Parking tickets: not a game
Are Mt. SAC parking rules taking advantage of students?
Isai Rocha
Issue date: 10/7/08 Section: Opinion
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I am pretty sure most of us have seen the little white truck of doom.
It slowly makes its way around every row in the parking lots, checking that every single car has the fall 2008 parking pass clipped on its rear view mirror.
I have had a couple of bad experiences with the parking enforcement rules, and I think the parking rules aren't as clear as they could be.
It is bad enough that there is no parking, but I get fined if I park incorrectly.
I bought a parking permit expecting that I could park with it, but apparently, the permit means you can only park if you are lucky.
It is unfair that the school not only has limited parking available, but I have to pay if I don't park correctly.
Could these tickets have been avoided on my part? Yes, but I think it is understandable how I could have been deceived.
It was a beautiful summer morning. Smog filled my lungs as I left my house. As I drove down Grand Avenue, the highway patrolman sat comfortably on his motorcycle, staring at me through his Paris Hilton glasses, and I was almost late to my Journalism 102 class, the usual.
On a day that started off so innocently, I ended up paying the price.
I did not want to be late, and since my class happened to be near pay lot A, I decided to fork over the two bucks and park there.
I parked my car and ran to class.
When I came back to the lot, there was a parking ticket flapping in the wind as it was comfortably tucked beneath the right windshield wiper of my black Toyota Highlander.
The way I remember it, pay lot A used to work a bit differently.
My former understanding was that you park in pay lot A, and when you leave the lot, there is this friendly parking official waiting at the booth to take your two dollars as you happily drive home.
There was no happy drive home.
Apparently, the regulations for pay lot A have changed. You must now feed a little machine your money before you park.
I saw the sign posted up and it looked just like the one that was up before the rule change.
I partially accepted that ticket. I guess I should have read the sign and interpreted the changed rule in the split second that I saw it.
My second experience with a parking ticket really pissed me off.
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