Boy, this daily blogging is tough. I have reviewed the news feeds and find that Pennsylvania is in an uproar over the calibrating of their parking meters. Some cities claim that the law was passed by someone in Harrisburg who got a parking ticket and is nonsense.
They also claim that they never heard of the law until some lawyer started raising hell and got his ticket thrown out.
Now, if a class action lawsuit started, every ticket written in the state in the past three years could be voided. (Except in places where the meters HAD been calibrated).
We are talking millions of bucks here.
Of course the sensible thing to do would be to have anyone who thought their ticket was improper come in and then check THAT meter. If it was off, void their fine. If not, they pay up. That would cover the problem until the state could get its act together to either rescind the law (a good idea) or set up the procedures for calibration (a waste of time and money.
I really like the mayor of Lock Haven’s response to all this:
The mayor also called the new law “silly” and an “annoyance,” and will take valuable time from city workers to make sure all the meters are calibrated correctly.
“Somebody in Harrisburg got one too many parking tickets and they thought (requiring the meters be calibrated) was a good idea,” Vilello said. “It’s just another annoyance. Parking meters are a fact of life. If you get 10 minutes for your nickel or 13 minutes for your nickel, does it make a difference if you’re supposed to get 12 minutes?
“We’ll do what we’ll have to,” he continued. “It’s just silly to me. It’s a waste of time, but we’ll do what it takes to comply with the law.”
A sensible public servant.
JVH
