Parking Ticket Mania

This morning in front of Scott's Take global headquarters here in the People's Republic of Columbia (a.k.a. Washington, DC), I witnessed what I think an injustice. A small one, mind you in the panoply of injustices that occur daily on this planet. But this one happened right in front of my house.

My street is seeing a lot of home remodelling this spring, which means street parking has been restricted in front of houses for dumpsters and construction equipment. My neighbor, two doors down, is one of these houses, and for the last month about 40 feet of curb parking has been restricted, marked by temporary "no parking" signs obtained from the police and placed by the construction crew.

This morning as I was returning home from walking the two ancient mutts, one of the construction workers was hailing the parking policewoman who patrols our hood. One of the "No Parking" signs had been ripped down and there was a car parked in the space. The construction guy asked the parking Nazi to write a ticket, which she gleefully did (the car with the ticket, pictured above).

I asked them both how she could write a ticket when there was no "No Parking" sign there? The police officer responded that the driver "should have known." What? I don't recall clairvoyance being a requirement when I got my DC driver's license. The construction worker then proceeded to accuse me of taking the sign down.

I took pictures. Below is the post where the "No Parking" sign used to be, and the purple car legally -- in my view -- parked. As you can see, there is no sign saying don't park here. The signs you see on the pole are permanent signs which say two hour parking is permitted during the day, zone 1 permit holders excepted.