🚀 go-pugleaf

neves@pilsner.cs.colorado.edu (NEVES RICHARD K) writes:

>The following is a letter I just sent off to Parking Services.  In the letter
>I complain about the "wait for the meter to expire" policy and an erroneous
>citation.

>I'm curious about people's opinions on the "wait for the meter to expire" 
>policy.  Am I out of line?

I've had similar experiences with the Boulder City parking nazis. My parents came
to visit me a couple of years ago and we got 3 parking tickets in 2 days. While one 
of these was reasonably considered to be an infraction, the others were found on our
car within a couple of minutes of when the meter *should* have expired. We did not 
actually see the meterperson, he or she must have written the ticket while waiting
for the last couple of minutes to expire (either that, or the meterpeople are re-
quired to take an Evelyn Wood Speedwriting Course :-). Other possible explanations 
are 1) that parking meters are not accurate chronometers (conspiracy theories, any-
one?) 2) the meter person came by the second after the meter expired and therefore
had no way of knowing whether it just expired or had never had any money in it at
all.

Unfortunately, while I think Mr. Neves' letter expressions his frustration well, I
don't think he has clearly indicated what the problem with the "wait for the meter 
to expire (WFTMTE, just in case I need to refer to it again :-))" policy is. It is
a classic case of government (or the authority of your choice) enforcing the letter
of the law instead of just preserving the intent. As is evident here, this usually
occurs when such enforcement has some secondary effect (such as increased revenues)
that never should have been the primary goal. The threat of parking tickets should 
be an incentive for people to move their cars after a reasonable elapsed time; the 
time allowed on a meter tells us what the authorities feel is reasonable, but it is
hard to believe that a minute or two more would actually get anyone's dander up. No,
the answer here is definitely money. The WFTMTE policy means that no expired meter
goes to waste; why go looking for the next expired meter (which might not exist) when
there is $15 just a couple of minutes away. Efficiency rules.

I need to stop rambling on here, but other good examples are rolling stops or
stopping then proceding through a red light at 3:00 on Sunday morning. Laws designed
to protect people become an excuse to make money when there aren't any people around
to protect.



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_______________________________________________________________________________
Matthew  B.  Hicks			Unidata Program Center
matt@unidata.ucar.edu				UCAR, PO Box 3000
303/497-8676					Boulder, CO 80307-3000