Hey, there! Log in / Register
Citizen complaint of the day: Parking pay-by-phone is useless if the meter maids write you a ticket anyway
By adamg on Sat, 11/14/2015 - 12:10pm
An aggrieved citizen is fed up with the city's pay-by-phone app for parking spaces - and the city meter watchers who ignore it:
This is the third time this has happened to me in the last few months. Your parking meter attendants do not pay attention. And because of their screwup it takes time out of my workday to deal with this. You need to fix this. The meter was not up. There was plenty of time left on it and you give me a ticket because they are not paying attention. Fix it! I want a call from the director the parking department. This is unacceptable and ridiculous.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Dealer plates?
Is it possibly due to the way either the guy with the BMW is entering his plate number so that the handhelds used by the meter "maids" don't pick it up? Was he driving with the same New Hampshire dealer plate all three times? The plate number on the ticket is shown as DLR10AT, while his app shows it as NH 10AT.
Or is it just the meter maid giving the owner of an out-of-state luxury car a ticket figuring it would be too much hassle for the guy to come down and fight it?
"Citizen Complaint"?
Since when do local citizens drive out-of-state cars with dealer plates?
Well, if this doesn't work
He can always call his City Councilor.
(on a serious note, I can see the problem. Why the driver cannot just key in the plate number like the meter maid keys it in is beyond me. I mean, DLR is right there on the plate. Didn't this guy ever watch the film Fargo?)
Whatever
I suppose that this NEVER happens to Boston residents because they get free parking stickers, amirite. They are also perfect in every way, right?
If you have a system, and the system does not work IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO IT FUCKS OVER.
If your own car is in the
If your own car is in the shop the dealer or rental company can easily stick you with a loaner that has out-of-state plates, and this can go on for a month or more. A while back I had a NH-plated loaner for over a month due to snafus with ordering parts and so on.
Out of State DEALER plates
I know New Hampshire is a virtual anarchist state, but I thought there was uniform standards on the use of dealer plates. I think a month with dealer plates would be worth looking into.
And why would it be unusual
for a body shop to loan you a car with a dealer plate?
Actually not that unusual,
Boston resident selling cars for a dealer in Nashua, Salem or Portsmouth? Happens all the time. When you get a take home car, it's where the dealer is located. And salespeople tend to change jobs a lot more frequently than they change residences.Same thing happens in reverse with Londonderry or Rye residents working at stores in Boston or inside 128.
probably more than you'd think
If my freeloading neighbors are any indication....
Lots of out of state excise evaders in Boston.
Or is it just the meter maid
I doubt this is the case, since out-of-staters actually have a bigger advantage with contesting tickets than actual residents. The skype hearing is only available to people with out of state plates.
Some things never change
Years back, I read a letter to the editor (probably was the Globe) from a woman who had paid the meter downtown and came back with minutes to spare - only to find the meter attendant finishing a ticket for an unpaid meter. The woman pointed out that time was left and the attendant shrugged and said "Ticket's already filled out" and put it on the car.
The woman and her daughter had just passed a police officer, so they went back to him and asked him to help (eg check the meter and maybe write the woman a note verifying the meter was paid; something). The officer just shrugged and said something like not his problem.
The woman pointed out that not only was the ticket wrong, but her daughter had just been taught that NOT to follow the law, since you get punished anyways when you do follow the law.
Meter Attendant Was To Blame, But Not The Police Officer
What could he really do? After all, he couldn't be expected to sign an affidavit affirming that he'd been watching the parking meter constantly and certify that no one deposited an extra quarter after the ticket had been issued, could he?
Hopefully, the daughter learned the more useful lesson that driving a private automobile into the heart of a large city is sometimes more trouble than it's worth.
I received a ticket in
I received a ticket in Cambridge/Central Sq. 12 mins after I paid for two hours of parking. I'm still trying to get it resolved.
I can top that one....
I received a ticket in Boston last week one MINUTE past my purchased time on the pay by phone parking app. I was 3-4 minutes late getting back to my car after a two hour meeting and lo and behold, the orange envelope. I was shocked, it was as though they were sitting in a chair next to my car watching the clock run out.
I paid the ticket (my first this year) although I considered contesting it, but technically I was in violation,
If all government operated as efficiently as the revenue generating part, we'd be all set.
You deserved the ticket and
You deserved the ticket and your story did not top the previous one. Here, let me top your story: as a non driver I pay property taxes to maintain land that is parked on either for free all year or for far below market rate. Now that is something worth complaining about.
