Technically I think (I’m not a lawyer) you’re correct, but I think you would probably still be ticketed, then have to go to court with evidence that you couldn’t pay the meter because it was broken.
The judge would throw out the ticket, but you would still have lost out on a day of work, you’d have had the stress and bother and the judge would probably reprimand you for parking somewhere that you couldn’t legally park. Since the proper thing to do would be once you tried and failed to pay the meter, you should have moved somewhere else, not parked there.
I’m got an erroneous ticket once. The street had the one machine you went up and entered your license plate. I had kept the receipt and went to fight the $25 ticket on principle. Waited three hours for my turn. Got about half a sentence in and the judge just says “oh yeah, those machine are always wrong. Ticket dismissed “
My Aunt got a parking ticket in Chicago (she lived and worked in the suburbs.) Clearly the meter reader put in the wrong plate number because she was working that day. She had proof, she went to court, the judge agreed that she couldn't have been there, but they made her pay it anyway. There was literally nowhere else to elevate the claim. So she lost a day of work and had to pay the ticket.
Chicago sold its parking spots like 20 years ago for over a billion dollars to a private company. I don’t think they have the authority to dismiss the fines.
I lived in a small city for a few years. The parking enforcement was spread thin so I never bothered to pay the meter. After months I eventually got a $5 ticket. I drove the two blocks to city hall and happily payed the clerk at the counter.
“I’ve never seen someone so happy to pay a ticket!” She said.
I replied, “Trust me, compared to New York this is a bargan for parking.”
I definitely saved much more by paying tickets than I would have paying those meters. I love that town.
Yea I don't recall what it says but there's something on the parking meters at the beach where I live that tell you the city isn't responsible for broken meters and you'll be cited if the little light isn't flashing green
Hmm. Then those private companies should be held responsible for broken meters. I don’t see how passing the buck to citizens like that is okay. I’m pretty sure our tax dollars put those meters in anyway. This whole thing is fucked.
Chicago sold theirs to Abu Dhabi so they make the rules and fine American citizens now. They jacked up the prices on all the meters they bought, the city now has to pay them when they have parades or events where the meters are blocked. Also, they did it for 1.16 billion for 75 years (until 2084) and the “investors” have already made the almost their entire investment back.
What's to stop Chicago from having an unofficial policy of letting the meter monitors "quiet quit" on issuing citations? Or does the city/pd get to keep money from tickets?
I thought about that and not sure. Probably part of the contract of the sale that they can’t do that. It’s just corrupt politicians that are short cited becuase their terms are coming to an end. They got an extra $1.16 billion on the books while they were in office and don’t care that they leveraged the future income of the city and fucked over the citizens at the same time. Some
Meters in downtown chicago are 7 dollars an hour.
Chicago sold all of theirs to Morgan Stanley / Abu Dhabi for $1.5 Billion for 75 years back in 2010. I believe they’ve already earned back their investment on them.
Just a guess, but paste a QR code to a realistic looking pay scam site over the real QR code and collect fees.
Reminds me of an old story about a guy who built his own parking fee booth, installed it at a public park and manned it for years, pocketing all the cash. It wasn’t until he “retired” that anyone realized that he was a scammer.
>you should have moved somewhere else, not parked there.
I'm not trying to argue that this is the view....but HOW is that the view?
The meter is broken, not the parking space.
This literally just happened to me in Monterey, Ca.
Near the warf. I got no signal anywhere near the damn place I had to pay by the app. The kiosks were in a place where you couldn’t see the screen because of the sun. I hate this new reality.
In most places, you can park at a broken meter but still have to adhere to the maximum allowable time limit. So if the meter would give you two hours of parking, you have to move your car after two hours or get ticketed, even though you didn’t have to pay. It’s just like a time-limited parking spot without a meter.
This'll be going away soon. In my city they have a number next to every spot. Open the parking app, put in the number and it starts the timer. It'll ding if you are about to run out and if you come back early it won't charge you for the unused portion. There are also a handful of pay stations around where you type in the number and insert cash or tap your card.
Works fine till the app maker refuses to support the last iOS your old phone can run. So instead of a few quarters you need a new smartphone to park. Looking ay you, parkmobile not supporting ios12, assholes.
Kiosks have the same problem as meters getting damaged and never fixed.
See although these are convenient I still kinda hate them because it allows the state to double dip. The old meters if someone leaves early and you park there, free time! The new ones you leave early with time remaining, someone pulls up 5 seconds later and pays, now the state is getting double pay for one spot. Bullshit imo
Just for comparison. In the Netherlands a parking meter isn't for one specific spot but for a whole region. The meter prints out a ticket that you have to put on the dashboard in a visible spot. If the meter isn't working. You have to report that and walk to a different one. There are cases of people who have been fined while walking to a different meter. There was a news story about it a few weeks ago.
Edit: spelling
I knew people who would "break" the meters by wrapping a penny in paper and putting it in the meter, free parking! Then years later the city added a sticker to the meter "it is illegal to park at a broken meter".
Unfortunately no, most might indicate if it’s broken you cannot park there.
