Thx so much to the fucking pigdog metre reader who ticketed me on Granville Street Thursday afternoon at quarter to four when I ran into my office building to get change for the godamned metre.
I was gone 90 seconds tops, and I come out….god damned ticket on my windshield!
Where did he come from. Hiding under a sewer grate no doubt.
I hope you rot in the fourth circle of hell.
This stupid city is a moneypit. I’m sure the ticket money will be well used. Like renovating the council chambers because we’re going to have fewer councillors. Good grief. —Had Enough
This article appears in Aug 9-15, 2012.
haha keep change on you if your gonna park downtown moron
METER not METRE – one is a cash grab machine ‘tother is a unit of length.
I thought of something one day and I wonder if it would work… Just stick a receipt/piece of paper/old parking ticket under your windshield when parking downtown so they think you already got the ticket 😉
i don’t think pigdogs live in the sewer
How is it the meter man’s problem you were 90 seconds late feeding the meter?? If you don’t want a ticket, you should be more careful next time. If I was a meter man, you can bet I wouldn’t be walking down the line of parked cars pondering everyone’s circumstances, trying to detect any possible “I’m special” vibes wafting off the various vehicles. No, I’d be doing my job.
In a perfect world, meter readers would have time to sip tea and eat crumpets on the hoods of illegally parked vehicles, whilst waiting to ensure the driver hasn’t merely parked illegally to run into his office (sarcasm intended). You took a chance & lost…suck it up princess!
Was there an article recently about new fangled meters that took credit cards? I understand that once those “electronic wallets” are launched by RBC in October, the gizmo is in your cell phone apparently, this should no longer be an issue. Notice how my grasp of all things electronic is vague….
i parked at a meter off lower water and you had a choice of money or credit. for my loonie i got twenty minutes
Parking enforcement (foot patrol) get less than $12.00/hr ($11.35 I think). I wouldn’t do their job, the shit and abuse they take on a daily basis, is worth more than that.
90 seconds? Bullshit. The only way you got a ticket in 90 seconds is if, you got out of your car and left, right in front of them. They don’t hide, their uniforms are really quite noticable, and they certainly don’t run down the block to ticket your car.
Mel – That won’t work in Halifax. If they see a “ticket” on a vehicle, they check it.
How do I know all this? I spent more than a few minutes (sweet)takling to some our fine city’s Parking Enforcement personnel this summer.
why oh why is this so common? to blame someone else for one’s own stupidity, carelessness, neglect, inattention, lack of preparation, whatever. fill in the blanks. try this…..take whatever hand is dominant, raise and smack forehead couple times, not too hard. just enough to indicate ‘dammit why did i do that’ and then LET IT GO.
YEAH O.P., IF YOU WANT CASH FOR A METRE, THEN YOU’LL HAVE TO WALK THAT FAR TO GET IT, DUMB FUCK.
Good Grief indeed Charlie Brown.
Too bad the meter people couldn’t get paid a dollar per excuse “I was popping into that building for two minutes to drop something off!”. They’d make a pretty good living.
and Molly in LTWWB, OP is not responsible for anything, it’s the other idiot’s fault.
TF, yup, “if I didn’t INTEND to run off the road while I was texting/nodding off/whacking off/getting a new CD then it’s NOT MY FAULT” and certainly not responsible for it. some kind of cloud insurance company or omniscient mother in the sky can make it all better and kiss the boo-boo. it’s very good that we have brought ‘intent’ into the equation of shouldering responsibility, it has it’s place, but it is not a get out of jail free card. BTW, what is LTWWB?
LTWWB – LoveTheWayWeBitch
love the way we bitch
hahahahahah gad, can’t believe it. going to be chuckling for an hour at myself for that one.
i asked that question too good dog, many many moons ago
Personally i don’t see giving someone a $20 + ticket for failure to put $1 in the meter as fair.
Supposedly our laws & the punishments reflected for breaking them are suppose to be just.
In the case of parking violation they are simply a money grab by the city. My solution & I am certainly not the only one to do this is to no longer go there. THis is causing the downtown to lose business, & retailers are complaining, but the city just can’t shake its thirst for 2 million plus in revenue by shaking down its citizens.
Those who are forced to go into the downtown are most at risk & then there was the now solved problem of streets with no meters that now require a displayed permit…or another even bigger fine !
The solution is to use every opportunity to go outside the city to shop & if more people stayed away & listed the Draconian parking ticket system as the cause it would be changed…either that or retailers would be forced to move & the decline in tax revenue as well as empty parking spaces would force the city to rethink how to get more people to come back to downtown .
well, it’s not actually a ‘law’, it would be a bylaw, and the fines aren’t punishment, they’re a deterrent. parking time limitations are to allow more people to park in a given area, for shopping, running errands. not for someone to park all day while they are working. thats what parkades are for. ‘free’ parking would be a nightmare for people trying to run errands or shop downtown, because workers would take all the parking spots and sit in them all day. this is why many meters are free after hours or on holidays. and those streets with permit requirements are for the residents. and again, it’s to prevent commuters who work nearby from swallowing up all the parking spots. a good idea is to drive into the city, park on the outskirts, then take a bus in.
Always keep 5 bucks in the door of your car and you won’t have this problem. Heading downtown knowing you will have to pay for parking, and not bringing even a loonie to tide your parking meter over until you return with enough change to do the job is just stupid. It’s too bad they couldn’t write you two tickets, the extra one for stupidity.
GDM…I’m not proposing free parking, & all day rates as well as mass transit is exactly what workers should be using as opposed to meters.
I just believe the fines should reflect the damage done & seeing as it is minimal, a fine of 5 dollars should suffice & they can always “book” fines , which means another ticket every 30 minutes or hour, which would deter those from as you put it “parking all day”.
I would also like to point out once again there are those like myself who own a vehicle that doesn’t fit in parcades…its too tall. So street parking or open lots (which are either the water front or up by the cop shop) are getting sparse & with tourist season waterfront lot parking isn’t at all convenient.
I’ve got a Macpass transponder, if I’m caught changeless downtown, the meter made should be able to debit my account instead of writing me a ticket.
WTF is a meter made?
and WTF happened to my last comment? alien abduction?
*tosses the OP a quarter for the next time*
Are you a FUCKING idiot? Do you think the person in question knew you were only in there for change? For all they knew you had parked the car for good. A flashing red light on the meter is a flashing red light on the meter regardless. You will be ticketed if a meter maid comes by. You have noone to blame but yourself.
Hows about you keeping change in your car if you are expecting to park downtown like a normal person.
Tweet from Tim_Bousquet: In new paid parking areas by Common, you’ll be able to add time remotely, via your cell phone.
it’s become a a scifi novel, not sure if philip k dickish or george orwellian. luddites unite hahaha