Stupid DPT

yet another reason for me to be grumpy today!

Grrrr..

I'm Grumpy McGrumpster today.

Here's the thing. Dick and I both "rule followers". We follow the rules, we obey the laws - enough so that we actually joke about it. We won't cross the street if the little red hand is up. We don't jaywalk. We are good, law-abiding citizens!

Unless you talk to the SF D.P.T. that is. (Department of Parking and Transportation for you non-urbanites.) Apparently, Dick has been breaking the law for almost 4 years now.

Dick has had his trusty Vespa Scooter for almost 4 years now. He always parks it in the same place: on the sidewalk between two trees, in front of our house.

Yes, that italicized part up there is your clue. It is, indeed, parked on the sidewalk. We've always felt that as long as it wasn't actually blocking the access of the sidewalk, that it should be fine. It's in between two trees. Unless someone is intentionally walking from one tree to the other, it's really not in the way at all.

Over the past 3 years, we've received about a ticket per year for parking it on the sidewalk. Dick took this in stride, figuring that a car on our block was actually blocking the sidewalk by parking across their driveway, and that they then have to do a full sweep of the block. That's okay. We knew we weren't being targeted.

Well, today, I noticed a meter maid writing up a ticket in front of our house. I went out to discuss the matter with her. She was very nice about it, and explained that "they" really started to crack down about a year ago. Any vehicle parked on any part of the sidewalk was to be ticketed - no matter if it's actually blocking the sidewalk or not.

Now believe me, I started to argue my case, as did a few people who walked by, but she explained it wasn't up to her, and that she was "just doing her job". She actually agreed that we weren't blocking anyone, and she had let it slide by several times, but she has started to get in trouble for such things.

The ridiculous part was that she told me that I "technically" could park it within 2 feet of my front property line, and that she wouldn't ticket it. So I argued that I could park it in front of my window, or in front of my stairs, clearly blocking part of the sidewalk, and that would be okay? She said yes, that she couldn't ticket us if we did this, but that we should use our common sense. Whatever. That's just stupid, and it goes completely against any kind of common sense.

You can see the left-most line in the sidewalk in the picture above - the one closest to the front of the house. She says we technically could park within that line, and that she couldn't ticket us. This is crazy stupid, because that blocks the side walk a whole lot more than parking between the two trees.

I tried really hard not to get angry at her. It's not her fault, and she's just doing her job, and she was actually being very sensible when trying to explain the "rules" to me that she had to follow. It also clearly wasn't going to help my case if I got upset.

But the thing is, I see this all the time: people flat-out blocking the path of the sidewalk with their big enormous cars parking across their driveways because they're too lazy to actually go out and find a spot on the street. I've seen people pushing baby strollers, and worse: people in wheel chairs who have to go into the street to go around the car across the driveway and sidewalk. This infuriates me.

I also raised the point that not only are we not blocking the sidewalk, but we're also not taking up an actual parking spot on the street, which apparently, is what we'll have to do, now. This is really brain-damaged (which seems to be my expression of the day).

I decided to leave the ticket on the scooter until Dick comes home today (he drove to the train station, because it was supposed to rain today) so we won't chance getting another ticket from another meter maid. When Dick comes home, I'll ask him to move it to a spot on the street. Or, maybe we'll just park it in front of our front steps. (that would be the bitter person in me coming out.)

This is ridiculous.

Oh, and by the way, the penalty for parking on the sidewalk:
$100.00.

Stupid DPT.