Secrets of the City

I think the city would be justified in saying that the number of signs or the amount of yellow paint needed to do either would be prohibitive. However the question I have is 5 feet from where? Five feet from the point at which the curb first curves away from being parallel with the street or five feet from the inside edge of the driveway.

Either way the cop you ticketed you must have simply been avoiding something that would have been more productive. (Either that or the driveway owner complained… but still that’s an un-busy cop.)

I didn’t know you couldn’t do a naked cartwheel in front of a federal judge.

That I can only park at the Capitol three times per month with my MetroPass. That ticket was a real nice treat after working for like a gazillion hours.

Your Honor…she told me she was 18…you have to believe me!

5 unpaid parking tickets in the City of Minneapolis, and you get a warrant. If the car is registered to your dad, he gets notification there is a warrant for his arrest. Dads are not fond of this.

the amount of yellow paint needed to do either would be prohibitive.

I call bullshit on this, because Los Angeles had yellow curbs everywhere. If Los Angeles can find the time to paint all of its no-parking zones yellow, then I think freaking Minneapolis can paint its no-parking zones yellow. Which is what I told the 311 guy on the phone last night, even though I am fully aware the 311 guy has nothing to do with my parking ticket.

I’d like to apologize to that 311 guy for being a raging turbo-bitch.

I learned that as well, yepnope, except it was only one parking ticket…

Also, my parking ticket said “on complaint,” so I guess someone called it in. It might be those people I called the cops on last Thursday at 1am for blasting heavy metal out of their open windows.

If that’s the case, I say game on, bitches.

los angeles has a lot lot lot more money than minneapolis to spend on painting curbs.

also:
Your Honor…she told me she was 18…you have to believe me!
Lolz

too close to home… ):
jk!

So what if Los Angeles has more money? They also have more curbs. I don’t think the amount of curbs in Minneapolis would be prohibitive, and frankly, it’s ridiculous that they have so few signs and information on the streets regarding parking information.

Of course, that would cut off the revenue stream of towing residents of the city (who, based on the folks I saw at the impound lot last night painstakingly counting out stacks of tens to get their cars back, probably can’t as easily afford the $200 that I charged on my Visa). And why, oh why, would we want to inform the population of laws we’d like them to abide by?

Last week my wife paid $280 to learn that a sign that says “Don’t Park Here” means don’t park here.

Sort of related. I always hate those signs that say “NO PARKING THIS SIDE OF STREET” then you u-turn and find the same sign on the other side. Couldn’t they make a sign that said “NO PARKING EITHER SIDE OF STREET” to save me the trouble?

Also, I got a ticket for expired tabs a month ago and I was parked right in front of a car that had literally been there since last fall (through all of the snow emergencies and all). I don’t argue that I forgot to update my tabs, but isn’t there an abandoned car law on the books that they had clearly overlooked. My guess is that the bombed out Honda looked a lot less like $$ coming in than the Audi in front of it.

Josie- I wonder if this 5 foot rule could be found buried in a MN drivers manual. There are TONS of those little laws that many transplants and drivers that haven’t taken a test for 20 years either don’t know, or forget…like the “park at least 30 feet from the stop sign law” that is repeatedly broken in Uptown…

But seriously… what’s with airplane food, am I right?

I’m pissed off because I’ve parked in this parking spot I’ve gotten towed from a lot, and I’ve never been towed, and other people park there a lot and have never been towed. Not that government uses common sense when it comes to these things, but if it’s an ongoing problem, I have a bucket of yellow paint in my hall closet they can use to slap it on the curb.

I’m sure the five foot rule is buried in some footnote or something.

Did you know that you can get a ticket for an expired meter AND expired tabs all on one ticket? Thought it was for only the meter so plugged the meter grabbed the ticket and went on my merry way. Came back to ANOTHER expired meter ticket. Although it was reduced somewhat, I had to pay for all of it… Ouch!

Here is what the City’s web site says:

Unsigned Street Parking Restrictions

10 Ways to Avoid Getting a Parking Ticket

Yellow curbs are ugly. As a resident who has a very challengng time trying to get the F@ck out of my driveway when people park to close I am happy they are enforcing this rule. And all residents received notification of this with their last water bill. And for those of you that don’t pay attention…or just don’t care….you may want to remember 20 feet from an intersection.