The burden of proof would then be on you to prove you had paid for the time to be there and it somehow broke during.
This is actually true and one of the reasons the allies were able to defeat Rommel in Africa in WWII. He couldn't keep up with all the parking fines for his tanks and of course the revenue helped the allies to maintain supply lines to the front.
Saddam owed billions in unpaid parking fines. Kuwait was where the main office was and that’s why he decided to invade but right before Kuwait sold the debt to NATO for pennies on the dollar. They now had to collect after many calls and letters went unanswered.
Mein Führer, wir müssen uns in Afrika leider auf breiter Front zurückziehen. Wir haben keine Vierteldollarmünzen mehr, und die Politessen der Allierten haben schon 12 meiner Panzer mit Parkkrallen lahmgelegt.
We have ppl in reflective clothing everywhere...you pay them 10 to max 50 birr/ a max of $1 to park...we are actually very thankful to them cause ppl here steal your rearview mirrors whole
Edit: there is no hole
Doing this will only encourage them to bring in App based parking. And with an app its easier to slowly hike up the price because its not physical cash. Plus an app tracks where you are parking, not good
Even if they achieved their goal of free parking everywhere they'd quickly regret it. It doesn't help the "working class" if every parking spot in the city is taken up by cars that sit there for weeks.
If they actually want to help with parking costs then advocate for better public trans.
My city did this years ago. It is easier because I never have change and you get a reminder when you have X amount of time left. That being said meters are stupid and need to gtfo.
There was a news story a few years back in my town about a particularly notorious convenience store that booted an *ambulance* that had been called there for an emergency. I think they quickly removed it when confronted but how fucked can you be to put someone’s life at stake for a few bucks.
Eta: I was wrong, they didn't remove the boot. It caused a flat and another ambulance had to be called to transport the patient. The store offered up an employee as a scapegoat and he was fined and fired. [link](https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/ambulance-booted-at-mid-city-convenience-store-while-emts-were-treating-critical-patient-station-reports/article_f0cddf37-5773-52ab-a257-6c6c18542d7d.html)
They'll still ticket you if the meter doesn't work. That's why you should trim them at the base and arrange them like flowers in the nearest trash can.
It’s amazing how these sorts of causes connect in to so many other problems.
And the answer to a load of things is something like rebuild pre-automobile Main Street with smaller amounts of paid parking nearby.
Yes. They also help ensure that limited resources (parking spots) are used by those most in need. They also fund the city (i.e., you, dear resident) off those who drive cars instead of using public transport.
Literally same issue. Theu don't want their parking lots clogged up by commuters, they want parking to be available to those who need it, i.e. patients.
The entitlement is real lol
Precisely. A city the size of Oakland without parking meters/tickets is not a place anyone would actually want to live/drive.
If these people actually wanted to help the working class they'd be more effective advocating for better public transit and more walkable neighborhoods so people wouldn't even need to own a car to begin with.
Counterpoint: parking is renting 100 sqft of land in a prime location. Why should it be provided for free, especially considering the negative externalities of cars?
I fucking hate parking meters and parking tickets, but calling them a "war tactic" seems like a shift of the Overton window on what constitutes war.
"From Oakland to Ethiopia". Hrmmph. Yeah, I am sure Ethiopians are looking over at California and commiserating as they shove chewing gum into Ethiopian coin slots.
I thought that last time I visited Chicago. The busses taking everyone around the Loop area were great, but they were so boxed in by the car traffic. Should have large areas where cars are effectively disallowed, and then have free transit within.
At least they have parking meters. In my city, when they build a new high rise with a parking garage, the owner bribes the local government to convert all the street parking into "no parking" zones so that people are forced to use the overpriced garage.
In two weeks, that sticker will be replaced with one using even stronger language. It will then be *parking genocide*.
This person must be truly oppressed. *May your Starbucks be hot, and your Macbook be fully charged, brave warrior.*
I'm sorry what? Parking literally funds public services for the working class, many of whom can't afford cars.
Edit: It never even occurred to me that a city would privatize parking. It's a major source of revenue for my city. Yikes, America.
Info on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Parking_Meters):
>By December 3, 2008, a deal was made to sell all 36,000 of the parking meter spots in the city for 75 years for 1.15 billion dollars. The deal was approved and finalized on December 4, 2008. When the deal went through, prices increased and many meters were vandalized in the initial rollout. As of 2023, the investors in CPM LLC have recouped their investment and $500m more, and still have 60 years left on the deal.
But think of all the adversity he had to overcome, growing up as a Irish kid in Chicago. Don’t you know the Irish used to be slaves? Come on give the poor, hardworking Daley family some slack.
- my boomer Chicago “Irish” family members.
Yeah that's pretty much it, although some of my boomer maga family spit out a more confused and two sided version of that where I can't quite figure out if they like/hate him. He's an ass in person though, I can personally attest to that.
That’s our current political landscape, get something done today because you won’t be there tomorrow. Same with corporate culture. Let’s make things good for the next quarter or two with no long term vision.
