Where? I want a story!

Story! Story! Read me a bedtime story!

I must agree with Smiley--my interest has been piqued!

I DEMAND an interesting anecdote!

Oh come on, you still haven't posted it?

This must be a post of Obi Proportions!

The story has been impounded

Gazwheezix.. my post failed! Maybe I should change my story to one about a server losing my post...

I blame society.

oh come on!! not again.. good thing i copied the rewrite this time..

go suck it chrome.. i'm gonna try firefox now

This post is full of fail.

So take I my wife downtown for lunch for our anniversary. As I parallel park, I notice the parking attendant down the street a ways heading away from my spot going around giving citations. So I make sure I'm inside the white lines that denote the edge of the street side of the spot just in case. I also try to avoid parking my right front tire on some glass next to the curb. So we go to the restaurant and it turns out they don't have what she was wanting on the menu anymore so we leave. It's been at most 10 minutes. As we come back I notice a citation on my windshield and the parking attendant walking away. I call out to him to ask him what the citation was for. He tells me it's because I'm parked farther away than the allowed 12" by city ordinance. So I pull out my tape measure because we had been measuring furniture a few days before and I had forgotten to put it back in the tool box.

Haha Jesus Christ Leif your life sucks. lol

Front right tire: 13 inches from the curb while my back tire was 11 inches from the curb. Never mind that the left side of my Mazda 6 was sticking out into the street a whole 18" less than the Hummer in front of me and 8" less than the F150 behind me. They didn't get ticketed, the attendant tells me, because their wheels were less than 12" from the curb. No matter that the hummer was 2" over the street side white line and exactly 12" from the curb. He wouldn't recant and just give me a warning instead, so I took cell phone photos and told him I'd fight it. When I'd pulled out of the spot I noticed about half the cars on the street had citations. Good news, though is I went to traffic court where the judge threw it out, almost immediately, like he was tired of dealing with stupid parking attendants. Three cheers for city revenue gimmicks, ruining our anniversary and costing me a half day waiting in metro court!

Ok.. half posts work.. I blame ubuntu.. anyone else have issues from both firefox and chrome in ubuntu with longer posts or with larger order sets?

Stupidity...it's EVERYWHERE...

Awesome.

re: Ubuntu -- OK, I'm running Easy Peasy on my netbook, and I can't get my @&%@^^% printer to work. God that pisses me off. I ahve to reboot into windows to print...kinda defeats the purpose of my Easy Peasy linux build....so now I am downloading Ubuntu 11.04 to try off a USB stick and see if that's any better. Crap...

I just had a ticket for 52$, last week, for ... being parked perfectly legally!

There was actually a witness to the whole thing, calling to the attendant and telling him I was parked just fine. The ticket came regardless. The witness left a note on the ticket and his card, just in case I needed help in fighting it. Best part of it is that the attendant was giving a ticket outside of his allowed area.

Nice Cachimbo, sounds like you found my parking attendant's cousin.

Just another example of big-government socialists ruining it for good ol' freedom loving Americans.

@ krellin, I have no issues with ubuntu 10.10 for printing straight over usb. (I haven't tried wirelessly yet). My issues have all been web browser related. =(

@ Yonni, I agree with you, and I'm just waiting for the big government trolls to come through this post and tell me what I did wrong and how the parking attendants were helping improve society.

Oh, hell no. The last two weeks of the month (last week and this week) are quota weeks. The attendants are writing tickets for having a car uglier than theirs or cuter than their's or more expensive than their's or faster than their's or bigger than their's or just for being a car. They gotta make their quotas after all.

Of course, park in a agarage and avoid the hassle. When I and the wife go downtown, we always park in a garage. Better the $12 parking fee (less if the restaurant or theatre validates) than the $50 ticket.

Actually, there is an interesting case study in the UK, which makes the argument for some sort of parking regulation an economic one, not a control one (although the kind of regulation that Leif cites is an example of petty enforcement and inflexibility related to a stupidly precise by-law)

As part of the current cuts, one town in the south-west of England (I can't recall which one) has got rid off all it's traffic wardens, so effectively there is no-one to enforce parking laws. The resultant free for all has completely jammed up the town centre, and local businesses are reporting a drop in trading. It's impacted on public transport, deliveries and emergency services, as well as putting tourists off, which is a vital part of the local economy.

But that is about people parking where they should not, rather than being 1" at one point further away from the kerb

http://www.ehow.com/video_1872_parallel-park.html

http://xkcd.com/562/

Haha wow he thew it out? That's actually pretty fucking awesome.

Where do you live?

+1 abgemact,
+1 xkcd and randall munroe

This is how to parallell park: (build an automated car to do it for you, if you look close, the guy is sitting in the back seat)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_piO849uRdI

@ Thucy: SW USA

@ Pete U: what would make sense is to have a law about distance from the curb if you had no lines painted. If you have lines painted what do the lines mean? If you are inside the lines should you still be able to get a ticket? If so, what is the purpose of the lines? Why waste money painting the lines in the first place? That almost as much as the attendant's idiocy is what bothered me about the whole situation.

@ Leif: I hate parking attendants. At any time you're splitting hairs about an inch or two is pretty much ridiculous and simply doing it to be a douche. Here in Bowling Green, they only ticket people for gross infractions. Consequently, however, I've had 4 tickets while on campus. One more and I get booted :( I've stopped parking on the yellow even by a fraction of an inch just to get a good spot.

The need for distance from the curb is to prevent people from parking in the actual lane in areas where traffic lanes aren't as wide as others. This allows emergency vehicles the space to pass as well. I can honestly say that I've almost never parked within 12 inches of the curb.

Oh Ihave no problem understanding distance from the curb, that law makes sense. What's hard to understand is why there would be a need for painted lines if you aren't going to use them.

I have*

Several years ago, while in college one evening in Boston, I saw someone pull up in a white truck, climb a ladder and attach something (maybe a sign) to the light pole. They then drove down to the end of the block, climb a ladder and attach another sign. Didn't think much about it, until a police cruiser pulled up a few minutes later and the officer got out and walked down the street giving a ticket to every car! Then a fleet of tow trucks arrived and started towing the cars! I went out and looked at the newly erected sign. No Parking - Tow Zone!