney practicing in the region, revealed the answer to be the problematic question as part of a recent video uploaded to her YouTube channel (@CarterMarioLawFirm): composition.

"Turns out, their gravel driveways were the culprits," she said.

"Gravel is a no-go in Buffalo."

Mario is referring to a story published in 2020, where a group of Buffalo residents were ticketed $60 a person for parking on a gravel driveway to pay respects to a cherished friend who'd passed in a traffic accident.

The tickets said they parked on an 'unpaved area of a front or side yard.'

Sheila Lewicki, the mother of the young man who'd passed away, was deeply hurt, as the event was intended to honor her son, and the flurry of parking tickets only cut deeper.

After talking with WIVB 4, the tickets were rescinded - as Mario pointed out - and mentioned the crucial way to make parking on a gravel driveway legal.

"If you have a gravel driveway, you have to park for a green code exception," she said.

The Buffalo Green Code's website says that gravel driveways are not a non-slip material, and therefore, needs written permission to be used as a driveway material.

"Gravel may be used as a surface material only with the written consent of the Commissioner of Permit and Inspection Services," the website reads.

"The portion of a driveway within a public right-of-way must be constructed in accordance with the specifications of the Commissioner of Public Works, Parks, and Streets."

Mario's viewers felt confused by Buffalo's rule, with one user saying they were told that gravel was an environmental hazard.

"I was told by my HOA that we can't park on our driveway because it's gravel," he said.

"Their reasoning is that my car could leak fluids and it would pollute the soil."

Another user responded to his comment, writing that paving a driveway isn't as clean compared to gravel.

"As opposed to the oil that leaches from a blacktop driveway," they wrote.

"Reason 38,355,674 why you don't buy into an HOA neighborhood."