My dad got ticketed for facing the wrong way while parking once. We had to unload something from the left side of the car so we parked facing the other direction. He was charged with driving on the wrong side of the road :rolleyes:
Huntingdon, PA has got this insane contract to sweep all the streets every single week. Little tiny town, so I have no idea why they had to do it all the time. Once a month, sure. Once a week, you’ve gotta be kidding me. A lot of the streets are also one-way. Anyway, I was staying in college housing when the word came down that we were getting kicked out of where we were and had to go somewhere else. With typical Juniata planning, they told us the day before they were going to start renovations. So, I get off the work I was doing that day in my internship and start packing everything thing up because I need to be out that night. I park my car on the street, totally exhausted. I get up the next morning and see a ticket on my car. My infraction? $10 for parking on the side of the street they were going to sweep. In the city’s defense, it was posted and I didn’t see it. But still, why the hell do they need to sweep that often?
Ticketed for turning right on a red when there’s a sign saying no right on red.
Problem number 1: the light was yellow when I went through it. Did that matter to the cop? Nope, because
Problem number 2: the cop that ticketed me was my sister’s ex-boyfriend, and this wasn’t long after one of the ugliest breakups she’d ever been involved in.
I just got a ticket for not “curbing” my car in San Francisco. I assume this means I didn’t have my wheels pointed the right way, but I have no idea. I’m out 35 bucks for something I still don’t understand.
The weirdest ticket I got was a few years ago. I was pulled over for not having both front and back license plates on my car, despite the fact that Pennsylvania only gives you a back plate. I was in Oregon, getting ready to move there, but was still officially living, licensed, etc, in PA. The police officer not only pulled me over, but TICKETED ME for it. (I tried to explain. He didn’t get it.) I had to go to traffic court to have it thrown out. The fine was huge, too, something like $150.00
An old boyfriend of mine had a problem with people parking too close to the end of his driveway, or blocking it entirely, so he got a bunch of yellow asphalt paint and painted about 10’ of the curb on either side of it. The parking officers started putting tickets on people’s cars when they parked there. I’ve always wondered how illegal that was, but it did work to keep the driveway from being parked closed.
Along Broadway in Tarrytown, NY, there are a whole lot of left-turn-only and right-turn-only lanes. These are so placed that staying in “your” lane for more than 2-3 blocks at a time will cause you to a) violate one or another of these signs or b) if you don’t know the area well, weave like crazy trying to keep up.
After moving to the area 15 years ago and falling victim to scenario b), I was fined $55 plus a very strong intimation from the arresting officer that anybody out on a Saturday night with Iowa plates might as well be loaded to the gills for all he cared. (I wasn’t, FWTW.) I figured a new arrival wouldn’t stand a chance against the locals, so I mailed it in.
This actually makes more sense than it would appear. Because of the incline of the hill, the car could roll down, so turning the tires sideways (in conjunction with putting up the parking brake) helps to make it more difficult for the car to roll down a hill and possibly injure/kill somebody or damage property.
Couple of my neighbors were drinking buddies and lived across the street from each
other. They were tipping a few one evening and decided it would be a good idea to
have their own personal crosswalk. They got some white paint and painted two,
roughly parallel, jagged lines across the street. They then lettered “Drunk Crossing” in
between the lines. It was there for about a week before the Public Works people
sent a truck out to cover it w/ black paint and give them a lecture about interfering w/
public safety. They were a couple of real jokers, but I had to admit it was funny.
Two incidents I recall reported in our daily paper over the last 2 or so years;
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Young guy was pulled over for random stop and subjected to car inspection, which led police to ticket him for wiper fluid level being too low.
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Guy pulled over and ticketed for having a car freshener hanging from his rear-view mirror.
Cite? AFAIK, this law states that if the weather is so inclement that your windshield wipers are being used in their full capacity (meaning not on intermittent and such) then you need your lights on. I don’t think washing away a bug would fall under this statute.
I agree - people are always moving from one area to another, and the little laws are always changing. I have been told by a police officer that it is my duty to learn the laws where I move to, and I agree with that, but how about making it easy for us to do so? I’ve tried to find out what differences there are, and I simply don’t know where else to look.
How about the gov’t of Canada investing some of its umpteen billion dollar profit in a database that gives you a list of differences between provinces? They could find the money by cancelling the idiotic gun registry.
This one reminded me of a couple. When we lived in Baltimore, Mrs. Shibb got a ticket for parking within 10 feet of a handicap access to the sidewalk. Then the last parking ticket I got was for parking within 20 feet of the street corner on Clearwater beach, even though, AFAICT, that’s not a Florida state law (so be careful parking in Clearwater Beach). I was probably about 19 feet from the corner, although didn’t have a tape measure handy.
The most annoying moving violation was a long time ago. My left wheels cut across the lane marker as I moved into the left hand turn lane. This was at a large intersection that at the time did not have sufficient space on the left turn or the forward lanes. Turned out the cops would just sit there and write tickets on slow days, because everyone was doing that. Now they’ve added a turn lane and a through lane and a right turn lane, so it’s no longer an issue at that intersection, although they might do that at another intersection now.
My registration for the next semester of college is on hold. Why? Because I have a parking ticket. However, I’m a freshman. Which means I can’t have a car. How on earth I managed to get a parking ticket without a car is beyond me- I guess I’m just extra-talented.
Either that, or it’s a reason to train drivers properly so they know how to make sure their path is clear when pulling out from such a position.
In high school I got pulled over for speeding. I was kind of a smart ass to the officer, so he did a full car inspection which included measuring the distance from my front license plate to the ground, checking my turn signals, brake lights, reverse lights, exhaust noise, and washer fluid level. I ended up getting a ticket for speeding as well as a non-operational horn.
I also got a ticket because I kept my “old style” license plates on the front of my car and the “new style” on the back. I was assured by another cop that as long as I had 1 “new style”, proper tags, and the numbers matched, I was perfectly legal. I kept those old plates on for about 3 years before getting ticketed for it.
The California law regarding wipers and headlights is relatively new - it took effect on July 1, 2005. Chapter and verse (Two parts are currently printed, one of which became “inoperative” on 7-1-05. I’ll only quote the “operative” one.):
Bolding mine. Windshield cleaning with headlights off sounds OK to me.
Yep, I got that one too.