MRCTV: The spirit of Robin Hood is alive and well in the United States, and some US politicians aren’t happy about it.
Invoking the name of the famous fictional (and possibly real) hero of medieval England, these contemporary rebels have, for a decade, set about righting wrongs not with arrows, but with coins.
They are a small group of freedom-lovers in the city of Keene, New Hampshire, who deposit change in parking meters before the “Parking Enforcement Officers” can ticket car owners. They have saved thousands of people heavy fines, and helped keep that money in the private market, where it can be spent on productive items and services. For their efforts, however, the “Robin Hooders” have been hounded by city officials and attorneys, and dragged all the way to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
The revenue from tickets obviously takes priority over the revenue from the meters!
And Red Light cameras are just for safety…
It takes a lot of money to buy a bunch of golf carts, paint them like cop cars, hire a bunch of fat black women and give them a piece of chalk on a stick so they don’t have to bend over to mark tires. Please do not interfere with jobs program revenue stream.
Great illustration of liberalism. It needs to be crushed. I wonder if or how the Clinton Mafia might be involved.
Its called the Freak’n Tea Party!!
You know the one Trump supporters make fun of.
Here’s another POV.
I’ve had a number of businesses in downtown Denver. Needless to mention there are limited parking spots along the street. People that extend the time limits on meters by feeding them are in fact denying others who have come to the area, the opportunity to park close to a selected business to shop.
Parking enforcement solved this by driving down the street every time limit plus 10 or 20 minutes and chalking the rear tire. It didn’t matter then if your meter had time on it, you violated the time limit on the space. I was 100% for this.
You have to have a turnover in these spaces. Downtown is not a fucking mall. If you want to trip the light fantastic, have a nice lunch or something like that, then park in a lot or parking structure. The on street spaces are for people who generally have a specific errand in the vicinity to run.
Every meter ticket-writer I’ve ever met was pretty much on auto-pilot and not bright.
The last one I talked to as he chalked a rear tire on my truck while I was getting ready to do a job downtown after hours, could not understand I would never get overtime working 16 hour days, or on weekends, or on a holiday. Two of which applied as we stood there.
Working for the man, was all he knew and could understand.
He didn’t get I AM THE MAN. Even after being told I am the company owner, he kept coming back with: “At least you get overtime, right? How can you not get overtime? It’s the law!”
sigh Keep chalkin’ dude, I have to get busy. Now I only have 40 minutes before you write me a ticket.
Good for the Robin Hooders
You pay for the city.
You pay for the street.
You pay for the asphalt.
You pay for the curb.
You pay for the car.
You pay for the insurance.
You pay for the registration.
You pay the taxes on the car.
You pay for the gas.
You pay for the fucking meter.
You pay for the fat-assed cocksuckers in Town Hall.
You pay for the fat-assed meter-readers.
You pay to Park.
And then you get to pay even more for parking too long?
What’s wrong with this picture?
izlamo delenda est …
MM, so you’re only allowed to rent the space for the maximum time? If you went out and fed the meter again, you broke the law and therefore must be punished?
My goodness. It is no wonder we’re so shackled.
@MM
When the #BLM gentlemen and woman roll through your town (and they eventually will), they’ll remove the parking meter heads and your problem will be solved, nice ‘n easy.
@Ann Thracts…
lol and then the pipes get run into and bent over. When I used to work downtown years ago, we called it “Meters-to-Mortars”.
Wow, speaking of coins…
BFH, you brought out the old donation slot!
🙂 🙂 🙂
Reminds me of a time that I had parked in a metered lot while ordering the flowers for my wedding. We came out of the shop and noticed a police car sitting near my car and the dude was staring at the meter. It just so happened that the moment I reached the car door, the meter expired. The officer got a pissed look on his face and drove away. HA! Nearly eleven years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday.
@MM If there are NO meters I can understand your position of limited parking time, being as they have the meters in place AND issue tickets for overstaying their posted time, even though they are paying for it, is double dipping.
Denver = Democrats, nuff said.
Sheesh, did you guys read my post?
