🚀 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.



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

 I have seen tickets on cars with time left on the meters. . I guess the 
assumption is that if there is less than 5 minutes left you are not going 
to make it back before it expires. They are hard to dispute because how
can you produce evidence that there was time left before the ticket was 
written(in the case of the non-computerized meters). 

Another one I love is when I put half an hour on a meter come back in
25 minutes and it's already expired. I swear some of those meters are
fast so you end up putting more than enough money to ensure you've got
enough time. 

	I too have come back and found tickets that should not have been there.
(Well OK, one that I know shouldn't have been there).  I checked the time
after I put in the money, and left.  When I came back I found a ticket on
my windshield, with the time 10 minutes before the meter should have
expired.  [It should have expired 3 minutes before I got back].  There was
no sign of the meter person, and I was in a BAD mood from having had to deal
with other arms of the university prior to that, So I dropped a quarter in
the envelope with a very nasty note pointing out that the ticket was in error,
and I would contest it if they weren't happy with the quarter (Far more than
they actually deserved).  I actually got a letter of appology, and the
quarter back a few weeks later.

	I don't think the parking nazis themselves are the least bit reasonable,
but there is someone with more sense the gravel somewhere in the hierarchy.

	Richard.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
rbeach@uswest.com or rbeach@orac.metronet.org   "With a 100Gb of memory I'm
Richard Beach                                capable of rubbing my tummy,
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Boulder, Colorado   USA                      a trillion FP operations at once."

In article <1992Jul30.190212.8564@colorado.edu> fielden@spot.Colorado.EDU (j.a. fielden) writes:

>Another one I love is when I put half an hour on a meter come back in
>25 minutes and it's already expired. I swear some of those meters are
>fast so you end up putting more than enough money to ensure you've got
>enough time. 


I got a ticket once on a meter on one of the side streets off
University, just east of Broadway.  I had an hour on the meter, got
back 50 minutes later, and had an expired meter and a ticket.  I wrote
to the city (enclosing the unpaid ticket), told them I put money in at
12:23 p.m. and came back at 1:13 p.m. to find it expired, and told
them I was not paying the ticket.  I never heard another peep out of
them ...

The pen really is mightier than the sword.  Try writing to them.



--
Vicki Holzhauer, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colorado / / / /  vicki@ncar.ucar.edu

It's pretty clear from all the responses here, and in similar discussions I've
had, that something is really quite wrong with the conduct of the parking
management system.  Infractions are simply too common and you must agree this
is not appropriate conduct by people *we* are paying to police the streets.

Perhaps we could make a change in that if we get together and decide on some
sort of group letter?  Perhaps a group organized to rebuke the parking
system? Or just all of us sending letters?

What do y'all think?  Any ideas?



-- 
David Knapp                                      University of Colorado, Boulder
Highly Opinionated, Aging  and                      knapp@spot.colorado.edu
Perpetual Student of Chemistry and Physics.
            Write me for an argument on your favorite subject.

fielden@spot.Colorado.EDU (j.a. fielden) writes:

> I have seen tickets on cars with time left on the meters. . I guess the 
>assumption is that if there is less than 5 minutes left you are not going 
>to make it back before it expires. They are hard to dispute because how
>can you produce evidence that there was time left before the ticket was 
>written(in the case of the non-computerized meters). 

There is a practice, especially among poverty stricken grad students who
don't qualify for parking lot permits, of placing an old ticket on the
windshield when parking.  The desperate hope is that the parking nazis will
not ticket an already ticketed car.  That may explain the tickets residing
on windshields of legally parked car with time left on the meter.

>Another one I love is when I put half an hour on a meter come back in
>25 minutes and it's already expired. I swear some of those meters are
>fast so you end up putting more than enough money to ensure you've got
>enough time. 

I have definitely been *gotten* with this one.

Barb
-- 
Barbara G. Davis                       Internet:  davis@ucsu.colorado.edu
University of Colorado, Boulder 

                   If I don't ask, you can't say, "Yes!".

In article <1992Jul31.162405.28008@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> davis@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Barbara Davis) writes:
>
>There is a practice, especially among poverty stricken grad students who
>don't qualify for parking lot permits,

What!?  Grad students don't qualify for parking permits?? (or is it
only *poverty-stricken* grad students :-)  Makes me *triply* glad I
ride the bus!!  (never tried to get a permit, so I never heard
this...)

Carolyn
-- 
Carolyn Buck-Gengler		Department of Linguistics
buckc@ucsu.colorado.edu		University of Colorado, Boulder