Parking Suck

[PCGameGuy]

My parking tale is also on a college campus. Kicker is, it was during summer break and we were visiting to see if we wanted our daughter to go to this college! We parked in a _completely_ empty lot, and the parking device was unclear but seemed to indicate that we paid after.

We do the whole 'love our campus tour', a light lunch, and two hours later we get back to the car to find a ticket. Of course, by now everyone is gone and parking is closed, so we took it with us and called to see about challenging it. They reviewed it and said 'It's valid, we are sending it to the DMV if you don't pay'.

So, I paid and that was the last $40 that college ever got from me. I guess the thousands of dollars in tuition, housing, books, etc. for my kid to become a doctor wasn't enough incentive to keep me happy. I gave a good chunk to our local community college instead.

[Sunsetsky]

When I went to UCCS you had to pay for specific parking there. Once you paid for the parking you received something to put on the mirror to show you were allowed to park in a certain parking lot. I remember seeing a campus employee once taking a picture of a car that didn't have the mirror thing and then putting a ticket with the picture on the windshield. I assumed they ticketed a lot of students who later screamed "But I did have something on the mirror!!" and that's why they did the pictures.

[RayvenQ]

I remember my dad getting a ticket...for parking on a corner of our street, with the road ending a couple of meters beyond that, so not like anyone could come round the corner and crash. He still got ticketed even though we lived there.

And the reason he parked there, there was a football match on and by the time he got home that was the only place left. he still had to pay it.

[Polenicus]

I've worked parking enforcement before, so I know a bit about it, but I swear some of the enforcement officers are vultures.

One time I was parking on a street in Toronto. Instead of meters, they had ticket machines every so often. You bought a ticket, displayed it on the dash, and away you went.

I parked, got out of my car, and walked directly to the machine. I was no more than a quarter of a block away. I went directly to the machine, purchased a ticket with a minimum of delay (This is important) turned around and walked back... to find a parking enforcement officer finishing up my ticket.

I can understand maybe being gone 5 minutes resulting in a ticket, but I wasn't even out of sight of my vehicle! I was visibly purchasing a ticket! I asked him if he was writing me a ticket, and said I had just gone and bought one, and held it up. He gave me this sour look, said 'Yeah, I guess that's plausible'. And ripped up the ticket.

If you're going to make people walk to a ticket machine to pay for parking, you should at least give them enough grace time to DO so before slapping them with a fine!