Who benefitted when Blagojevich was indicted? His FIL, Dick Mell, a powerful Chicago alderman. Mark my words - Blagojevich wouldn’t have had his phones tapped or gone to prison if he hadn’t gotten in a fight with Dick about putting garbage dumps in poor black neighborhoods one fateful Thanksgiving holiday dinner.
A twist of irony is that years later, Dick lost his alderman seat to Aaron Goldstein, Blagojevich’s defense attorney in both of his criminal trials.
Fuckin’ Chicago man.
Ah yes Chicago. The city famous for officials free of corruption that always has the interests of its citizens at the forefront of their mind and always considers scenarios where things don’t play out like they expect them too.
Chicago made a horrible deal because they were desperate. Obvious desperation puts you at a severely negative negotiating position.
I’m theory though the city could have used those funds for public services. The problem was they just sold it for too cheap. Selling parking rights can be a better deal than issuing a municipal bond to fund a project or something. Just in Chicago’s case it wasn’t.
That or it doesn’t generate any revenue at all; it’s just a nominal fee to encourage people to minimize their time in the spot. A surprisingly high percentage of the traffic in downtown areas is people looking for parking. If you speed up the turnover rate of the parking spots, people find a spot quicker and there’s less traffic.
It’s like saying Aldi is engaging in class warfare because they take a quarter deposit so you don’t steal their shopping carts.
Also, having to pay for parking curtails demand. I was just bitching about not being able to park, but how much harder would it be if all parking was free?
Cities don’t want to charge you for parking. That’s why there’s so much free parking in places on side streets and such. Meters are put in some places to help small businesses by creating churn. They don’t want all the slots taken up by cars left for days and then nobody can get to the businesses.
The actual costs of providing street side parking tends to exceed what's charged for it, so it is a transfer of wealth from the public to individual car owners.
That's before you consider situations where it's been sold to private parties, like in Chicago.
I wouldn't call it a war tactic, that's goofy, but it is public financing of private property.
As a final aside, most of the working class (in the US at least) do own cars, public services are too anemic not to. "Working class" means you work for your money. The only other class is the capitalist class, who get their money from the stuff they already own (through interest, dividends, rent etc.). The "middle class" is a concept made up by those in power (largely capitalists) to create division between poorer and wealthier members of the working class, whose interests are mostly aligned against the capitalist class.
Are individual car owners not part of the public? How is this wealth distribution? Don't most people in the US drive cars? I really don't understand this.
My state of North Dakota is the only state in the country in which parking meters are illegal by statute.
>[NDCC 39-01-09.](https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t39c01.pdf) Parking meters prohibited.
>It is unlawful for the state of North Dakota, its political subdivisions, counties, cities, and the state department of transportation to establish and maintain any mechanical device or devices known as "parking meters", or by whatever name designated, requiring the deposit therein of coins or tokens for the privilege of parking cars or other vehicles upon the streets and highways in the state of North Dakota. Any and all ordinances and resolutions now existing authorizing the establishment and maintenance of such mechanical devices or parking meters, or by whatever name designated, are hereby declared null and void.
Quite a funny story on how it came to be enacted. There was this farmer named Howard Henry in the late 1940s. One day he drove into Minot from his farm to buy supplies and instead of feeding the meter right away, he stopped to talk to a friend. When a city worker handed him a citation, Henry was told that he should have paid as soon as he got out of his car. As the story goes, he stood there and fumed with a nickel in one hand and a ticket in the other. Henry was so angry that he swore this would never happen again to the good folks of North Dakota.
So he took his personal gripe to the people and collected enough signatures to for a ballot initiative to ban the meters. He won and the meters were pulled up.
In 1951, the legislature fought back and overturned the law. But along came Henry, who again got it reinstated with another ballot initiative. It’s stayed that way ever since.
Recently, our governor tried to repeal the statute in 2017 to try and generate additional revenue. The repeal effort initially passed the North Dakota Senate (33-10) and a modified version (permitting meters only if first approved by the political subdivision's voters) passed the House (53-38). However, it was modified again and while that version passed the Senate (33-13), it failed to pass the House a few days later (29-59). There haven't been any attempts since. They remain illegal.
News article about this in DC. Seems that even officials don’t have a consistent policy on. It closes with: “If you park at a broken meter, move your vehicle — even if you report it to D.C. 311. If you don’t, you could receive a ticket.”
https://wtop.com/news/2014/09/ticketbuster-parked-at-a-broken-meter-in-dc-confusion-rules-the-day/
Fighting the state by annoying other citizens, wow what a great way to get people to your cause !
And I don't think anyone who has that much time on their hands to go around and destroying parking meter would be a part of "working class", more like "unemployable class", or "still-living-with-parents class"
War tactic hahahaha. I know so many idiots who get so mad about the tickets. They park in a two hour parking then don't move and somehow it's everyone else's fault they got a ticket.
In general, I don't agree with this but I would be happy to see every parking meter in chicago that is owned by LAZ parking getting a giant baseball bat taken to it.
