🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug8.041733.29756@colorado.edu> salim@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Salim Alam) writes:
>Also, in response to the "entrapment" charge:  Don't the traffic cops
>hang around waiting for people to speed?  How different is this, in
>principle, from meter maids waiting for meters to expire?   That IS
>their job... 

Big difference.  A speeder is *already* commiting an infraction whereas
the person at the meter is quite legally parked.  A traffic cop waits for
a law-breaking speeder to drive by while a parking n*zi waits for a
legally parked car to become illegally parked.  In this way the parking
monitor is more able to blur the line between legal/illegal when the meter
expires and the parking patron is on the way to the car.

The *big* point behind all of this is that the parking monitors
are motivated by revenue, not by fairly regulating parking. Is it really 
necessary to ticket a car by an expiring meter while the owner is walking to 
the car door?  Sure, if you are motivated by revenue collections (to
pay for garages, or satisfy quotas or whatever perverse reasons exist).

Rich