The parking meter company would have had to employ some astonishingly incompetent lawyers if they had left such an obvious loophole in the contract text. It's

The parking meter company would have had to employ some astonishingly incompetent lawyers if they had left such an obvious loophole in the contract text. It's the exact same thing as with scientists. Any time some lay person on HN or Reddit or wherever asks about some research or a new phenomenon or whatever (textbook example: dark matter) a question of the form "but have they considered <some very obvious idea>?" the answer is "yes, they have because that's their job and they're not stupid!"