Busted and Perplexed

Note for non-Portlander: Here in the Rose City, we have these high tech, solar-powered parking meters that spew out receipts that come with adhesive tags. The idea is to post your receipt on the inside of your window with the relevant parking information facing out. The meter reader can then tell that you have paid up and for how long.

Enter the motor scooter (and the motorcycle) and a host of questions, especially after being ticketed. Here, more or less, is my attempt to get my parking fine's worth in information.

After you have read the following, perhaps you can tell me what I'm missing? (I can hear it now: "Nice try, Rick, but...."




June 23, 2008

This evening at 5:34 p.m. my motor scooter was ticketed in Old Town — Citation # HA09245115.

As you know, there is no “inside of the window” on a motor scooter, so I assumed (wrongly, obviously) that since scooters take up a fraction of the space of a car and there is no way to prevent a car (or truck) driver from swiping and reusing a parking receipt posted on the outside, that it would be futile, even absurd, to buy time on the meter (I might as well buy air) and that the meter reader would know that.

Surprise! Officer M. Molinsky (that's the name on the ticket) didn't know that.

With all due respect to Officer Molinsky and the designers of your parking machines, I am enclosing my fine of $24 under protest.

Please advise me how I can display my parking receipt securely on my motor scooter, and, while you are at it, why I have to pay the full rate when I take up one tenth of the space of a car.

Eagerly awaiting your answer, I remain yours truly perplexed.