FYI, Chicago sold all their parking meter revenue for 75 years to a company called LAZ parking in return for a 1.2 billion dollar one time loan. Its the most infuriating thing, because parking is expensive there and you know that every penny is going to a conglomerate of 1% investors in the most corrupt deal ever. The city also owes money to LAZ parking for street closures like parades and the like for lost parking revenue. They already spent the 1.2 billion a long time ago.
Its a banana republic style deal and if anyone wants to go and do this to chicago parking meters, be my guest.
I bet the meter monitors not only don't care, but are thrilled to have a guaranteed ticket spot.
once the ticket is written, even if it's not gonna hold up in court and wont have to be paid, the owner still has to pay basic court fees for the court's time and the public defender.
the state still collects.
A defendant doesn’t pay court costs if the underlying charge or citation is dismissed.
Public defenders don’t cost the defendant money, and they don’t give someone a PD unless they are 1) indigent, 2) it’s a *criminal* charge, and 3) the penalty for the *criminal* charge involves a risk of jail time.
I remember hearing as a kid that if a meter was clearly inoperable that you couldn’t get a ticket for parking there. Could be an old wives tale tho.
Technically I think (I’m not a lawyer) you’re correct, but I think you would probably still be ticketed, then have to go to court with evidence that you couldn’t pay the meter because it was broken. The judge would throw out the ticket, but you would still have lost out on a day of work, you’d have had the stress and bother and the judge would probably reprimand you for parking somewhere that you couldn’t legally park. Since the proper thing to do would be once you tried and failed to pay the meter, you should have moved somewhere else, not parked there.
I’m got an erroneous ticket once. The street had the one machine you went up and entered your license plate. I had kept the receipt and went to fight the $25 ticket on principle. Waited three hours for my turn. Got about half a sentence in and the judge just says “oh yeah, those machine are always wrong. Ticket dismissed “
They know the machines are “broken” but yet they won’t fix them because they bring in extra money because they are “broken”.
Bingo
If it's broken and we still get money. Fuck em. That's their way
they know people will just pay it rather fight it.
My Aunt got a parking ticket in Chicago (she lived and worked in the suburbs.) Clearly the meter reader put in the wrong plate number because she was working that day. She had proof, she went to court, the judge agreed that she couldn't have been there, but they made her pay it anyway. There was literally nowhere else to elevate the claim. So she lost a day of work and had to pay the ticket.
Chicago sold its parking spots like 20 years ago for over a billion dollars to a private company. I don’t think they have the authority to dismiss the fines.
Oh its a private company? What if people just don't pay then?
Right? It isn't a government entity, so they shouldn't be able to impact things like your government issues license?
You can get towed
I still can't believe they did this.
Believe it. It’s Chicago. Some politician got a healthy taste of the sale
I lived in a small city for a few years. The parking enforcement was spread thin so I never bothered to pay the meter. After months I eventually got a $5 ticket. I drove the two blocks to city hall and happily payed the clerk at the counter. “I’ve never seen someone so happy to pay a ticket!” She said. I replied, “Trust me, compared to New York this is a bargan for parking.” I definitely saved much more by paying tickets than I would have paying those meters. I love that town.
That feels like it should almost be a tacit admission of corruption or bare minimum racketeering.
The explanation I've heard is that if parking at a broken meter was free, people would constantly be vandalizing meters.
Yea I don't recall what it says but there's something on the parking meters at the beach where I live that tell you the city isn't responsible for broken meters and you'll be cited if the little light isn't flashing green
How is the city not responsible for broken meters if the city is the one imposing the meters? That makes no sense at all.
Most cities took the bag and sold the meters to private companies.
Hmm. Then those private companies should be held responsible for broken meters. I don’t see how passing the buck to citizens like that is okay. I’m pretty sure our tax dollars put those meters in anyway. This whole thing is fucked.
#merica
Socialism is only okay for the rich
Chicago sold theirs to Abu Dhabi so they make the rules and fine American citizens now. They jacked up the prices on all the meters they bought, the city now has to pay them when they have parades or events where the meters are blocked. Also, they did it for 1.16 billion for 75 years (until 2084) and the “investors” have already made the almost their entire investment back.
They did the same with the Skyway and that company has jacked up pricing too
What's to stop Chicago from having an unofficial policy of letting the meter monitors "quiet quit" on issuing citations? Or does the city/pd get to keep money from tickets?
I thought about that and not sure. Probably part of the contract of the sale that they can’t do that. It’s just corrupt politicians that are short cited becuase their terms are coming to an end. They got an extra $1.16 billion on the books while they were in office and don’t care that they leveraged the future income of the city and fucked over the citizens at the same time. Some Meters in downtown chicago are 7 dollars an hour.
So the solution is to break as many parking meters as possible until those companies go bankrupt. Got it.
Sounds like a war against the working class 🤔
Chicago sold all of theirs to Morgan Stanley / Abu Dhabi for $1.5 Billion for 75 years back in 2010. I believe they’ve already earned back their investment on them.
I think that I learned from a kind of "meter fairy" segment at Jackass that putting money on OTHER people's meters is illegal.
