I live on a small, quiet street, and one morning many of my neighbors woke up to find parking tickets on their windshields. They had all parked the “wrong way.”
An officer from our neighborhood patrol told me that there is not even a category for this printed on the ticket - an officer has to write it in by “other.”
I should add that I was on citizen patrol one night, and the officer with me spotted a car parked “the wrong way” - on a one way street. He put a ticket on the car for driving the wrong way on a one way street.
“I’ve heard that in Hollywood people have been cited for having their tires turned the wrong way when parked on a hill.”
Yep, SF too. Makes sense too.
Well in NJ (I don’t know about other states) it is illegal to back out of your driveway. I don’t know how often people actually get ticketed for it though, but I would assume its pretty rare.
Parking on the wrong side of the street puts the drivers seat farthest from traffic. If the other parked vehicles are tall enough, you won’t see the oncoming traffic until your car is almost completely blocking their lane.
“Whiny neighbour,” huh? Or perhaps the police just happened to notice the vehicle was there in plain view?
Illegal to back out your driveway! Yeesh. So this means either you have to walk or bicycle from now on, stay home forever, have a circular drive, or one that goes straight through to a road, or you have to back INTO your driveway. This last option sure doesn’t make for any unsafe travel, as drivers in front of you suddenly put on the brakes and start driving in reverse, craning their necks and trying to steer the car into a narrow opening across the center line and two lanes of traffic.
Make enough things illegal, and it’s easy to justify a police state to control the criminals, which is the entire population.
I talked to the guy who wrote the ticket. I think he was…oh hell, I forget his rank, either Captain or Police Cheif of the city police. Anyway, he was pretty nice about it, he talked forever though, I thought he’d never shut up, but anyway, the ticket he wrote for parking the wrong way he couldn’t take back, and since it’s only $10, I’m just going to pay it, I mean, why fight $10?
Illegal to back out? At my house, I drive head first into my garage, and then I have no way out but to back out. I guess I could spend a few minutes trying to turn my car around in my driveway, if I wanted to be late for work or get up extra early every morning.
No, I was told that I got a ticket because of a complaint.
Thanks, Joel.
Actually, most traffic violation citation cases are held in traffic court. Since this is not a federal case, you can never get it into a district court. You can appeal to a state court and all the way up the state court system to the SC of the state, and possibly even to SCOTUS. You always have the option of a jury trial in the lower court, but you will have to pay the costs of a jury.
SC law prohibits parking so that the right-hand wheels are more than 18 inches from the curb. So if you are parking the wrong way, the right-hand wheels will exceed that limitation.
Sorry, I think I meant state court, but with every state using it’s own system, you can see where the confusion may enter. I still say write an op-ed piece. Lame tickets for the purpose of funding the city are never reviewed unless the citizens speak up. I’ll r4elent from the thread now, thanks for reading
I’ve come across a number of neighborhoods where the cars somehow were parked in the driveways facing toward the street. As it was explained to me: it was safer to back into a private driveway than a busy (with cars or kids) street. Although from some of the driving I’ve seen recently I imagine some people might miss if they had to back into a driveway.
PC
That is a law in my area also. The neighbors warned me about it when we first moved in. I didn’t think it was that big a deal until my kids started school.
We walk the short distance to school and I see some parents who drive park facing the wrong direction nearly daily. They then often turn around in a big circle in order to head back the other direction. It really is hazardous, especially with a gaggle of goofy elementary school kids in the area.
I think it sounds like a sensible rule. I can’t imagine it’s that much harder for anyone to cross the street after parking.
So you’d claim that if there is no witness to a murder, no one can ever be arrested for that crime? Nonsense!
Conviction on any offense is based on the weight of the evidence. An eyewitness testimony is often convincing evidence, but it’s not the only kind accepted in court.
The very fact that your car is in that position is clear proof that it had to have travelled the wrong way on the road to get there. And that’s enough for the officer to issue you a ticket.
Just like a recent case here where a drunk person was found asleep behind the wheel of a car parked on the side of the road. They were charged with DWI, even thought they were not seen driving the vehicle by the officer. And the charge was upheld in the Courts, even thru appeals. Based on the common sense fact that the car clearly did not get there by magic, but was driven by this person, while drunk.
In the UK you can park the “wrong” way - and yes, it means crossing to the other side of the road - I can’t say I’ve ever noticed this being dangerous or causing problems - even in busy shopping streets, after all you’re gonna look before doing it (I’ve seen plenty of other damn-fool manoeuvres tho’…)
I’d always assumed it would be because, at night, you would have no reflectors facing the traffic causing a possible accident.
Be aware, Capt, that it is illegal to park the “wrong” way at night.
So I guess that means there’s no parking on the left side of a one-way street?