Free parking
Some people will do just about anything to get out of paying for parking.
Our John Stall covered a story today about the city’s 17,000 parking machines and how, for a decade, they have been accepting depleted and expired, pre-loaded credit cards because they have no means with which to check them. In other words, the city gets nothing for the use of the parking spot, but the machine spits out a ticket as if it has been paid for.
This little issue has apparently cost the city about a million a year for the past decade or so.
Someone I know, who shall remain nameless, believed to his core that parking should be a right, not a paid privilege. He used to go to great lengths to actually cut and paste little numbers to a ticket to make it appear legit. He only bought one ticket once in a while, and used the discarded ones of others for his little art project! And he did it with a wry smile and, I believe, a sense of pride that he was putting one over on ‘the man.’
I don’t recall if he was ever caught, but you can rest assured that with all of the attention now on the parking machine issue, it will be rectified before the rest of the masses attempt to take advantage of it. And what will that cost you and me? Stay tuned!
August 13th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Well you know the rules, either follow them or suffer the consequences I say! If he gets caught, good, he deserves to get caught!
Breaking the rules doesn’t change them though! I personally think street parking should be free (with a designated limit of course) in various shopping districts to encourage customers. Many small towns I know have free street parking in their downtown cores.