10 ms·

You can, and I don't buy it. Besides, in your original post, you said "Owning a car in a city ..." more than once. But, in the spirit of charity, I actually w

by Frondo 9y ago

You can, and I don't buy it. Besides, in your original post, you said "Owning a car in a city ..." more than once. But, in the spirit of charity, I actually went to the trouble of asking a couple friends who live in NYC and own cars, "hey do you get a lot of extraneous parking tickets?" According to them, no, it's not the problem you're making it out to be. You'll have to do more to convince me that you're not just careless and want to blame someone else for it.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Not a single one of my tickets were for speeding. I forgot to mention that, so I think it's more likely that this animosity is from people equating tickets = lunatic driver. I drive like an old man on the road. I'm glad your NYC friends are well-off, but different neighborhoods are different. The south side of various cities are completely different from north side. This isn't a new phenomenon, and it matters where your friends are. I don't think it's very wise to draw conclusions from a sample size of three. Perhaps I'm an atypical example, but it sounds like my story resonated with a bunch of other people, so I'd bet the other way. That ~$50M/yr has to come from somewhere, and if the revenue started drying up, they'd simply invent more rules until it didn't. You're not wrong about the carelessness, but given that I make sure to be careful where it matters, are you sure you want to reward the behavior you're defending? A life of papers and registrations, dotted i's and crossed t's is pretty annoying. Yes, my plates were expired for one day, and I got a $60 ticket for it. Yep, I was somehow parked in a tow zone (that someone else tried to park in too, and I see multiple cars per month fall into the same trap) and so I got to pay over $400 when all was said and done. Yep, I turned left at a green light when there was no oncoming traffic even though the damn thing was marked "don't turn left without an arrow" and a cop was watching it like a hawk just to meet their quota. Does that make it all my fault? Maybe. You can think what you want, but at least you aren't analyzed daily for any vulnerable patterns in your behavior to exploit.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > That ~$50M/yr has to come from somewhere Yup: > UPS, FedEx and other commercial delivery companies pay a steep price for doing business in New York City, getting an average of 7,000 parking tickets every day and paying more than $102 million in fines in the city’s latest budget year. > Atlanta-based UPS has a fleet of 1,000 trucks and receives about 15,000 tickets a month here. The company is the biggest offender in the city, paying $18.7 million in parking violations for the fiscal year ending June 30, according to city data. Memphis-based FedEx was second with $8.2 million. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14602712/ns/business-us_business/t/delivery-firms-big-ticket-item-parking-fines/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14602712/ns/business-us_business/t... > I turned left at a green light when there was no oncoming traffic even though the damn thing was marked "don't turn left without an arrow" Dude.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    What? Or is "dude" your sum total point? Are we really in a situation where it's heretical to turn left when there's no traffic? Ok then. If you didn't notice my other comment, we didn't see the sign. So maybe reserve judgement for whoever you like to judge. The point of traffic laws are to mold behavior into healthy patterns, not to generate money for the city. That's the goal, anyway. If you're really defending a "don't turn left without an arrow under any circumstances," then I couldn't disagree more strongly with your stance.
    - mantas 9y ago
      That no-left sign is there for a reason. For example, there's a similar innocentlylooking intersection near my place. There were identical crashes weekly. It was especially dangerous with seemingly no traffic due to poor visibility for incoming traffic. Now left turn is forbidden and all is good.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      > The point of traffic laws are to mold behavior into healthy patterns, You haven't done traffic studies. You don't know the traffic flow at that intersection. You don't know how often there were accidents before that sign was placed. You say that the point of traffic laws is to mold behavior into healthy patterns, but unless you're perched up above that intersection for a month, 24/7, taking notes, you have no idea what is or isn't healthy there. It's a Chesterton's fence situation. > If you're really defending a "don't turn left without an arrow under any circumstances," then I couldn't disagree more strongly with your stance. I'm not. See above. > Are we really in a situation where it's heretical to turn left when there's no traffic? It's not heretical, but it is illegal. If you do illegal things, you can expect to eventually get caught. You're not fighting segregated schools here, this isn't a moral crusade. > If you didn't notice my other comment, we didn't see the sign. I actually didn't. I do apologize; you sounded totally unrepentant about it in the comment I replied to.

