The World According to Michael

 Today's question comes from Justine: 
"I have recently been feeling like a personal victim of the "college campus" scams. I just got a $35 ticket for parking in a "residential" space on campus that was actually misleading in the first place. When I pulled into the parking lot I thought I was pulling into a commuter lot.....long story short...they tricked me! And this has been happening all school year as the overall population of the student body has grown by 30% meanwhile endless construction on campus...students can't find a flipping spot to park. I feel like this is a scam for the school or government who funds our school to seize an opportunity to make money. Thoughts?? "

 Dear Justine:

The control of parking is absolutely just another form of extortion.  It's a common practice for cities & Universities to obscure parking boundaries as to reap the $35-50 reward at the end of the parking ticket rainbow.  The fact that you pulled into a "commuter lot" which was also combined in some form with a residential lot is a perfect example of the deception perpetrated to extort money from the unsuspecting.  Most people don't notice the "appropriate parking hours" posted on the sign that's 300 feet away hidden by an overgrown tree.  And most people don't fight parking tickets either.  It's easy money for the city or university.

In some of the larger cities the parking nazi's won't let you park in a particular spot for more than 2 hours, even if you fed the parking meter on a continual basis.  The little parking nazi's drive around in their single-serving vehicles and mark your tires with chalk to see if your car has moved since the last time they drove by.  Then they come around every two hours and make sure that you've moved your car out of that spot.  This is awfully confusing when the sign on the meter says "2hour limit" and it has the capacity to purchase up to 2 hours worth of parking.  You would think that if you continued to feed the meter that you would be able to park in that particular spot for more than two hours.  The ambiguous nature of this tactic, is a rude awakening for those who find a parking ticket stuck to their windshield even though an hour remains on the meter.  You see the City makes more on a $50.00 ticket than it does on .50c on the meter.

 It's quite entertaining actually.  The City has to pay for all of these parking meter-maid-nazis to run around and police the growing crime of parking without knowledge.  In some cases these meter police are paid very well if they have been on the job for years.  Not to mention the pension, benefits, holidays.  I recently read where a meter maid in Chicago makes between $21 - 64k per year.  With benefits & pension this sets the taxpayers back a pretty penny.  

So in conclusion.  Yes, parking is a racket.  They need to money to pay for the meter maids salary & benefits.  You also pay for the meter maids with your tax money & tuition.  Yet they still harass the very citizenry that pays for their fantastic job.  I say eliminate all parking meters & fire all of the meter maids and the cities & universities would actually save money!  Not to mention it will free up the current meter maids to do something productive for society and not just suck from it.

Michael