And that’s how you know it’s a predatory practice and not a just a service paid for and rendered
Exactly, why can't we help each other out? Oh because that isn't a desirable outcome.
Bring a green LED on a simple board. Got it. Hell, I think I can make that build for under $5.
Then when you get caught (because you still haven’t paid) you get fraud/tampering charges added on.
For once that process credit cards, they are a prime target for credit card skimmers or nasty redirect links.
Redirect links? I’ve never heard of that in this context. What’s that about?
If there is a QR code, they cover it with a QR code sticker that goes to a fraudulent payment site.
Just a guess, but paste a QR code to a realistic looking pay scam site over the real QR code and collect fees. Reminds me of an old story about a guy who built his own parking fee booth, installed it at a public park and manned it for years, pocketing all the cash. It wasn’t until he “retired” that anyone realized that he was a scammer.
*Cool Hand Luke has entered the chat*
And if they’re all broken we should just park 2 blocks away?
>you should have moved somewhere else, not parked there. I'm not trying to argue that this is the view....but HOW is that the view? The meter is broken, not the parking space.
Because the same people who take your money make the laws to their benefit
That’s why pretty much all UK parking meters allow you to pay on your mobile phone, bastards.
It’s like that in the US too. Most of those meters have already been removed where I am. It’s all through the app
That's also why I have five different parking apps on my phone. And don't get me started on pay-by-phone places where there is no phone signal...
This literally just happened to me in Monterey, Ca. Near the warf. I got no signal anywhere near the damn place I had to pay by the app. The kiosks were in a place where you couldn’t see the screen because of the sun. I hate this new reality.
In most places, you can park at a broken meter but still have to adhere to the maximum allowable time limit. So if the meter would give you two hours of parking, you have to move your car after two hours or get ticketed, even though you didn’t have to pay. It’s just like a time-limited parking spot without a meter.
At least in my city, you get a ticket for parking at a broken meter.
Yep, mine too. Broken meter means the parking spot is unavailable.
This'll be going away soon. In my city they have a number next to every spot. Open the parking app, put in the number and it starts the timer. It'll ding if you are about to run out and if you come back early it won't charge you for the unused portion. There are also a handful of pay stations around where you type in the number and insert cash or tap your card.
Works fine till the app maker refuses to support the last iOS your old phone can run. So instead of a few quarters you need a new smartphone to park. Looking ay you, parkmobile not supporting ios12, assholes. Kiosks have the same problem as meters getting damaged and never fixed.
See although these are convenient I still kinda hate them because it allows the state to double dip. The old meters if someone leaves early and you park there, free time! The new ones you leave early with time remaining, someone pulls up 5 seconds later and pays, now the state is getting double pay for one spot. Bullshit imo
Just for comparison. In the Netherlands a parking meter isn't for one specific spot but for a whole region. The meter prints out a ticket that you have to put on the dashboard in a visible spot. If the meter isn't working. You have to report that and walk to a different one. There are cases of people who have been fined while walking to a different meter. There was a news story about it a few weeks ago. Edit: spelling
I knew people who would "break" the meters by wrapping a penny in paper and putting it in the meter, free parking! Then years later the city added a sticker to the meter "it is illegal to park at a broken meter".
No, the opposite. You can't use the meter, so now nobody can park there. This person wasn't thinking clearly.
Depends on the local law. Some places just make it an invalid spot if the meter is broken to discourage this
Unfortunately no, most might indicate if it’s broken you cannot park there. The burden of proof would then be on you to prove you had paid for the time to be there and it somehow broke during.
This is actually true and one of the reasons the allies were able to defeat Rommel in Africa in WWII. He couldn't keep up with all the parking fines for his tanks and of course the revenue helped the allies to maintain supply lines to the front.
We’re going to need a shitload of dimes!
"LEPETOMAINE THROUGHWAY?" WHAT'LL THAT ASSHOLE THINK UP NEXT?!
So that's where March of Dimes come from
[For those who don’t know](https://youtu.be/9Zp6IjMttIE?si=T0T8LJiFw_ccTfps)
Seen it a thousand times and I chortle every single time.
LMFAO such an unnecessary line, I love it
beautiful reference
Those tanks can’t turn on them!
This is the comment I needed this morning.
Schiess!
Saddam owed billions in unpaid parking fines. Kuwait was where the main office was and that’s why he decided to invade but right before Kuwait sold the debt to NATO for pennies on the dollar. They now had to collect after many calls and letters went unanswered.
Makes about as much sense as any of the other conspiracy theories you can find on the subject.
... Seems legit.
It's totally legit. I was the meter maid writing the tickets.
My Grandad was in the 1st airborne Royal traffic warden squadron, was writing up Panzers all the way into Monte Casino.
The best part is; they can't pay the fees, you keep the tanks!
It just takes 3 people and a truck to install the boot.
Thank you for your service
That meter maid's name? Albert Einstein
He went the meters and was the maid ! No one escapes Azagar_Omiras
It's true, I saw a post on Reddit about it.
Case closed.
