This past May, we visited UPenn in a rental car. After circling around the campus, we found a metered parking space. Being always extra careful, I made sure everything was legit. Only after a 45 minute self tour of the campus, we headed back to our car to find a ticket placed on the windshield. Surprised, I reviewed the reason for the ticket. It said, “Registration Expired.” I looked at the rental car, and the registration was clearly current. I looked at the ticket again and the current registration sticker on the car, scratching my head. When I showed the ticket to the rental car staff upon returning the car, he and his co-workers started chuckling and simply tossed the ticket to a nearby basket. That’s when I realized that this is just Philly’s way of doing things.
Of course, when renting a car, you may want to check that the registration is not expired, since sometimes rental cars do have expired registration.
When I was in high school driver’s ed (in the car the school was using) I got pulled over and ticketed for “improper display of license plate” during class.
What was wrong with how the license plate was displayed on that car?
@CTmom2018 - it’s quite common that you can’t “feed the meter” to extend the time limit. In DC and Baltimore, you have to move to a different zone, not just a different spot within that zone, or you could get a ticket. Check the zone number on the sign before you move.
In NOLA, they are out in force during festivals and pre Mardi Gras. H got a ticket for parking too close to the corner. I forget what the official distance is, maybe 20 feet, and they measure from where the straight part of the curb begins, not the curved part of the corner. They have a little laser pointy thing to measure the distance. I’ve learned a lot from talking to meter maids!
For example, you CAN block a driveway, as long as it’s your own and your car is facing the right way. Only the homeowner can call in a complaint and then the car would be ticketed and towed.
When I was in college campus parking was tight, fines for on-street overnight parking were tiny ($3) and tickets were rarely issued, so may of us just parked on the street and took our chances. Apparently at some point the city got annoyed by all the unpaid tickets we’d racked up and sent police to the dorms to serve summonses to appear in court, with huge extra fines attached. Word got around so when an officer knocked on my door and asked for me I told her my roommate was In class. While this was technically true (my roommate was in class) it was clearly a scummy lie of omission, but I got away with it. I scampered straight to city hall to pay my whopping $12 bill and never parked illegally overnight again!
@greenwitch, that’s interesting. I never even thought of there being parking zones.
Yes, you might as well get the parkmobile app. Several cities use and it can be helpful. You first have to enter your zone, then choose your car and payment options (from preset options you’ve made), and then choose the duration.
It works, unless the sun is in your eyes, you don’t have your reading glasses, or it’s spinning around looking for a signal!
There’s a fire hydrant in front of my house. I despise my former neighbor and she returned the favor. My mother-in-law used to come to the house and park at the hydrant, then H or I would go out and move the car so she didn’t have to walk further. One Easter, MIL came in, I went out and the cop was already outside writing the ticket. I could see my neighbor smirking through her blinds. I explained the situation to the cop and it turned out that he was familiar with my neighbor, who had called to report a car blocking the hydrant. He told me to protest to him, but take the ticket and don’t worry about it. When I looked at the ticket, I saw that the cop had written my neighbor’s car’s license plate, but MIL’s make and model on the ticket. It was dismissed.
H just got a ticket for going through a red light. He says he was following the ambulance with his mom in it, so he is going to get the hospital record to show when she was admitted. I am annoyed because it’s not like H didn’t know where the hospital was. He could have stopped for the light and still made it there just fine.
@ucbalumnus iirc it was a magnetic frame from the dealer that held the plate to the car and it was on crooked and some or part of the numbers were obscured. This was in FL and we only had rear plates. The coach teaching was very ticked off, the police officer really dressed him down for not “knowing better.”
Not to wish you bad luck, but I hope they do not dismiss the ticket. Some very bad accidents happen with people trying to follow emergency vehicles and it is illegal to do to. Other cars can see the big fire trucks or ambulances with flashing lights and florescent paint, but can’t see the little Subaru following behind (at a high speed).
He is at fault.
I guess the officer did not like ambulance chasing.