Know Your Parking Laws or Be Prepared to Pay the Consequences

How well do you know your traffic/parking laws, Austin? Hopefully better than us, but we doubt it. Recently we had to drive to work, so we parked outside of our office downtown and only then did we realize that we only had two quarters for the meter. So we went up to work and told ourselves to remember to run down and feed that bad boy before it expired. We remembered. But we were 5 minutes too late. We had a little yellow envelope waiting for us.

Well, "Screw it," we thought. We have already gotten the ticket, we'll just leave our car in the spot until the end of the day. After work we snatched the (ONE) ticket off of our windshield and tossed it in the glove box. We didn't have $15 handy at the time ,so we figured, as usual, we'd wait until the end of the month for pay day and then just pay the $30 fine. [Someone, anyone, please offer us a job with a living wage.] We kinda spaced that, too, until we got a Delinquent Notice in the mail this weekend. We kinda expected that. What we didn't expect was the $90 fine we were expected to pay. WTF?!

Apparently, we were ticketed three different times throughout the day for the one expired meter. That assumption was confirmed this morning when we called the court to argue our case. They said that since we were parked there all day we rightfully received three tickets. But we only got ONE ticket on the car. They blamed it on the wind. Yea, sure. And since it was past the 15 day grace period, we could not challenge the ticket. After expressing our misgivings, we were passed on to another person who reduced the two additional tickets to the original $15 fine; so we had $30 for the first one and $15/each for the additional two, for a whopping $60 for being 5 minutes over the limit AND not knowing the law. If you get a ticket, once two hours pass following the first violation, you can be ticketed again. And then two hours later. And so on, up to 4 times in one day. We had just assumed that if you got ticketed once you couldn't get ticketed twice for the same violation. You know, Double Jeopardy, it ain't just a bad movie starring Ashley Judd. We. Were. Wrong.

So the moral is, know the minutia of parking law or stand to lose your grocery money to The Man. But with all that said, shouldn't the meters have something on there about the potential of being double or triple-ticketed? Isn't that the city getting over on people without fair warning? Is this worth someone fighting it all the way to the top? Sure there has to be incentive not to leave your car taking up space all day, but shouldn't that incentive be a sign on the meter and not the pain we feel of being stuck in the arse after the fact?

*Photo taken by Austinist Contributor Matt Wright*

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By matthewodam in Other on February 27, 2006 2:40 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Anon

Wow, basic parking laws seem to escape people. Why on earth would you thik that getting one ticket would allow you to park for free the rst of the day? LOL, You should have gotten a ticket for being stupid as well.

george

austinist, do you have a legal citation in what part of the austin code permits multiple citations for the same parking violation 2 hours afterwards? i have a similar situation except my violation (tow away zone) does not have any time basis (i.e. a meter) to justify multiple violations!!!! help!!

odam

they can give you a ticket when the meter runs out, then they can give you a ticket 2 hours (or the max time of the meter) later.

Kat

I think they can give you as much as one ticket per hour that you are illegally parked. I, like most people, learned that the hard way. Anybody ever take classes at ACC Rio Grande campus?

triSARAtops

How come the bitchy people are always anonymous? Personally, I like to take credit for acting like a punkass on the internet.

I'm sure anonymous up there always reads the fine print, never makes assumptions, and has never gotten righteously indignant about getting a ticket because after all, it was his/her fault. Right. Probably poops at the same time each day too.

Jonathon

Dudes, I used to work on 6th street in a job that didn't offer me a parking space (I didn't have it long). SO, I used to park on 6th, East of Congress, where you can park for free for two hours, but two hours only -- then you gotta move.

Every two hours (or so), I would leave my desk, walk to wherever the hell I'd found a parking space, and then move my car to a different part of 6th street -- sometimes only a few yards from where I had been parked before.

If I ever forgot, or left it 30min longer than I should've...BAM, $25, thank you very little. It drove me nuts -- I could've pushed the damn thing a few yards forward and I wouldn't gotten a ticket. It's like they operate on principle down there.

