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by matwood 5653 days ago
I think I understand what the poster was talking about. I live in a decent neighborhood where it's mostly on street parking. The way my street sets up, even though it is a 2-way street it's mostly one way traffic. This leads to people parallel parking on both sides of the street while facing the same way (it's a fine to parallel park facing opposite of traffic). When I moved in over 18 months ago everyone was parked incorrectly. I parked incorrectly for 13 months before one night on the last day of the month we all received $30 parking fines at 3am.

I talked to a few of my neighbors and this was the first time they had seen fines given. I along with others parked the wrong direction for at least 13 months without a fine. So, either police never patrolled our neighborhood during that time or they decided to apply the law only when they feel like it, i.e. to meet their quota. Revenue generation at its finest!
3 comments
viraptor 5653 days ago
That is something I don't really agree with. Maybe they didn't patrol that area, maybe they didn't have enough people, maybe for some other reason...

Anyways, you know you can get a fine for parking the wrong way, yet you did it. If you said you don't agree with that rule, I might concur. What exactly did they do wrong? I hope that since then everyone is parking correctly. Isn't that the whole point of fining people?

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matwood 5652 days ago
If you're right about not patrolling then that means they NEVER drove through my rather small townhouse community in almost 13 months. So much for police doing routine patrols.

What bothered me about the whole thing was inconsistent enforcement. It's okay to park that way for over a year and then one day it's not. Enforcing an ordinance or law only when it's convenient (to hit a quota) for the officer makes me think the particular law isn't about safety but about revenue generation. If it was truly about safety it would be enforced all of the time.

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stcredzero 5653 days ago
A friend of mine in college challenged his "wrong wheels to curb" ticket and got it summarily dismissed because the officer didn't want to bother.
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pmichaud 5653 days ago
This identical thing happened to me.
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