Dumbfounded

Someone posted that he had received a parking ticket while caching for an expired meter and wondered about others who had similar misfortunes. While geocaching, I have none. But it did remind me of two other tickets I have been involved in.

When I first moved to Boston I had a series of bad luck including a couple of tickets. One of them was interesting.

I drove along Newbury Street looking for a place to park. As I came down the street a second time, I noticed an empty spot on a cross street. I think it was Gloucester. I backed into the spot from Newbury. I went and ran my errand. It was a matter of minutes.

Sure enough, when I returned to my car there was a bright orange ticket on the windshield. I looked at it. Apparently I parked in a space that was to be cleared as of 4:00 p.m. to help with traffic flow. That is certainly understandable. The problem is that I never saw a sign prohibiting me from parking there.

Upon looking around, there was one. It was behind me at the parking spot behind where I parked. As you recall, I never passed that sign. I backed into the spot from the perpendicular street. I cannot believe backing into a space is illegal. How was I supposed to have known I could not park here? Grrrr . . .

Even more galling is a ticket that was issued to a friend of mine back in 1986. I was in Lancaster, PA for my Matt’s wedding. He had purchased a house in the old part of town. The day before the wedding we decided to go out and buy some more beer. We took Matt’s car. I got into the passenger’s seat. I was already in the car with the door closed as Matt sat in the driver’s seat. He reached for the car door to pull it shut. Just then another car came by, hit the door, kept going, and about 100 feet later applied the brakes. Matt’s door was wrapped around the hood of the car. We were shocked.

Everyone poured out of the houses and eventually the police arrived to take the statements. The street we were on is residential and narrow, like many older Pennsylvanian towns. The guy who hit the car had a child in the car without being strapped in. I kept pointing out the car was going too fast for this neighborhood and the little girl was standing in the back seat. That seemed to not matter at all.

At the end of the ordeal, Matt was ticketed. I (and he) was dumbfounded. How could he be at fault for this? Well, it turns out in Lancaster there is some silly law that one cannot have his car door fully extended. The reason for this, we were told, was to prevent just this kind of accident. The streets are so narrow that car doors become a problem. Unbelievable, ain’t it?

Matt went to court over this. He asked me to write my version and have it notarized. I did. I have forgotten the outcome, but I suspect he lost.

I am all for law and order. It seems like laws should be reasonable. Neither of these situations appear that reason was applied.

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