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The guide to beating parking tickets … in Toronto

June 9th, 2010 · 16 Comments

Now let’s see that guide here. I know that I have been successful a couple of times in getting tickets cancelled, but by proving I had misentered the parking-meter number on my cellphone or some such dreary evidence that I had actually paid. I never thought of claiming I was at a religious service.

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  • Dan Cooper

    Well, until late last year you could apparently, as an unwritten rule, get out of a ticket once in your life in Vancouver. Call it the “oops” rule. Seemed a reasonable idea to me, though not one I ever had reason to take advantage of myself.

    Then the Vancouver Courier, on a slow news day perhaps, wrote a snarky column about the situation. Next thing you know, lynch mobs were in the street, demanding that every evil first-time parking scofflaw be hung upside down and thoroughly shaken to empty their pockets into the treasury. (It was almost enough to make an immigrant from ‘Mer’ca get flashbacks to The Land Where Everything Is Punished!) As I recall, the Council quickly expressed its shock and horror that the City was actually doing something nice for citizens and visitors, and put the kibosh on it.

    Ah, here Frances noted the beginning of the process….

    http://francesbula.com/city-hall-talk/park-and-library-cuts-decided-while-vancouver-foregoes-parking-revenue/

  • booge

    On sunday around the Drive the parking-meter czars were in force ticketing and having people towed for parking a fwe feet INTO out of bounds areas. i.e. on such a day it should have been allowed. but no ticket and tow. b@st@rds! I once received a fine for calling out to an approaching meter maid that i was just running across the street to get some change and was coming right back to plug the meter. She was about 30 feet from my car. When I returned less than a minute later she was in the process of writing up the ticket. I protested that I had told her that i was getting change. She said ” your meter was expired” F#%K YOU I yelled , see you in court. FINE she replied I get double-time for court appearances! The judge threw out the fine after hearing my recap of the event including the ticket maid’s reply about DT. I can go on with some of their very cheap ticketing tricks.

    This city has gotten very greedy. They are desperate for money and want to punish citizens ASAP when it comes to parking tickets. Now we have to plug meters until 10PM. What crazy twits!

  • mezzanine

    ^Jebus, parking offices are just people doing their jobs. Eat a little crow, move on and put more money in the meter next time.

    In the past few times I’ve encountered COV parking attendants I was able to get to the meter before they did; they smiled and moved on. In the 1 time where I saw the official print the ticket out as I got there, it was explained to me they cannot revoke a ticket once it’s printed.

  • http://www.chriskeam.com Chris Keam

    “Now we have to plug meters until 10PM. What crazy twits!”

    I agree! Don’t you just hate it when the stinking government won’t let you store your belongings on public property for hours at a time at no charge. Jerks.

  • Joe Just Joe

    *l* says a cyclist who has never had to pay to park his bike on public or private property.

  • Bill Smolick

    > Call it the “oops” rule. Seemed a reasonable idea to me, though not one
    > I ever had reason to take advantage of myself.

    Ooops! Sorry officer, I accidentally killed that nice lady with a gun.

    Mr. Judge sir, it was my first time. Can’t we just overlook it this one?

  • Bill Smolick

    > *l* says a cyclist who has never had to pay to park his bike on public
    > or private property.

    I always enjoy it when car drivers bring up this point.

    Cyclists pay the same taxes as car drivers do. So do pedestrians for that matter.

    Car drivers don’t seem to complain about pedestrians walking on sidewalks for free.

    We *all* pay a huge amount of money to subsidize roads. Roads *do* have a common benefit, of course. They have been a key part of the economic engine that has built our country and our city. There’s no denying that.

    Don’t even pretend that the impact of a bicycle on the roads is similar to that of a car. A single lane for cars could carry three bicycles abreast and you could safely fit about 9 bicycles in the space of one 16 or 17′ long car–fairly common in North America.

    Those 9 bicycles would have virtually no impact on the road surface if they rode it every day. An endless stream of cyclists at an average mass of 90kg each would have virtually no impact. Maintenance costs would be virtually nothing.

    As for parking, the space factor is even better. You could easily park 20 bicycles in a single car parking spot.

    So I’ll tell you what…when cars start paying their way without massive subsidies from Cyclists and Pedestrians I’ll gladly start paying 1/20th of what you currently pay for parking. I’d gladly pay if the city provided modern secure parking services for bicycles such as the ones that have been discussed before.

    There are places where I *am* required to pay by the way: BC Ferries charges $2 to bring a bicycle on board. They provide no racks, no secure space, nothing at all. I’m told to just lean my bike up against the wall. So BC Ferries is charging a $2 fee and providing no services in exchange.

    Seems fair, doesn’t it?

  • http://www.chriskeam.com Chris Keam

    Yep, just another advantage of using a bike. Also, it’s not as if there’s NO free car parking in Vancouver, and there is monthly pay parking for bikes at various locations in the city.

    Of course, the fact that you can fit a dozen or more bikes in the average car parking spot shouldn’t be ignored either. If space is at a premium, one has to expect to pay a premium to take up a lot of space. I don’t think free bike parking is much of an issue frankly, especially as it’s almost always off the roadway and doesn’t impede traffic flow the same way on-street car parking does.

    Frankly, I usually catch the bus or a cab if I’m going downtown late in the evening anyway, so no parking required.

  • booge

    “^Jebus, parking offices are just people doing their jobs. Eat a little crow, move on and put more money in the meter next time.”

    … yeah right!

    There is doing one’s job and then there is zealotry.

    And Kris your argument about free-loading by leaving my car on public space is so below you. Think it through lad. Should ALL autos be forced to pay a 24 hr parking tax on all streets?

    ride til you bop….

  • http://www.chriskeam.com Chris Keam

    “And Kris your argument about free-loading by leaving my car on public space is so below you. Think it through lad. Should ALL autos be forced to pay a 24 hr parking tax on all streets?”

    I think that there’s an argument that parking should be free in some areas at some times. I don’t think pay parking until 10pm in a downtown area is unreasonable.

  • David

    ^ It is unreasonable if you want to go to a movie, play, or other evening event that lasts over two hours… and not all of us carry a cell-phone.

  • spartikus

    Should ALL autos be forced to pay a 24 hr parking tax on all streets?

    Dunno. Should autos pay a toll to drive across the Golden Ears bridge or drive into London? Is a parking meter a tax to raise revenue, or a method to enforce parking policy?

  • Bill Smolick

    > Should ALL autos be forced to pay a 24 hr parking tax on all streets

    Yes.

  • Bill Lee

    @booge // Jun 10, 2010 at 2:06 pm comment 9 above..

    Why not? In Japan, you have to have a “Shakoshomeishou” before you can get a car.
    You must have a registered parking space and submit certification of such (Shakoshomeishou) to the police. The rental of the space varies, from a couple of thousand yen/month in the suburbs, up to maybe over 100,000 yen/month in the plush areas of Tokyo. To get a parking space, some are found through estate agents (fudosan), others are rented directly from the owners.

  • http://www.chriskeam.com Chris Keam

    “It is unreasonable if you want to go to a movie, play, or other evening event that lasts over two hours… and not all of us carry a cell-phone.”

    There are dozens of pay parking lots in the downtown core for people who require a more long-term storage solution (beyond 2 hours) for their vehicle. My understanding of street parking is that it is meant to be a short term amenity.

  • Booge

    ^”My understanding of street parking is that it is meant to be a short term amenity.”

    yeah… there’s loads of people looking for short term parking between 8-10pm ;-)

    common sense be out the door in this thread. The 8pm Deadline was just perfect as it was. But no COV needs extra cash and so they will will makes loads with an big increase in parking fines.