I hold that 90% of all parking tickets are never written – That is, most violations go unnoticed by enforcement staff. The chances of being caught if you don’t pay, except in some high enforcement areas, is 1 in 10.
However Mike Klein, head of the Albany Parking Authority noted that at least one person was concerned about a citation, didn’t have the proper number of coins or maybe just plain honest. Here is what his staff found stuffed in the coin slot of a standard single space meter.
Hey Bobra, can meters handle this kind of abuse?
JVH
2 Responses
Funny, now that’s ingenuity. By the way, I came upon a businessman jamming his credit card AND his mag stripe ticket into one slot at the same time at a pay-on-foot just last month. This was in a convention center garage. It’s amazing how many people won’t read instructions first (and this was the third day of the conference).
My front desk gal get a handful of calls each day from customers who try to purchase parking from our solar powered pay and display machines. We love our customers, but some of them are in waaay too much of a hurry.
Customer: Your machine doesn’t work.
Front desk: No problem, I can help you! Did you “touch any key” to wake up the machine as directed by the sign?
Customer: Er, no.
Or those impatient folks who swipe their credit card multiple times when the screen says “Please wait, receipt printing” and they wind up with multiple receipts.
After 20 years in the business I have come to the conclusion that some customers know it all and just refuse to read the simplest instructions.