The meters have a TIME LIMIT on them. The idea being to turn over the space so that people coming into downtown might be able to park near the store they were coming to shop in. Locating your business in a downtown, while it exposes you to a lot of people, can be inconvenient for people that want your specific product. Feeding the meter when there are clearly marked TIME LIMITS on them defeats the purpose.
The thinking behind TIME LIMITS on on street parking spaces is to make it convenient for people to visit a specific store not to stroll up & down the street, window shopping. It’s why many downtown businesses and restaurants will validate your parking lot ticket-they want to make it easier for you to visit them.
I can tell the naysayers are scratching their heads-obviously you’ve never had a business in a CBD. If you locate on the north side, then people south bitch about the drive & vice versa but when you’re CENTRALLY located, why not make it easier for your customers to visit? When you’re heard for the 100th time that someone wanted to stop in and p/u some item but it’s just too much hassle to come downtown, then you begin to see the wisdom for chalking tires.
MM is one of the rare people that understand the purpose of the meter.
The purpose is to force long term parking into lots so that people running errands can get in and out easily. It is a win for all involved.
The purpose of the meter is NOT to generate revenue except to cover enforcement costs. It is true that there are abuses, but meter revenues usually fail to cover costs. It is the tickets that make up the difference.
Consider reading what is on a parking meter, how they work is really not that hard to understand, almost all of them clearly state the maximum time you can spend in the spot.
@JohnS; that may have been true at one point years ago but now the revenue from parking tickets is a major source of city revenue. Do you really think the city would be taking this as far as they are because they want to encourage people into parking lots (perhaps with minimum fee) so that others with a quick errand can get it done? As I said, maybe years ago but not now.
MM~ In places like Philly (if I am remembering correctly) you purchase a ticket from a kiosk, and it states right on the ticket the max consecutive hours allowed for your car to be in that slot for that day. It is also shown on the kiosk in clear language. England was the first time I was exposed to that type of metering. So if only three hours are allowed, and you want to stay for four – the driver is not supposed to come back and buy another hour, but instead move along. Most towns put up signs in addition to meters when parking is an issue like you describe.
scr_north, nice try.
ALL parking meters generate revenue. No one is disputing that.
If you had a machine that cost $20 an hour to operate that produced 5 new quarters ($1.25) an hour, the machine would be generating revenue. Would you buy one?
If you meant that the income from the meters exceeds the associated costs, kindly produce even one city budget where it is the case.
In attempting that you will learn that the people using the meters properly are being subsidized by the scofflaws.
Parking on a city street is a temporary thing, metered or not. You want permanent parking, pay for a space at a private lot. If there’s no private lot nearby, the City has a problem with their commercial district.
I believed that parking meters generate far more in fines and quarters then the cost to operate. That is until I just researched Denver. Parking Management says even installing 24 hour meters(24 hour meters!!) in the CBD, they will be revenue neutral or close to it.
So you learn something new everyday if you’re paying attention.
I do know that back in the late 70s when I had my first store in downtown, it would piss me off to see someone parked in front all day, showing up every hour to feed the meter.
@MM
I guess wanting a place for your customers to park, so you deliberately select a location with no parking, then insist the government make it all better for you, is the Colorado definition of “free enterprise”.
#EntrepreneurLivesMatter
That’s pretzel logic dude. There is parking. It’s up and down the street. Are you suggesting that it be meter free? Put on your thinking cap here pal and imagine what would happen if there were no meters.
Then you spew this incoherent gem, “…then insist the government make it all better for you…” So I should what…get a parking meter and place it in front of my store. Oh wait, I can block off the space like those folks in Chicago after they’ve shoveled out the spot in front of their house. Ahhh, not being an anarchist, I’ll volunteer there are things that government should do and parking meters are on the list. I know, I know, I’m just one step being a from cradle to grave socialist.
You might want to stay out of debates when you get you ass kicked in 2 sentences.
All this reeks of Cass Sunstein nudging again.
@MM
I guess I should say “Thanks?”. That kind of ass “kicking” usually costs extra in a tranny bar. Your mom’s right – you’re pretty and smart.
Kilroy and mm: wow