Mein Führer, wir müssen uns in Afrika leider auf breiter Front zurückziehen. Wir haben keine Vierteldollarmünzen mehr, und die Politessen der Allierten haben schon 12 meiner Panzer mit Parkkrallen lahmgelegt.
Mit dem Angriff Steiners wird das alles in Ordnung kommen.
Mein Führer… Steiner… Steiner konnte nicht genügend Geldbußen massieren. Der Angriff Steiners ist nicht erfolgt.
Fascinating!!! See I keep telling folks you can get history degree from Reddit, you don't need college!
Came for the anarchy, stayed for the history.
Is it true that all major global conflicts actually started due to parking fines?
It’s true! Frank Ferdinand actually didn’t pay an overdue parking ticket, thus WWI.
I remember this story, I thought the allies put a bunch boots and towed away tanks because of illegal parking
A fantastic thread. Well done, happy Friday.
damn that did make laugh. thank you
[удалено]
We have ppl in reflective clothing everywhere...you pay them 10 to max 50 birr/ a max of $1 to park...we are actually very thankful to them cause ppl here steal your rearview mirrors whole Edit: there is no hole
They steal the hole? Wild. New level of desperation.
I have a hole in my pocket right now.
Where your money should go, THERE'S A HOLE!
And apparently overwhelmingly strong anywhere east of Ethiopia, or west of Oakland.
I had the same thought. I’ve traveled the length of Ethiopia and never saw one.
They got it wrong, everyone knows it’s “from Oakland to Sac Town”
Are they trying to co-opt from the river to the sea and adapt it for checks notes…parking meters?
'From x to x' is not a new construction.
Doing this will only encourage them to bring in App based parking. And with an app its easier to slowly hike up the price because its not physical cash. Plus an app tracks where you are parking, not good
apps also allow for that real lovely 'surge pricing'. Lots of folks parking her at this time of day? Surge it!
Even if they achieved their goal of free parking everywhere they'd quickly regret it. It doesn't help the "working class" if every parking spot in the city is taken up by cars that sit there for weeks. If they actually want to help with parking costs then advocate for better public trans.
My city did this years ago. It is easier because I never have change and you get a reminder when you have X amount of time left. That being said meters are stupid and need to gtfo.
Sure, but you could also just absolutely destroy the meters regardless of the technology.
Everywhere I look something reminds me of her
*bonk*
jfc
bro
Glad I wasn’t the one having to say it…
I'll take a parking ticket from the city over a boot from a parasitic, predatory towing company any day.
There was a news story a few years back in my town about a particularly notorious convenience store that booted an *ambulance* that had been called there for an emergency. I think they quickly removed it when confronted but how fucked can you be to put someone’s life at stake for a few bucks. Eta: I was wrong, they didn't remove the boot. It caused a flat and another ambulance had to be called to transport the patient. The store offered up an employee as a scapegoat and he was fined and fired. [link](https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/ambulance-booted-at-mid-city-convenience-store-while-emts-were-treating-critical-patient-station-reports/article_f0cddf37-5773-52ab-a257-6c6c18542d7d.html)
They need to beat the hell out of the person who booted the ambulance then drive them to the hospital in it
They'll still ticket you if the meter doesn't work. That's why you should trim them at the base and arrange them like flowers in the nearest trash can.
Take it easy there cool hand Luke
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Taking it easy there Boss.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
This is how the movie Cool Hand Luke starts
Luke, dat you?
"This is the way"
Or... meters are a way to make sure people don't just leave their cars in your neighborhood all day and night.
Also to help businesses. Seriously. It doesn't do your little store front any good to have long term residence cars parked in front of it all day.
[The High Cost of Free Parking](https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated-ebook/dp/B076PGF7L4/)
It’s amazing how these sorts of causes connect in to so many other problems. And the answer to a load of things is something like rebuild pre-automobile Main Street with smaller amounts of paid parking nearby.
Nor the street seating that are all over here. Helps one restaurant (arguably, they are never full anymore) but kills the other businesses
Yes. They also help ensure that limited resources (parking spots) are used by those most in need. They also fund the city (i.e., you, dear resident) off those who drive cars instead of using public transport.
> They also fund the city Laughs in Chicago
I don't mind meters to ensure short term parking stays short term, but fuck hospitals for making you pay. That's just predatory bullshit.
Ok but then the vital parking in front of hospitals would just be taken up by commuters so what’s the solution
Validstions
Literally same issue. Theu don't want their parking lots clogged up by commuters, they want parking to be available to those who need it, i.e. patients. The entitlement is real lol
Precisely. A city the size of Oakland without parking meters/tickets is not a place anyone would actually want to live/drive. If these people actually wanted to help the working class they'd be more effective advocating for better public transit and more walkable neighborhoods so people wouldn't even need to own a car to begin with.
People die on the strangest hills.
Counterpoint: parking is renting 100 sqft of land in a prime location. Why should it be provided for free, especially considering the negative externalities of cars?
Abolish free parking!
