You know it’s already too late when you see their old, grizzled face… the few, the proud, the remorseless. This is their creed and they will never let it pass, they wear it on themselves at all times like a sash of declaration, indicating the wrath they can and will inevitably unleash. Nope, I’m not talking about my computer science teachers, I’m actually talking about Plymouth’s ticket writing fools. I’ve decided, after much deliberation, from here on out to be known as the TN (if you don’t know, you’d better ask somebody).
These hardworking individuals give their all to drain your already empty pockets. When I say hardworking, I do not mean in a sarcastic manner what so ever. I would imagine that after writing as many tickets as the TN do, carpal tunnel syndrome would creep write up on me. So in response to all of the efforts of these troopers, I look and ask, why? Honestly, why would you want a job where the key element is to piss off everybody possible? Yea, parking in Plymouth is almost as bad as Boston and someone has to deal with people who don’t draw within the lines. On the other hand, there’s no need to start writing a ticket when somebody starts to approach their car, that’s just a tad heartless… should we be keeping an eye out for Christmas here in Plymouth next winter? (If you don’t get this one, just play it off and laugh)
In all honesty, I haven’t even brought the ruckus of this article yet, but before I do let me say that Plymouth selling 250 more parking spots than it has available is ridiculous. There’s already a well-known parking problem in Plymouth and the police decide to sell off 250 extra tickets? Brilliant… with that extra dough they can get DVD players installed in their vehicles! While I continuously point out the flaws with Plymouth’s status quo, I always try to bring a positive outlook to the table and present how I feel a situation could be fixed. So here goes…
The problem seems to be that there are too many cars and not enough space to put them. It would seem easy to fix this problem by adding more parking lots but their isn’t really room to do so. I’ve got it! Why not add a parking deck to the parking lot in Hyde, a fairly centralized location? While this would cost a little bit of extra money, I’m sure between the parking tickets written, the parking passes sold and a few other financial resources this idea may present itself as feasible. Even if it’s not a feasible idea, at least I’m not turning my back on this madness and waiting for it to run up behind me like an un-neutered dog.
Anyway, back to the point of this article which all started when I heard a comedian on Comedy Central the other day dropping a bit about how meter maids in Manhattan sneak in and get the ticket on your windshield before you even know what happened and how the tickets were a ridiculous shade of orange, as to piss you off from a distance. While this guy was about as funny as my TCP/IP midterm grade, it got me thinking and I compared our town’s meter maids to those of Manhattan.
First I looked at the costs and if forgotten, our parking violations are approximately as raw as those of Manhattan, $40 to $45 comparatively. Yea, that’s right… parking tickets in the college town of Plymouth, the same town we relieve ourselves on at least once every weekend, charges almost as much as one of the US’s most upscale cities. Note to self, next time I will give the trees a break and take it to a parking meter this weekend.
Our town’s maids are a bit less James Bond and a bit more Chief Wiggum. There are no subtleties, they don’t slink into a dark corner as you might first expect them too, they just stand there, taking their time writing out the ticket you were 20 seconds late of missing. You know that your primal instinct just wants to kick the maid in the jimmy and drive away like nothing happened but then your sense of reality comes back and you stand there and get screwed. That’s why I’m writing this article, so you might be able to get another shot at that maid without all the risk of a nightstick upside your dome. I’ve found that parking meters downtown, where people park for classes, have come up as much as 23 minutes off when timed on a stopwatch. I tested numerous meters, some came up accurately, some others came up just 4-5 minutes off but there were 3 in this test of 10 that came up 8 or more minutes off.
First off, when you put a quarter in the slot, 40% of the time it actually starts with less than the 2 hours you’re paying for. I’ve even seen a meter come up as low as 1 hour and 10 minutes which is certainly not reasonable. Now between this and the incorrect time keeping, a portion of tickets being written must be illegitimate. That being said, appeal your tickets! Tell the police that the meter was off on the time, what are they going to do, deny it? I’ve done the research, just so they can’t deny it.