I love that there’s a law stating that you cannot park on the sidewalk…kinda like don’t use this curling iron while sleeping…

Here’s the MN Driver’s Manual. That’s right. The same one you used in the class taught by the sweaty health teacher.

And IF you have stayed awake and IF you had studied and IF you hadn’t been smoking so much pot in high school, you would have saved yourselves lots of money and heartache. But you just had to smoke your pot, didn’t you. Didn’t you?

Now go to your room and think about what you’ve done.

“R” ratted you out Josie!

It’s under “Drivers Education.”

The quiz will be this afternoon.

Actually Alie, people with driveways — some people in the city have driveways don’t they? If you park in your driveway and block the sidewalk it is agin the law. This type of thing happens more in the burbs though.

I love that there’s a law stating that you cannot park on the sidewalk…kinda like don’t use this curling iron while sleeping…

Suddenly, I understand what happened to Alexis.

Cat, you’re not suppposed to plug expired meters. You can get ticketed if a parking enforcement officer sees you do it. From the 10 ways to avoid a ticket link:

“The purpose of metered and time limit areas is to encourage the turnover of vehicles in places where there is a high demand for on-street parking. If your appointment requires longer term parking, save the cost of a ticket and use a lot or ramp. Staying at a meter longer than the posted time limit is a violation, as is re-feeding the meter for additional time.”

Dude, I totally slept through Driver’s Ed. Can you give me your notes?

I like my scenario better. It conjures up images of people randomly parking on the sidewalk on Nicollet Mall and doing their christmas shopping…

Josie, what doomed you was the complaint. Cops love these calls. They can get in, get out, “solve” the problem, and avoid interaction. On my ride along, I watched the cop write a tag for parking in a handicapped spot. The car was maybe 8 inches into the spot. (It was a designated spot on the street.) It could have impared the user of the spot, but I kind of doubt it. But, someone called it in, and the MPD responded.

I’m pissed off because I’ve parked in this parking spot I’ve gotten towed from a lot, and I’ve never been towed, and other people park there a lot and have never been towed.

I used to park in the lot at Bennett Lumber (which is now The Remodeler’s Choice) when I couldn’t find a street spot within a block of my apartment building. I and a handful of other cars whom I assume belong to people who also live in my building or the adjacent one would park there overnight, usually after 8 or so and always leaving for work in the morning. We’d park in the corner of the lot farthest from the entrance to the building. The lot has never been even close to full at any time that I’ve seen it.

One morning they towed everybody. Wasn’t a snow emergency. There weren’t any more corner-parkers than usual. Coincidentally I had actually gotten up early to run that morning which I NEVER do and on my way back I saw the tow truck in the lot.

I mean, yeah, there’s a sign that says that non-customers parked in the lot will be towed. But seriously!

If no one parked within 5 feet of a driveway in my neighborhood, there would be about half the number of cars on the street.

Elizabeth: yeah it was the big “duh” on my part, but I hadn’t been there for my alloted “4 hours” so thought I could “reinvest.”

I did reinvest, just not in the way I thought.

someone called it in, and the MPD responded

Oh, sure, NOW they respond. Pfffft.

I found out there’s no wiggle room to park at a meter and sprint to a mail box to drop off a letter.

i was at a “loud” party and since im already of drinking age, they busted me with a “noisy assembly” ticket.

fucking lame.

I fully acknowledge that I broke the law, and I won’t do it again.

However, it’s infuriating that this was the way the MPD chose to tell me about this law. And that I got towed over a thirty four dollar parking violation.

oh you poor widdle angels getting tickets for not following the rules! driving is a privledge and a responsibility and should be treated as such. Too many people seem to think it’s a right and that the world and the police are out to get them with all their evil parking rules!

Newsflash: parking in cities is never easy, unless it’s like Detroit or LA or some other bombed-out city completely paved with free parking. Even in those places I’m sure the parts of town worth going to are hard to find parking in.

From this thread: http://mnspeak.com/mnspeak/archive/post-2712.cfm

true story:

i knew that i had some parking tickets. i lived on lagoon and james in uptown. previous to that i’d lived on 15th and lasalle. I also worked in Loring Park and previous to that in that building where citypages is located. Anyhow, the point is, those are all prime ticketing spots when you don’t have rented parking spaces.

Right before I moved to LA my car was towed on Lagoon because I guess I was parked too close to a stop sign (they never seem to tow the giant SUVs that keep you from being able to see crossing traffic). So I call the lot and they tell me that I have outstanding fines and that I will need to go to the court house and pay them. I knew I had fines so this didn’t come as a surprise. What did come as a surprise, though, was the amount I heard when I got to the courthouse – $3,200!