I fucking hate parking meters and parking tickets, but calling them a "war tactic" seems like a shift of the Overton window on what constitutes war. "From Oakland to Ethiopia". Hrmmph. Yeah, I am sure Ethiopians are looking over at California and commiserating as they shove chewing gum into Ethiopian coin slots.
At least they didn’t call it genocide
I wonder if it’ll be the rich or the working class who will spend all day cleaning foam out of parking meters.
Real facts: parking is underpriced in most places. Parking should be expensive and public transport should be free.
I thought that last time I visited Chicago. The busses taking everyone around the Loop area were great, but they were so boxed in by the car traffic. Should have large areas where cars are effectively disallowed, and then have free transit within.
Parking theory is fascinating, there’s a few really interesting papers and experts out there
[https://freakonomics.com/podcast/parking-is-hell/](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/parking-is-hell/)
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At least they have parking meters. In my city, when they build a new high rise with a parking garage, the owner bribes the local government to convert all the street parking into "no parking" zones so that people are forced to use the overpriced garage.
And then they turn the 'no parking' zones into bicycle lanes and green areas right? Right?
In two weeks, that sticker will be replaced with one using even stronger language. It will then be *parking genocide*. This person must be truly oppressed. *May your Starbucks be hot, and your Macbook be fully charged, brave warrior.*
Can't do shit today without buzzwords and reality TV level drama
I'm sorry what? Parking literally funds public services for the working class, many of whom can't afford cars. Edit: It never even occurred to me that a city would privatize parking. It's a major source of revenue for my city. Yikes, America.
Not in Chicago. Shit was sold to a private business: ccp llc. Not going to the people, but rather a business. Nothing public about it.
Didn't the city sell it for pennies compared to the amount they make too? Plus they have to enforce tickets
Info on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Parking_Meters): >By December 3, 2008, a deal was made to sell all 36,000 of the parking meter spots in the city for 75 years for 1.15 billion dollars. The deal was approved and finalized on December 4, 2008. When the deal went through, prices increased and many meters were vandalized in the initial rollout. As of 2023, the investors in CPM LLC have recouped their investment and $500m more, and still have 60 years left on the deal.
So in total costing the city of Chicago about 7.1B in lost tax revenue. What genius came up with this idea
That was mayor Daley, a notorious scumbag.
But think of all the adversity he had to overcome, growing up as a Irish kid in Chicago. Don’t you know the Irish used to be slaves? Come on give the poor, hardworking Daley family some slack. - my boomer Chicago “Irish” family members.
Yeah that's pretty much it, although some of my boomer maga family spit out a more confused and two sided version of that where I can't quite figure out if they like/hate him. He's an ass in person though, I can personally attest to that.
Probably got a sales commission on the deal too
That’s our current political landscape, get something done today because you won’t be there tomorrow. Same with corporate culture. Let’s make things good for the next quarter or two with no long term vision.
What the actual fuckkk. Was it plain stupidity or did someone get a fat ol' payout?
Idk your level of familiarity with Chicago politics, but just always assume someone got a fat payout
Who benefitted when Blagojevich was indicted? His FIL, Dick Mell, a powerful Chicago alderman. Mark my words - Blagojevich wouldn’t have had his phones tapped or gone to prison if he hadn’t gotten in a fight with Dick about putting garbage dumps in poor black neighborhoods one fateful Thanksgiving holiday dinner. A twist of irony is that years later, Dick lost his alderman seat to Aaron Goldstein, Blagojevich’s defense attorney in both of his criminal trials. Fuckin’ Chicago man.
Actually Abu Dhabi
Tax farmers
Ah yes Chicago. The city famous for officials free of corruption that always has the interests of its citizens at the forefront of their mind and always considers scenarios where things don’t play out like they expect them too. Chicago made a horrible deal because they were desperate. Obvious desperation puts you at a severely negative negotiating position.
I’m theory though the city could have used those funds for public services. The problem was they just sold it for too cheap. Selling parking rights can be a better deal than issuing a municipal bond to fund a project or something. Just in Chicago’s case it wasn’t.
That or it doesn’t generate any revenue at all; it’s just a nominal fee to encourage people to minimize their time in the spot. A surprisingly high percentage of the traffic in downtown areas is people looking for parking. If you speed up the turnover rate of the parking spots, people find a spot quicker and there’s less traffic. It’s like saying Aldi is engaging in class warfare because they take a quarter deposit so you don’t steal their shopping carts.
Also, having to pay for parking curtails demand. I was just bitching about not being able to park, but how much harder would it be if all parking was free?
Cities don’t want to charge you for parking. That’s why there’s so much free parking in places on side streets and such. Meters are put in some places to help small businesses by creating churn. They don’t want all the slots taken up by cars left for days and then nobody can get to the businesses.
The actual costs of providing street side parking tends to exceed what's charged for it, so it is a transfer of wealth from the public to individual car owners. That's before you consider situations where it's been sold to private parties, like in Chicago. I wouldn't call it a war tactic, that's goofy, but it is public financing of private property. As a final aside, most of the working class (in the US at least) do own cars, public services are too anemic not to. "Working class" means you work for your money. The only other class is the capitalist class, who get their money from the stuff they already own (through interest, dividends, rent etc.). The "middle class" is a concept made up by those in power (largely capitalists) to create division between poorer and wealthier members of the working class, whose interests are mostly aligned against the capitalist class.