Thank you
For your contribution to the greater good of our society.
Really?
I am a Boston resident. I park my car in Boston with a resident sticker. I pay taxes. I have no children, yet my taxes are used for schools. Should I complain too?
Let me get this straight...
You are complaining because you rightfully received a ticket, but you somehow think that because you were only a little late, you should be exempt from the law?
Do you think you're entitled to park in handicapped spaces because you're "just going into the store for a minute", too?
This is the equivalent of
This is the equivalent of going 1mph over the speed limit. Sure, technically illegal but not the kind of violation the law is intended to curb.
Of course the "fine everyone for everything" is out here pushing their agenda. $40 for a one minute misjudgment of time? Sounds doubleplusgood to me!
Oh, I agree. Asking everyone
Oh, I agree. Asking everyone to actually follow rules as they're written or pay a fine if they fail to is so unfair, and definitely warrants a comparison to 1984.
I call that
Efficient use of government resources.
It seems like you might not have realized that the pay by phone app might also give the meter maids a map of where to find expired meters that increases their productivity over randomly walking around.
Expect within a few years there could be sensors under each parking spot that can tell if you moved your car or not, which would further increase the efficiency of ticketing.
Now if only it were so easy to go after speeders and leash law violators.
This seems to be happening a
This seems to be happening a lot. Class action law suit?
Dealer plates
They look like this in NH. The guy put "10AT" into the app, and the meter maid put "DLR10AT" into the ticket printer. Plates didn't match, shows up as not having paid, the machine spits out a ticket.
Yes
but that's still idiotic. Plenty of states allow weird-ass symbols in their license plates, and as far as I know, they are all legally allowed to drive their cars to wherever they want in the US. What if someone from New Hampshire, which allows a high-five hand in license plates, inputs their license plate and discovers that the web app does not offer a high-five hand symbol? What if someone who's just arrived after a cross country drive from California discovers their seven digit, no space, plate does not enter properly? What if someone from another state where they issue veteran or doctor's plates with a vertical VET or MD or CONSULAR as a prefix to the actual plate number and they and the meter reader interpret the proper way to input it differently.
This is a flawed system if it cannot deal with variations in license plates from state to state, especially in a region of the country where several other states are within commuting distance.
That problem is solved by
That problem is solved by using Automated License Plate Readers. They're programmed to read all the states' plates.
But when people are manually
But when people are manually typing in their own oddball license plate number, they have to know which glyphs on the plate are part of the registration number and which aren't, otherwise there's going to be a mismatch. The meter reader knew the perpendicular "DLR" was part of his registration number (or it came up as part when she used an automated scanner); the motorist didn't.
MAKES UP
FOR THE TROLLS YOU DONT PAY
I think you mean tolls
Unless you are talking about the troll toll, paid to get the boy's soul.
enforcement sucks
I once received a ticket before I'd gotten out of my car to pay. The ticketer said the same thing, 'already wrote the ticket', and refused to write a note saying I was in the car.
App is still yet to work at
App is still yet to work at all for me on Android
Red light ticket
Once a metermaid started to give me a ticket for double parking while I was stopped at a red light at Exeter and Newbury.
ahahaha
Cry us a friggin' river dude. Maybe go live free or leave your BMW back up in NH.
Can't say as I agree with
Can't say as I agree with your police work there Bob.
I had the same experience of
I had the same experience of being ticketed for an unpaid meter the second or third time I ever used the app to pay for parking, except they didn't bother to leave the ticket on my vehicle. So I only found out when the city mailed me the notice many weeks later adding a late fee to the fine that they hadn't notified me of and which was wrong anyway. I didn't use the app very often, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had proof that the ticket was wrong. The city had ready access to that proof too, but their appeals form didn't have a dropdown choice for that sort of error.
There was no differently entered license plate in my case. Everything was a perfect match.
Boston meter maid abuse her power so bad (badge 378)
Boston parking ticket woman suck out as much as she can my hard working money use to feed my family. As I saw her like 50 feet away, I went in the car start up and ready to leave the spot I park, as I try to leave more cars coming so I could not pull out the spot until all clear, by that time she already came and stand behind my car and start to write down even I am in the car with stopping on the break signaling that someone in the car ready to leaving. As I leaving but I somehow feel that she may write down my car so I am back up and ask her that if she write my car's ticket, and she said yes. OMG how in the world that she would do that to some one already in the car and ready to leave, and knowing that my car was park illegally there with out look at the front wind shield, even through it shouldn't need to. unreal that how hard she need to work without mercy to giving out tickets...