8 ms·

I hate parking tickets so much that I follow posted signs and obey traffic laws.

by rmrfrmrf 13y ago

dangrossman 13y ago
So do lots of people that get ticketed anyway.
- ogreyonder 13y ago
  Yup. I've gotten 1 parking ticket in my life: I parked fully within a clearly marked, paid parking spot in downtown Austin. A stop sign nailed to a wooden stand showed up while I was at dinner along with a $100 ticket for parking to close to said sign.
derwiki 13y ago
A few years ago, I parked my car on the street in Nob Hill. Thursday night I verified that it was legally parked. I got a phone call from my roommate the next day saying they were about to tow my car. I rushed home from work. While I was at work, they put up a temporary 'no parking' sign and were prepared to tow less than 24 hours later. That was the straw the convinced me 'I could get towed in SF even if I do every thing right.' This prompted me to sell my car within a month and switch to ZipCar.
- dunham 13y ago
  They're required to put up those signs at least 48hrs ahead, but good luck contesting it. My sister-in-law was hit with the same thing, done by "Precision Engineering". She tells me that if you actually could prove they didn't give enough notice, there is a $1000 fine for the construction company.
  - triplesec 13y ago
    I regularly video my car, meter and the surroundings with my cameraphone for this very kind of reason. This practice will increase.
SoftwareMaven 13y ago
If people are getting out of tickets for things like "the street isn't steep enough to warrant the curbing ordinance", then they were obeying the traffic laws, too.
nostromo 13y ago
That's a little naive. Local jurisdictions are heavily incentivized to hand out infractions of any kind -- deserved or not. Why? Because they keep the money. What do they spend the money on? Things like public employees and their benefits, including pensions. It's clearly a perverse incentive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive I've always thought that government shouldn't benefit from fines or seized property. I'm not sure what a good solution is. Perhaps they should take the money from fines and just light it on fire. There shouldn't be a financial incentive for governments to hand out tickets and fines and seize property - the democratic incentive should be enough.
- caprad 13y ago
  > That's a little naive. Are you saying it is impossible to escape their devious plans, because I have managed to avoid a parking or speeding fine for the last 20 years, simply by following the rules.
  - dangrossman 13y ago
    It's easy to avoid being ticketed by an incompetent/corrupt parking authority by simply not living in the city they're employed in. You can even keep that up for millennia! That doesn't mean they never give out unjust tickets to the people that do live there.
    - stinkytaco 13y ago
      It's also easy to chalk up thousands of perfectly legitimate parking tickets to a few incompetent/corrupt parking authorities that you have no evidence exist except anecdotal experiences. I’ve now read a half a dozen comments in this thread that I can sum up as "I once got a parking ticket that I shouldn't have, all parking authorities are incompetent and corrupt." No one's telling you that you shouldn't be allowed to challenge a ticket or to address the issue with your locally elected official.
      - 13y ago
jjcm 13y ago
If you've lived in SF for any period of time, you'll know just how difficult obeying parking signs there actually is. There are zones which you need decals for to park during certain hours, but even if you have that decal you still have banned hours which vary per street in order to have the streets cleaned. Going out of town for the weekend? Make sure you call your friend and arrange to have your car moved once or twice while you're gone. Working late? Better move your parked car in case you're in the wrong zone outside of daylight hours. Having a car required more maintenance than having a cat when I was living there. Even if I wasn't using my car at all, I'd often have to move it three to four times a week just to avoid tickets. I ended up getting about one or two a month while there.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  I've never lived in San Francisco, but I dealt with similar situations in LA and Honolulu by not having a car. At some point, it just isn't worth it.

I hate parking tickets so much that I follow posted signs and obey traffic laws.

dangrossman 13y ago

So do lots of people that get ticketed anyway.

ogreyonder 13y ago
Yup. I've gotten 1 parking ticket in my life: I parked fully within a clearly marked, paid parking spot in downtown Austin. A stop sign nailed to a wooden stand showed up while I was at dinner along with a $100 ticket for parking to close to said sign.

derwiki 13y ago

A few years ago, I parked my car on the street in Nob Hill. Thursday night I verified that it was legally parked. I got a phone call from my roommate the next day saying they were about to tow my car. I rushed home from work. While I was at work, they put up a temporary 'no parking' sign and were prepared to tow less than 24 hours later. That was the straw the convinced me 'I could get towed in SF even if I do every thing right.' This prompted me to sell my car within a month and switch to ZipCar.

dunham 13y ago
They're required to put up those signs at least 48hrs ahead, but good luck contesting it. My sister-in-law was hit with the same thing, done by "Precision Engineering". She tells me that if you actually could prove they didn't give enough notice, there is a $1000 fine for the construction company.
- triplesec 13y ago
  I regularly video my car, meter and the surroundings with my cameraphone for this very kind of reason. This practice will increase.

SoftwareMaven 13y ago

If people are getting out of tickets for things like "the street isn't steep enough to warrant the curbing ordinance", then they were obeying the traffic laws, too.

nostromo 13y ago

That's a little naive. Local jurisdictions are heavily incentivized to hand out infractions of any kind -- deserved or not. Why? Because they keep the money. What do they spend the money on? Things like public employees and their benefits, including pensions. It's clearly a perverse incentive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive I've always thought that government shouldn't benefit from fines or seized property. I'm not sure what a good solution is. Perhaps they should take the money from fines and just light it on fire. There shouldn't be a financial incentive for governments to hand out tickets and fines and seize property - the democratic incentive should be enough.

caprad 13y ago
> That's a little naive. Are you saying it is impossible to escape their devious plans, because I have managed to avoid a parking or speeding fine for the last 20 years, simply by following the rules.
- dangrossman 13y ago
  It's easy to avoid being ticketed by an incompetent/corrupt parking authority by simply not living in the city they're employed in. You can even keep that up for millennia! That doesn't mean they never give out unjust tickets to the people that do live there.
  - stinkytaco 13y ago
    It's also easy to chalk up thousands of perfectly legitimate parking tickets to a few incompetent/corrupt parking authorities that you have no evidence exist except anecdotal experiences. I’ve now read a half a dozen comments in this thread that I can sum up as "I once got a parking ticket that I shouldn't have, all parking authorities are incompetent and corrupt." No one's telling you that you shouldn't be allowed to challenge a ticket or to address the issue with your locally elected official.
    - 13y ago

jjcm 13y ago

If you've lived in SF for any period of time, you'll know just how difficult obeying parking signs there actually is. There are zones which you need decals for to park during certain hours, but even if you have that decal you still have banned hours which vary per street in order to have the streets cleaned. Going out of town for the weekend? Make sure you call your friend and arrange to have your car moved once or twice while you're gone. Working late? Better move your parked car in case you're in the wrong zone outside of daylight hours. Having a car required more maintenance than having a cat when I was living there. Even if I wasn't using my car at all, I'd often have to move it three to four times a week just to avoid tickets. I ended up getting about one or two a month while there.

jessaustin 13y ago
I've never lived in San Francisco, but I dealt with similar situations in LA and Honolulu by not having a car. At some point, it just isn't worth it.