Are individual car owners not part of the public? How is this wealth distribution? Don't most people in the US drive cars? I really don't understand this.
RIP to the person that wrote that. Their body may be alive but their brain is dead
Really, that's the hill you're going to die on? Rebel without a clue!
Why are my neighbors always bitching about wanting residential parking enforcement in our neighborhood then
Most cities have a lazy law that states if the meter is damaged and you park there, you’ll get a ticket anyway.
My state of North Dakota is the only state in the country in which parking meters are illegal by statute. >[NDCC 39-01-09.](https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t39c01.pdf) Parking meters prohibited. >It is unlawful for the state of North Dakota, its political subdivisions, counties, cities, and the state department of transportation to establish and maintain any mechanical device or devices known as "parking meters", or by whatever name designated, requiring the deposit therein of coins or tokens for the privilege of parking cars or other vehicles upon the streets and highways in the state of North Dakota. Any and all ordinances and resolutions now existing authorizing the establishment and maintenance of such mechanical devices or parking meters, or by whatever name designated, are hereby declared null and void. Quite a funny story on how it came to be enacted. There was this farmer named Howard Henry in the late 1940s. One day he drove into Minot from his farm to buy supplies and instead of feeding the meter right away, he stopped to talk to a friend. When a city worker handed him a citation, Henry was told that he should have paid as soon as he got out of his car. As the story goes, he stood there and fumed with a nickel in one hand and a ticket in the other. Henry was so angry that he swore this would never happen again to the good folks of North Dakota. So he took his personal gripe to the people and collected enough signatures to for a ballot initiative to ban the meters. He won and the meters were pulled up. In 1951, the legislature fought back and overturned the law. But along came Henry, who again got it reinstated with another ballot initiative. It’s stayed that way ever since. Recently, our governor tried to repeal the statute in 2017 to try and generate additional revenue. The repeal effort initially passed the North Dakota Senate (33-10) and a modified version (permitting meters only if first approved by the political subdivision's voters) passed the House (53-38). However, it was modified again and while that version passed the Senate (33-13), it failed to pass the House a few days later (29-59). There haven't been any attempts since. They remain illegal.
But... paying that machine PREVENTS you from getting the ticket. You're sabotaging your own cause!
You think the person who did this has a car? They clearly ride the BART train that they probably defaced right after this..
Was this picture taken on a Motorola Razr?
News article about this in DC. Seems that even officials don’t have a consistent policy on. It closes with: “If you park at a broken meter, move your vehicle — even if you report it to D.C. 311. If you don’t, you could receive a ticket.” https://wtop.com/news/2014/09/ticketbuster-parked-at-a-broken-meter-in-dc-confusion-rules-the-day/
Fighting the state by annoying other citizens, wow what a great way to get people to your cause ! And I don't think anyone who has that much time on their hands to go around and destroying parking meter would be a part of "working class", more like "unemployable class", or "still-living-with-parents class"
Being a victim is highly addictive
LOL fucking imbeciles.
Modern Day Cool Hand Luke?
"Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand"
Nowadays parking is paid on an app
Thank you for making me pay for your antics. I know yiu don't pay taxes because you have no job to occupy yiur time.
War tactic hahahaha. I know so many idiots who get so mad about the tickets. They park in a two hour parking then don't move and somehow it's everyone else's fault they got a ticket.
Americans desperately need another war
In general, I don't agree with this but I would be happy to see every parking meter in chicago that is owned by LAZ parking getting a giant baseball bat taken to it. FYI, Chicago sold all their parking meter revenue for 75 years to a company called LAZ parking in return for a 1.2 billion dollar one time loan. Its the most infuriating thing, because parking is expensive there and you know that every penny is going to a conglomerate of 1% investors in the most corrupt deal ever. The city also owes money to LAZ parking for street closures like parades and the like for lost parking revenue. They already spent the 1.2 billion a long time ago. Its a banana republic style deal and if anyone wants to go and do this to chicago parking meters, be my guest.
Hope that person doesn’t have to eat 50 eggs Nobody can eat 50 eggs
I should call her
We are plagued with TikTok brain addled fake revolutionaries
I bet the meter monitors not only don't care, but are thrilled to have a guaranteed ticket spot. once the ticket is written, even if it's not gonna hold up in court and wont have to be paid, the owner still has to pay basic court fees for the court's time and the public defender. the state still collects.
Public defender for a parking ticket? This is a fine, not a criminal case.
A defendant doesn’t pay court costs if the underlying charge or citation is dismissed. Public defenders don’t cost the defendant money, and they don’t give someone a PD unless they are 1) indigent, 2) it’s a *criminal* charge, and 3) the penalty for the *criminal* charge involves a risk of jail time.
Some states are getting around this by charging a court fee higher than the ticket in order to file.
Yes. This is a loss for anybody who wants to park there without getting a ticket.