They gave me a report of all my unpaid tickets. They went as far back as 2000. I know I was irresponsible in my early and mid twenties. But jeesh, there were some days I got 2 or even 3 tickets. In fact, on 9/11/2001 I got two.

I ended up being able to talk them down to a more reasonable amount, on account of me never receiving a thing in the mail about them. I also mentioned that I had renewed my license, had been pulled over for speeding, had my license run when I was a witness to that shooting at Nyes, and never once, was I made aware of my outstanding tickets. Those aren’t at all excuses, but the woman did seem sympathetic that I have become a more upstanding citizen and would have (maybe) taken care of it if I were aware of the situation. So, I apologized and went about my day. They seem very willing to haggle because there are just a slew of people, like me, who seem to never pay. I guess I’m lucky I wasn’t thrown in jail or anything. None of them were moving violations or anything.

Epilogue. On the cab ride to the impound lot the cabbie asked me how much my fine was (he said his number one route was between the court house and the impound lot for people who had fines – he didn’t even ask me why I was there). When I told him the amount, he literally pulled the car over, picked up his cell phone, dialed his buddy and started speaking to him in some other language… laughing and laughing. I didn’t mind. I actually thought that was a sweet response.

I learned that after 72 hours your car can be towed for being an abandoned vehicle. I left for a week for vacation, my car parked on the street like it usually is, and came back to find that someone had complained about it. Sure , it had alittle rust, but it wasn’t THAT much of an eyesore.

what’s the policy on parking in a ‘out of order’ meter spot anyway? free for all? do it at your own risk? ticket contestable?

I parked at a friends house in st paul one night at 8pm, per usual – no parking restrictions on this block. The next morning at 7am I go out to the car and now there’s these temporary “No Parking Today” signs planted up and down the block. Every friggin car on the block had a ticket. total bs.

I got a ticket at a busted meter and got it dismissed over the phone in about 3 seconds.

I received a ticket on 6/1 for driving without my head lights on at 7:30pm. Sunset was 8:52pm. The cop said I needed to have them on because it was “overcast”

oh you poor widdle angels getting tickets for not following the rules!

I knew I was wrong. I got what I deserved. I just wasn’t expecting it.

Also, shut up.

I second Erica.

I learned that when they tell you to make sure the parking permit is clearly displayed from the rear view mirror… they mean it. If the permit is on the center console… they tow my car and it costs $280.40 to get it out. I learned this twice. Towed from the parking lot I pay to park in. Sweet.

I learned that my taillights were completely out while in Bloomington a few years ago thanks to a loose wire that was shorting out on the frame of the trunk. Fortunately, no ticket for me, as I had absolutely no idea…he just sent me on my way telling me to drive home with my hazards on…

I got a ticket for this violation about two weeks ago:

Corner clearance – vehicles must not be parked within 20 feet of the inside edge of the closest intersecting sidewalk. The “corner clearance” ordinance is designed to provide clear visibility and ease traffic flow at intersections.

A) no sign, which pisses me off, b) it’s NEVER enforced (I never see cars with tickets and I see them parked in the exact spot I was in all the time) and c) if they take that room away from cars being able to park there, it limits way too much parking in an already congested area.

Yeah, I’m a bit bitter about it.

Fuck the police!

Damn! Damn! Damn! Why do they make these stupid laws that do things like provide clear visibility at intersections?! That sucks!

What next? It’s going to be illegal to rear-end school buses? Damn!

i understand the idea of wanting to see at intersections…which is why they have signs at the ones where you can’t park 30 feet from the corner. since there was a sign at the intersection perpendicular to the one i was at, and nothing where i was parked (and where thousands before me had parked), i assumed i was cool as Fonzi. Not so, according to Mr. Law. At 11:30 on a Friday night. A week after it took 15 rings for the 911 operator to pick up on a Friday night. So I was also bitter that the cop had nothing better to do than ticket me, as opposed to, you know, protecting the public and fighting violent crime.

No I feel you, PwrGeek. I was just messing.

You’ve got a legitimate beef, but I do generally enjoy the conversations held by the “busted” when clearly there’s a sound reason for a law in the first place.

“So I was also bitter that the cop had nothing better to do than ticket me, as opposed to, you know, protecting the public and fighting violent crime.”