by Frondo 9y ago

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Not a single one of my tickets were for speeding. I forgot to mention that, so I think it's more likely that this animosity is from people equating tickets = lunatic driver. I drive like an old man on the road. I'm glad your NYC friends are well-off, but different neighborhoods are different. The south side of various cities are completely different from north side. This isn't a new phenomenon, and it matters where your friends are. I don't think it's very wise to draw conclusions from a sample size of three. Perhaps I'm an atypical example, but it sounds like my story resonated with a bunch of other people, so I'd bet the other way. That ~$50M/yr has to come from somewhere, and if the revenue started drying up, they'd simply invent more rules until it didn't. You're not wrong about the carelessness, but given that I make sure to be careful where it matters, are you sure you want to reward the behavior you're defending? A life of papers and registrations, dotted i's and crossed t's is pretty annoying. Yes, my plates were expired for one day, and I got a $60 ticket for it. Yep, I was somehow parked in a tow zone (that someone else tried to park in too, and I see multiple cars per month fall into the same trap) and so I got to pay over $400 when all was said and done. Yep, I turned left at a green light when there was no oncoming traffic even though the damn thing was marked "don't turn left without an arrow" and a cop was watching it like a hawk just to meet their quota. Does that make it all my fault? Maybe. You can think what you want, but at least you aren't analyzed daily for any vulnerable patterns in your behavior to exploit.

pavel_lishin 9y ago
> That ~$50M/yr has to come from somewhere Yup: > UPS, FedEx and other commercial delivery companies pay a steep price for doing business in New York City, getting an average of 7,000 parking tickets every day and paying more than $102 million in fines in the city’s latest budget year. > Atlanta-based UPS has a fleet of 1,000 trucks and receives about 15,000 tickets a month here. The company is the biggest offender in the city, paying $18.7 million in parking violations for the fiscal year ending June 30, according to city data. Memphis-based FedEx was second with $8.2 million. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14602712/ns/business-us_business/t/delivery-firms-big-ticket-item-parking-fines/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14602712/ns/business-us_business/t... > I turned left at a green light when there was no oncoming traffic even though the damn thing was marked "don't turn left without an arrow" Dude.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  What? Or is "dude" your sum total point? Are we really in a situation where it's heretical to turn left when there's no traffic? Ok then. If you didn't notice my other comment, we didn't see the sign. So maybe reserve judgement for whoever you like to judge. The point of traffic laws are to mold behavior into healthy patterns, not to generate money for the city. That's the goal, anyway. If you're really defending a "don't turn left without an arrow under any circumstances," then I couldn't disagree more strongly with your stance.
  - mantas 9y ago
    That no-left sign is there for a reason. For example, there's a similar innocentlylooking intersection near my place. There were identical crashes weekly. It was especially dangerous with seemingly no traffic due to poor visibility for incoming traffic. Now left turn is forbidden and all is good.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > The point of traffic laws are to mold behavior into healthy patterns, You haven't done traffic studies. You don't know the traffic flow at that intersection. You don't know how often there were accidents before that sign was placed. You say that the point of traffic laws is to mold behavior into healthy patterns, but unless you're perched up above that intersection for a month, 24/7, taking notes, you have no idea what is or isn't healthy there. It's a Chesterton's fence situation. > If you're really defending a "don't turn left without an arrow under any circumstances," then I couldn't disagree more strongly with your stance. I'm not. See above. > Are we really in a situation where it's heretical to turn left when there's no traffic? It's not heretical, but it is illegal. If you do illegal things, you can expect to eventually get caught. You're not fighting segregated schools here, this isn't a moral crusade. > If you didn't notice my other comment, we didn't see the sign. I actually didn't. I do apologize; you sounded totally unrepentant about it in the comment I replied to.