Plot twist, I do not love parking tickets. I can understand some use cases for them. They are an effective tool to mitigate congestion in dense city centers, or in high-traffic business districts. However, beyond those applications, and a few other specific ones, such as keeping fire lanes clear. I have a hard time seeing them as anything but unjustified bureaucratic overreach. I can even find research to further justify my claims. According to one study by the Urban Institute, they have been found to disproportionally affect people in lower-income communities, those who can least afford to pay them. Of course, I left out the part where a different Google search would likely have produced studies that contradict this, but more on that later.
If you need further proof of my disdain for parking tickets, you can ask my wife. She would tell you that the only time in our relationship that she has ever seen me truly furious, was over a parking ticket. This particular incident happened back when we were still dating during the first time I brought her home to the East Coast to meet my family.
While I currently reside in sunny San Diego, I grew up in not-so-sunny Plymouth Massachusetts. Plymouth has grown significantly in the 2 decades since I graduated high school. It has transformed from what was once a small, somewhat rural community, known for Pilgrams, and an underwhelming rock. To a much larger, borderline city in its own right, with a population nearly double what it was at that time. Business parks, strip malls, and housing developments have been carved out of the dense scrub oak forests, and 4-lane roads with rows of street lights have replaced dirt roads and 4-way stops. Also, yes it is still largely known for Pilgrams and an underwhelming rock.
Despite this rapid growth, the downtown area of Plymouth, which occupies a rocky bit of coast about 40 miles south of Boston, has largely remained the same. The buildings and houses, some of which have been continually inhabited since the late 1700s are mostly unchanged. The only indication of progress besides the increased traffic, is the ceaseless rotation of businesses and restaurants that inhabit them. Each new owner is convinced that a fresh name or a new menu will be the winning strategy for long-term success, and most are turned over again a few years later. Falling victim to the unpredictable nature of seasonality and tourism.
Unfortunately, one change that has stuck is the parking situation. When I was a newly minted teenage driver, cruising the streets in a rebuilt 500-dollar 1987 Jeep Cherokee, the parking was abundant and free. Especially in the off-season, which happened to be the time of year, we were visiting. These days parking in the off-season is still very abundant, regardless of that fact, it is no longer free. Meters now line the rows of empty parking stalls, their small screens blinking “expired,” at all hours, day and night, their thirst for quarters insatiable.
If you are someone like me, and you grew up in a small town, then you know it doesn't matter how long you have been away, when you go back you’re still a local. Part of being a local is the sense of entitlement you feel towards your hometown. After all, you grew up on those streets, put your time in, and learned countless life lessons along the way.
So there I was, proudly rattling off local knowledge to my future wife as we cruised the deserted waterfront in the rental car, on our way to pick up takeout. Along the drive I was pointing out landmarks accompanied by anecdotes like; “See that hill, when we were kids we used to take the pumpkins we stole after Halloween and roll them off it into the street.” Yeah, she was impressed.
When we reached our destination, I parked in the near-empty lot, and Instead of having her wait in the car while I ran in, I suggested she come with me. I had worked as a busboy at age 14 in this very restaurant, well the restaurant that had previously been in that building, and obviously, she would want to see that too. We were in there for no more than 5 minutes, food secured, we walked back to the car. As I am sure you’ve guessed, there to greet us when we got to the car was a parking ticket. The bright orange square of paper neatly tucked under my windshield wiper, only I didn’t see it as a parking ticket, I saw it as a bright orange middle finger.
In that moment my sense of local entitlement, my preconceived beliefs about parking tickets, my nostalgia for a time long past, and the sheer frustration towards the fact that the parking lot was empty, all clashed together. It was a perfect storm, the precise embodiment of everything that was wrong with the world. Didn’t the parking attendant have a soul? “This is ridiculous” I shouted as I tore the ticket to shreds. “We were only gone for 5 minutes! How can they justify giving out tickets in an empty lot? Don’t they care about the restaurant? Who is going to pay to park in an empty lot in the offseason? They need all the customers they can get!” Clearly, they didn’t know who I was, that I grew up parking in that lot for free. That I spent my summers cleaning greasy plates and stale beers off tables at that very establishment.
My tirade lasted for a bit longer, more choice words and flawless logic were expressed, but at this point, I think you get the idea. So why share this? Why tell a story about a time when I lost my cool over a parking ticket?
I can’t imagine I am the only one who feels this way about parking tickets. However, if you do not share my views on this particular perceived injustice, I am sure you have your own metaphorical parking ticket. A specific situation or rule that you feel strongly enough about that you may be inclined to, I don’t know. Google your point of view and ignore all the responses that contradict it, instead choosing only to promote the ones that support it? Or, the more likely outcome is that your feelings of the situation fuel the internal justification of your actions, and allow you to deflect your accountability.
In the case of my story, it wasn’t my fault I got a parking ticket. It was a broken system perpetuated by bureaucrats whose singular focus was seemingly to invent asinine rules that defy logic and bleed dry the working-class citizens of this great nation. Spooling their endless miles of red tape around the cardboard tube statement of “I’m just doing my job.” Except it wasn’t that, it was my fault I was in that situation. My fault I was standing in an empty parking lot tearing up a bright orange parking ticket.
There are real injustices in the world, and this article is not in any way meant to minimize them. Some things are truly worth feeling passionate about, some things are worth protesting and they demand change. Parking tickets are not one of them, and neither are many of the other ones we encounter daily. I am not saying that you need to agree with all the rules, and I am not even saying you shouldn’t get mad at them from time to time, I still loathe parking tickets. What I am trying to point out by telling a ridiculous story about an embarrassing reaction to an everyday event. Is, if you do take an action, or an inaction, in my case not putting 25 cents into the meter. Regardless of how unfair or unjustified the outcome might be to you, or how flawless your case for defense is. In the end, you have to take accountability for those outcomes.
To put it another way, it’s like when you stub your toe and in that moment of pain, instead of getting angry at yourself for being clumsy, you get angry at the coffee table for being in your way. Generally, we are quick to recover, to laugh at the fact that we got mad at an inanimate object, but for a moment it felt better to blame it, rather than yourself.
Everyone is guilty of this in some way or another, I just wrote an entire article about it and I will continue to be guilty of it. So I am not going to preach about how we all need to be perfect humans, to think and act rationally in every situation. My only hope is that the next time you are having a parking ticket moment. You recall a story about a grown man ripping up a parking ticket in an empty parking lot, in his hometown, in front of his future wife, and it allows you to pause for a moment, laugh, and reassess your reaction.