You must have missed this in the other thread, but if cops are given Federal money to tow your car, they can ignore stopping murderers and stuff. Seems fair.

nateek, no problem. And there have been times when I’ve gladly paid my parking ticket because I was either too lazy or too drunk to remember to feed the meter. This one, though, just pissed me off!

David, stopping murders is so Clinton administration.

Well if it’s a meter maid, they don’t do the whole stopping murderers thing, anyway.

didn’t ya’ll just have a “the police suck because they gave me a ticket” bitchfest like, two weeks ago?

Yes I do!

The police don’t suck because they gave me a ticket.

The City of Minneapolis sucks for not clearly informing the populace of activities that might earn you a ticket.

Now I’m mad at myself for not calling in an Expedition that I watched park in front of a fire hydrant in uptown. And he was most definitely within 20 feet of the intersection.

actually it’s not the city’s job to inform you, it’s your job and responsibility as a driver to know. a license is a privledge, and you need to know the rules. srry!

I’m pretty sure there should be penalties for anyone who lives in Uptown and uses street parking for their full size pickup… other than the small phallus they were born with.

I sure don’t miss that huge truck always parked on the corner of 32nd & Emerson-ish, so you couldn’t see any northbound traffic without pulling into the intersection, at which point you may as well just cross blindly.

Wayne, seriously, shut the fuck up. Come to a complete stop at every stop sign on your bike and then we’ll talk.

Also, learn how to spell privilege.

Aaaaaaand don’t fuck with me when I’m out two hundred bucks.

I’ll learn how to spell when you learn where to park.

WOMEN! THEY CANNOT DRIVE! ALWAYS PUTTING ON THE MAKEUP AND HAVING PERIOD!

Let’s not start a round of “in Soviet Russia…”

You people are all so disgustingly self-righteous. Learn how to admit fault sometime, why don’t you?

When did I not say I was wrong? Now that I actually, you know, know the rule, I’ll abide by it.

However, I will continue to be pissy about the fact that there is a woeful lack of PUBLICLY POSTED information regarding parking rules in Minneapolis, and that this whole thing could have been avoided with half a gallon of yellow paint on the fucking curb. Other major cities handle it just fine. There’s no reason a city the size of Minneapolis can’t have better signage.

Sure there is: it’s run by incompetent douchebags.

My point was that you still feel like blaming the city for not letting you know that you shouldn’t park in front of someone’s driveway. Most people know that via common sense. Try it sometime.

Sure there is: it’s run by incompetent douchebags

A-ha, finally, a straight answer!

A few years ago I was doing a lot of travelling for work and driving around a lot of strange cities and getting lost with bad Mapquest directions. Then I decided that if I ever ran for public office, my main platform would be large, easy-to-see street signs. Now I’m adding visible parking restrictions to my campaign promises.

And for Christ’s sake, I didn’t park directly in front of it. I’m blonde but I’m not that blonde. The end of my bumper was kind of overlapping where the curve starts from the street into the driveway. Yes, a little sketchy, but hardly tow-worthy. Especially considering the amount of drugs sold out of the building I was parked in front of…I think the cops should have better things to do in my neighborhood.

You’re pretty quick to jump with approval on the first comment that makes it someone else’s fault, aren’t you?

Hay guyz, I will totally say that I wuz wrong, but like, omg, it was someone else’s fault! I was wrong becuz of some1 else! I’m like congress getting “misled” into the Iraq War! Lulz!

Some cities they’ll drag your car to another block… Consider yourself lucky

ZooTrouble

And, like, therez totally other ppl doin even worser stuff around so why did they have to pick on poor little me? Wah!

Wow, anonymity really does make people act like kids hiding at the back of assembly, making fart noises and thinking they’re funny.

Aw, c’mon, leave her alone. She was led astray by the concerted efforts of a government conspiracy to defraud her of her hard earned money so it could be spent on bureaucracy and pencil-pushers! Oh, and welfare too! Don’t forget welfare!

America: Land where it’s always someone else’s fault.

In Russia, somebody else’s fault was always you.

IN SOVIET ESTONIA, WOMAN SITS IN BACK OF CART PULLED BY MULE!

WE HAVE TROUBLE WITH JOKE IN ESTONIA. CANNOT QUITE AFFORD GOOD ONES.

I’m going to look at LOLcats now. Or maybe I’ll read the New York Times instead. Go ahead and get it all out of your system while I’m gone! See you tomorrow!

