More fun with Parking!

[Polenicus]

This one happened a couple of days ago, and was pretty funny, actually.

There's a parking lot in sight of the parkade where I work. Pay lot, you get a ticket from the dispenser. I can see it from the booth, but it's not my responsibility. Still, I report when the ticket machine fails, or when there's exceptionally asstardery afoot.

This is a story of the latter.

There is one student who drives a big, black, shiny new Hummer H2 to school, 2-3 days of the week. I suspect it must belong to Mommy or Daddy, and I wonder at the sanity of letting a college kid commute to school in the thing day after day. Gas costs and parking issues aside, it's the only truck of it's kind on the campus, and might as well have a giant neon sign over it flashing 'STEAL ME!'.

Well, the driver of said overpriced, ugly monstrosity is none too bright. He rolls up to the campus at 10am. Naturally, there's no parking, but that doesn't deter him! After all, that's what 4 wheel drive is for! After a string of simply parking in the no parking zones, he escalated to driving right up onto the lawn and parking there. Right next to the road, in plain sight.

Last semester, we were short of bylaw officers, so he actually got away with this, but not this year. So, I noticed him doing this, and a bylaw officer was rapidly dispatched and ticketed him. That's not the good part.

The next day, we had an officer bylawing in the parkade itself. He was up on the 7th floor. I was in the booth when I saw the great dark SUV of Mordor pull into the lot and start hunting.

Sure enough, he pulled up onto the lawn again. I hopped out of my booth to watch, and called it in. The officer on the 7th floor heard, and leaned over the side to watch as well. He nearly left the vehicle, but appeared to forget something, came back, fished around in the glove compartment and stuck something under the windshield wiper.

The bylaw officer went down to the lot, and discovered what it was: Yesterday's ticket. Chucklenuts figured if he already HAD a ticket on his vehicle, we wouldn't ticket him again!

Nice Try!

Yeah, he got a ticket. And if we catch him again, he gets towed, and he gets to explain THAT to Mommy or Daddy.

[Shabo]

Parking at places is never fun. We have a parking problem here at my uni. The problem is not that there is not enough parking, but rather there is not enough parking where people actually want to park. Yes, it does suck. But I've never had a problem with actually finding a space somewhere on the campus. And yes, we have students that get tons of parking tickets and never pay them. Guess what? You don't pay your parking ticket, you don't get your diploma. Lots of seniors that I knew last year had a few hundred in parking tickets that they had to scramble to pay. I at them. If they hadn't been so freaking lazy, they would have been fine.

Also, there was a girl with a black mustang that used to park in the staff spaces because they were the closest to the building. She didn't pay her tickets, and got a boot put on her car. The boot was there for about a week, and then she got it taken off. Guess where she kept on parking? Yup. And the tickets kept on coming. I don't know why they didn't just tow the thing.

[protege]

Parking at college always sucked. There simply wasn't enough of it...and didn't help that some of the resident students actually *drove* from building to building. The campus isn't that big, and nearly all the buildings are less than a block from each other! Leave your cars were they are, and free up the commuter lots!

[marty]

Wow, here where I go to school you can't even register for next year's classes if you haven't paid your parking tickets. I found this out when I was ticketed for parking in a parking lot that I had a pass for. And there was no ticket on my windshield, but it sure was credited on my account and I couldn't register.

After much kvetching that involved me having to angrily wave my parking pass in someone's face, they finally dropped the fee.

Our problem is that no one will even try to park in any of the other lots, everyone makes a scramble for the parking deck, and the parking deck officials refuse to close it for people paying by the hour so people who actually paid 504 bucks for year pass can actually find a space. Le sigh.

[Polenicus]

Our ticketing is done through Bylaw with the city. So with us, it's more an issue of 'If you don't pay your tickets, you can't get insurance, get your vehicle license renewed, or get your driver's license renewed.'

[edible_hat]

Parking at places is never fun. We have a parking problem here at my uni. The problem is not that there is not enough parking, but rather there is not enough parking where people actually want to park.

That sounds familiar... at my uni, the parking areas were nicknamed Worm (because the early birds get to park there), The Pocket (because that's how big it was) and The Siberian Tundra (because that's how big and far away it was). Finding a park was not a problem, finding one where you didn't need a packed lunch to get to classes was.