I was making so little that these mental lapses starting outpacing my salary...and then it was off to new employment.

Just thought I'd share, seeing as everyone else has.

john

shitty.. i was lucky enough recently when I kept putting off paying a ticket, i called after 15 days expecting to pay $30, and they said it was only $15.

Ashley

Be lucky you don't live on campus- I got a $50 ticket for 5 minutes in a no parking zone. It used to be a "30 minute loading zone" and I didn't see the sign change. There were about 15 other cars parked along the same curb and none of them had tickets.. so I figured I would jump out of my car and grab something. literally less than 5 min later, I had $50 less.

Jooley Ann

Man. This is just wayyyyy too much math.

odam

as for the 30 to the man, well i didn't/couldn't swing the fifteen or something. so i knew i would take a hit and pay the 30, almost as an extra form of punishment to myself. see, now you'll learn your lesson, matthew. 5 minutes is the same as 120 minute.s i was just ohping it wouldn't be a 90 dolalr lesson. ok, enough defending myself to anonymous people

odam

i have helped many people get cars after being towed. very expensive and very dubious practices, to be sure. yea, if course i should have paid the meter, anon. that's what "forgetting" is, it's when you "forget" to do something. this one, however, did not say anyhting about multiple tix. yes, you are right, you must have studied math. 5 minutes is as over the limit as 120 minutes. i was not saying the fine should be less due to time, i was just bemoaning the fact that those five minutes cost me. i will also note that the meter readers can see the neg. time coming off, and you get 3 minutes of leeway, so there was an indicaiton of how late i was, five minutes. i was not implying that it was not over. i am not daft.

anon

Most meters say what their time limit is and that multiple tickets can be issued. Should have just paid the meter. Its also funny that you complain about having to pay the man, yet you don't come up with $15 and elect to give them another $15 for free by not paying within 15 days. I also applaud your stance on 5 minutes over being differnt than 2 hours over - um...welll...no...it's not. You see, when it expires, it expires.

kayvaan

sucks to be you. one of the many ways that cities make money of their citizens. ever had your car towed? THAT's expensive.

and btw - a lot of meters do say "multiple tickets will be issued". don't know if yours did, but I've seen many that do.

SplendaRob

Maybe they are in cahoots with the valet parking industry, who are out to blanket the parking meters of Austin in bright, don't-you-dare-think-about-parking-your-sub-thirtythoussandollar-car-here orange.

odam

we are still fiddling with how/when to incorporate the expand-o-tron. what, you don't like getting your morals-to-stories after the jump? thanks for the feedback, rob.

no, we rarely ever have boots in this town. but my delinquent notice said something about a colleciton agency, and i don't need my credit any wors than it already is.

we are lucky, also, that we do not have meter-feeidng enforced. in DC you can not feed oyur meter or they will ticket you. here you can go feed it all day. but they are so viligant here. they are hawks donwtown. they must get paid on commission. anyone know?

SplendaRob

Good thing we don't live somewhere that makes frequent use of the wheel boots for parking violations. Or do we? I haven't noticed.

Aside: Was it really necessary to make use of the expand-o-tron for the one teeny paragraph?

Derek

Oh man, you think that's bad!? A couple years ago when living on 26th and San Pedro by campus, I parked my car in front of our rent house, in its usual spot, at about 2pm.

I proceed to spend the rest of the day inside and pass out early that night. I wake up the next morning, step outside and see a fat parking ticket on my car's windshield, with a newly erected no parking pole/sign jammed into the soil right behind it. Apparently they stuck that sign in the ground (without notifying anyone) and gave me a ticket all in that short span of time.

I'm like "You have to be freaking kidding me, right?". So I figure it's just bad luck and/or timing and go down to the court house to get my quick and easy reimbursement for this pesky ticket. No such luck! Lady there actually claims that it's my responsibility to check my car every 4 hours when parked on any street, just in case something has changed! I nearly blew my freakin top, and fortunately the lady caved and waved my ticket, but can you believe that crap?