If anyone would like a useful tidbit (besides learning about Estonian humor) here’s one: if you see an emergency vehicle with its lights on, move to the furthest possible lane. don’t just hop into the next lane. Get all the way over if you’re on a 3+ lane road.

It sucks to get your car towed.

It sucks to get parked in your own driveway.

I learned that getting a speeding ticket in Duluth (totally my fault, but I hate that part where it suddenly goes down in speed) and forgetting to pay it cause wheee! I’m on vacation! can lead to you having a suspended license. And, subsequently, you find out you have a suspended license when you are driving home from ski practice (for the awesome Star Tribune ski team!) in Welch Village, which is very far away from parents’ Shoreview home where you live.

I learned the cops can then search your car, while you sit in the backseat of the cop car, and wonder if you are a student because you have so many books in the car (no, officer, I just like to read).

Then, while you are sitting in the car, you see your car towed away to Hinckley, have to call a friend who had been on her way home, ask her to drive you back to Shoreview and 11pm then drive home to New Prague. Then you have to ask your little brother for a ride to work, so your parents don’t find out (moving home makes you act 14. really.) and then ask another friend to take you to get your license reinstated, get a shitty look from a clerk who thinks it was revoked for DWI not suspended, get sent to the wrong place, get it reinstated (after paying the original fee to Duluth, plus a $10 fax charge to get proof) then have someone else drive you to Hinckley to get your car, tow charges, etc.

Also, $5 to get the taillight fixed that originally got you pulled over in the first place.

At least I have a story to tell!

Josie: sorry to hear about your ticket and tow. At least you, and the rest of us, know the parking rules now.

Also, remember that trolls are mean, ugly mythical creatures that like to cause mischief and mayhem in otherwise harmonious (or at least unoffensive) settings. Trolls are not real people. Do not respond to them.

Max: I may have been hungover, but I definitely wasn’t drunk.

A dozen years ago in college, I parked in front of a house in St Paul near my apartment, like I did every day. Then a historically bad cold “snap” caused my car to not start. No big deal, because I was parked legally, right? Well, after a few frigid, no-start days of making-do without my car, the old guy who happened to have his house on the market –the house I parked in front of, on the street, in a legal way– complained that it affected the sale value of his property. What? That got me towed to the impound lot. Which would’ve been a controllable situation, but no, I left town for spring break the morning I discovered my car gone. Long story short, it was an expensive pain to get my car back –and it still wouldn’t even start once I found it.

Fast forward eight years. No need to drive, I got myself a state id instead of a dl. When I go to get a license, I find it was suspended all that time ago somehow because of my impound lot stay. Don’t ask me why they released the car to me back then. I thought I had paid all I had to pay. Anyhow, I told the helpful bureaucrat on the phone how sad this all was, and she told me she’d wipe it off my record because so much time had passed. I stilll had to take the whole driver’s test again, but it was several hundred dollars less than I would’ve had to pay, not to mention the fewer amount of hoops I had to jump through. THANK YOU drivers license reinstatement lady!

I’ve run into three situations:

1.) parking on a residential street between like 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. during certain winter months, even if there is no snow, can get you a fine in Big Lake.

2.) It doesn’t matter if your car takes up most of the space next to the meter you paid for in Minneapolis, it’s the positioning of the meter in relation to the front of the car that matters. If someone else can encroach three inches into your space, they may be able to steal your meter.

3.) Pulling over to the side of the road in Maple Lake because you suspect a drunk farmer is riding your bumper, which turns out to be a cop, will get you a speeding ticket for going 70, sixty minutes earlier, on a different road, with a court date in the past, for a city called “Malp Lake”, and a lecture about trying to escape the police. Questioning the court receptionist for details will get you yelled at.

My car, along with many others, was towed one day because the squareheads really needed to clean up a few inches of snow on one side of a dead-end street. A very urgent matter. Fortunately I have since moved to Scottsdale, escaping both squareheads and snow.

Five feet is a little excessive though, and several meters in the city force you to park within the five feet. I was about three feet from the driveway and got ticketed and towed, I was no where near blocking the driveway and if you think it is difficult to get out of a driveway when someone is parked 2-3 feet away from the curb that is pretty ridiculous. Clearly it is not common knowledge since I see all those unsigned parking restrictions being “violated” all the time so those who are on their high horse can quiet down.