[Gerrinson]

The only real problem with parking at our local colleges is that each college is built at the top of steep hills and the parking lots are all at the bottom. It's not a bad walk in the summer and the exercise is good for you, I'm sure. The college I attended, the climb from the far bottom parking lot is close to a half mile. And in mid winter when you're in near white out conditions from all the blowing snow, having to climb uphill for that distance is ridiculous. I had a couple friends who would only go the parking lots in groups on snowy days for fear of getting lost.

[marasbaras]

asstardery

Thank you for the new word!

[PepperElf]

I went to a community college a while back (well over 10 years ago)... there was always parking available, but sometimes if you were unlucky you'd have to park out in the middle of nowhere. However I was lucky... One of the security guards was a friend (had a crush on him too) and he'd often walk me to my car after dark.

The worst parking however... my last location in VA. The parking lot I could use was about a half-mile out from work. So, I'd have to factor in 10-15 minutes of walking into my drive time in the morning.

these days however... my bf lives close to work so ... maybe 30 minutes of walking, but we usually bike in.

[Primer]

They are not parking permits; They are hunting permits. They allow you to hunt for a parking spot. I'm one of the "lucky" ones--I have both a faculty permit and a handicapped permit. This allows me to park in all but about 5 spaces throughout all of the lots. However, I have learned that I still have to arrive before 7:00 am if I want to find a spot anywhere, especially in the fall semesters.

If they would ever actually give me an office, I could park at the commuter lot and take the bus in to the building. But after almost 20 years, I am still "adjunct," my "office" is the back of my truck, and I haul all my stuff around in a little cart.

What I'm really wondering is when the time comes that I have to use a wheelchair full time, how am I going to haul the cart behind me...(tow bar?)?

[Caveat Emptor]

I have gotten one parking ticket when I was in grad school when I parked one row too far forward and into the faculty spaces. The signs indicating this had to be about 20 feet off the ground on the lampposts.

[edible_hat]

What I'm really wondering is when the time comes that I have to use a wheelchair full time, how am I going to haul the cart behind me...(tow bar?)?

I'd like to see that. (I once saw a wheelchair with a basket on the back, the occupant was buying some bread at a bakery I used to go to. What was more interesting was the way he pulled himself up the three steps at the entrance)

[RichS]

I never understood why parking has to be such a problem for colleges. You would think with the cost of tuition, they could add a few spaces.

My first time I went to college, it was a pain to park my car. I was so glad I had a motorcycle - special place to park with no permit needed.

Then, I hit a deer while riding said motorcycle - after, I had a handicapped permit.

Of course, when the handicapped permit ended...

Now, the college I go to has pretty good parking. Even the farthest spaces aren't all that bad.

[smileyeagle1021]

I have gotten one parking ticket when I was in grad school when I parked one row too far forward and into the faculty spaces. The signs indicating this had to be about 20 feet off the ground on the lampposts.

you have it easy... some of the faculty spaces at SLCC are marked in no other way than they have blue lines rather than yellow... yeah, I've gotten a few tickets...

I really liked the trick that the hummer idiot in the OP tried... I saw that all the time when I worked parking enforcement... you know what we did, we ran the plate through the license plate through the computer and found out when the ticket was issued, if it wasn't on the current date they got another ticket right next to the old one

[Pagan]

I never understood why parking has to be such a problem for colleges. You would think with the cost of tuition, they could add a few spaces.

That's not usually the problem. The problem is that most people are so farking lazy that they want to park right in front of the building where their class is. Me, I never had a problem walking. I'd park down at the Ag Bldg and leave the car there all day. The only time I did move the car was when I had pneumonia. It's about a mile from the Ag Bldg to Breland Hall, not a good walk when you can't breathe proper.

NMSU, there's plenty of parking....if, like I said, you don't try to park right in front of the building. Now UNM and UTEP, they do have land issues. There's no place for them to put a new lot. So they have outlying lots and shuttles around campus.

CNM Main Campus can be a challenge, but it's down in the middle of UNM so you gotta compete with those bozos, too. CNM Westside, haven't had a problem yet. Especially this semester. Most of my classes are in the new new (that's not a typo, there's the new old bldg and the new new bldg ) building. There's still not that many classes being held in it, so I can just zip right in!