So, Do I Fight The Patriot Act, Or Pay The Fine?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ll try to be brief.

My 80 year old, handicapped aunt was visiting me in Las Vegas for two weeks. We had a great time and I took her to the airport early in the morning for her flight back, on my way to work.

It was busy at curbside, so I went to SouthWest, took her luggage and asked where she could get her SkyCab (the person who brings a wheelchair). They told me to leave her luggage there, and they will call and I should bring my aunt there for the SkyCab.

It was 20 feet from the car.

I went, got my aunt out of the car, she got out her cane and we walked over. Sure enough, there was a nice woman with a wheelchair. My aunt sat, I kissed her goodbye, wished her a nice flight, and went back to the car.

In the time it took me to walk her the 20 feet, say goodbye (really, all I said was, “have a safe trip”) and walk back to my car, I got a ticket for an “abandoned vehicle”. The ticket is for $150.00!

I was pissed. I saw the guy who gave the ticket but he wouldn’t speak to me. So I got another uniformed person, told him my story. He went to the other guy and then came back and said, “it is a valid ticket.”

OK…I go to work, call the number and complain…what was I supposed to do? Dump her off and “hope” someone would come and pick her up?

Despite my story, they claim that since 9/11 they have every right to ticket any car that has nobody in it. The regulation falls under the new Patriot Act. They “offered” to reduce the fee to $75.00.

I asked if I could take it to court. They got pissed off and said, “sure. But now the ticket is back up to $150.00.”

The only recourse is to take it to small claims court. Filing costs $38 and I have to take time off work. However, I don’t mind as it just PISSES ME OFF to no end that I think I did nothing wrong!!!

I am going to go by what you guys say.

Should I call back, try to get the $75 and just pay the bastards, or should I take this to court and hope a judge will see there are exceptions to the rule?

By the way…on the ticket, the guy wrote he called out to see whose car it was, and no one responded. That was a damned lie, as I would have heard anybody and besides, the car door was still open! Plus, the way he scurried away when I walked back lets me believe he saw me walking my aunt to the wheelchair!

OK…it is up to you.

Do I take it to court, or fume at home and just pay the $75?

2

Regardless of how much money you save, assholes who write bad tickets only get noticed when the tickets are challenged. You can’t expect stupid legislation or bad policy to change without bringing attention to it.

3

This one might be worth fighting if the time off from work doesn’t cost you too much. The officer probably won’t show up in court. If you lose, you will just have to pay the ticket. This isn’t like turning down a plea bargain and then getting years in jail. Plus, if the officers realize that people will fight some of the silly tickets, they might be less inclined to write them.

4

I wonder if the guy who wrote the ticket really believes that a parking ticket is going to deter a terrorist from abandoning a “car bomb”?

5

The Patriot Act isn’t really the source of these rules, is it? This wouldn’t be the first time beaurocrats incorrectly cited the Patriot Act; a Doper had problems with his bank where they also incorrectly cited the PA, IIRC.

6

And for the record, the Patriot Act says nothing about ticketing abandoned cars.

7

[Public Enemy]Fight The Power![/Public Enemy]

You live in a democracy! Don’t let the bastards win!

8

No, but they hope it reduces the number of cars in front of the airport, making it easier to figure out if any of them have truly been abandoned.

Of course, that’s such in the box thinking. Even early 20th century anarchist blew themselves up with the bomb, and suicide bombers seem to be the norm nowadays.

Fight the ticket. Write a letter to the editor. Make a appointment with whatever legislator represents you for the body that is responsible for the law. Come with a solution — like making handicapped drop off exempt for five minutes.

And next time, bring a friend with you.

9

It’syour duty as a citizen to fight it. If no one fights unreasonable rules, they’ll just keep making more of them.

10

Please fight the ticket. If you and others similarly situated don’t, they will never come up with a solution for this issue. And there needs to be a solution for this issue.

11

I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but a lot of airports now have free short term parking (first 30 mintues or so) in order to entice people to go that route instead of parking up front, even if it’s not free how much could it have been? You could have taken your time, actually taken your aunt into the airport and made sure she got through everything OK (instead of dumping her at the curb). Even sounds like you were dumping her at Southwest even though she wasn’t flying on them. Hope my kids don’t treat me like that when I’m 80.

12

Fight the ticket. And write a letter to the editor. Hell, make as much noise as you can.

If the officer doesn’t show up, you win. And even if you lose, you’ve struck a blow for all of us. Hell, show me a suicide bomber who’d hesitate for a minute because some idjit might write him a ticket…

13

Um, since when are parking tickets contested in small claims court?

14

I know that it is easy to sit here in my comfy chair and tell you to go through the hassle of fighting this ticket, but that is just what I intend to do. Not only on the grounds of the general bogus nature of the ticket itself, but also on the grounds of the terribly rude behavior of the public servants involved (refusing to talk to you? Lowering the ticket and then spitefully raising it again? WTF?)

15

I still think the $150 is deserved for dumping your 80 yr old handicapped aunt on the curb at the airline she is not traveling on.

16

It’s not as if there is short term parking available for situations like this.
No, wait-there is.
It’s not as if there were signs all over the place stating the policy.
No, wait-there were.
It’s not as if they were announcing the policy over a loudspeaker every 10 seconds.
No, wait-they did.

My opinion-unless your defense is that you didn’t leave your vehicle, even if the officer doesn’t show up, you are going to have to pay the fine.

17

Know anyone at your local newspaper, TV station, radio station?

Take them along as you go to pay the ticket!

18

Leaving an unattended car at the curb has been a ticketing offense at the airports I travel from for decades. It’s not just fear of terrorists and I doubt it has anything to do with the Patriot Act. There are at the very least dozens, possibly hundreds, of cars trying to drop someone off or pick someone up at curbside every hour. If your car is just sitting there for 10 minutes, the cops have no way of knowing if you’re planning to pick it up in one more minute or leave it there for another half hour. What are they supposed to do, go park it for you? What if ten people did the same thing you did? If no one is ticketed for it, the curb will shortly be completely occupied. You’re just lucky it wasn’t towed away. It could have been, and then you’d be in the hole for a lot more than $150.

19

And for whatever it’s worth… my mother is on the north side of 75, legally blind thanks to macular degeneration, and was the receipient of a relatively recent hip transplant when she needed to fly. I took her to the airport, parked at short term parking, went and secured a wheelchair, and got her picked up at the car in the parking area and transported, with me following along through the check-in process and my brother poised to meet her at the other end of the flight. And I can’t speak for my brother, but I assume he didn’t park in the drop-off lanes either.

In other words, I did not find it impossible to facilitate a disabled elderly relative’s air travel without parking illegally.

  • Rick
20

I would fight it for principle so long as it wouldn’t interfere much with work – it would likely require me to make up any time I spent in court.

In court, I wouldn’t spend much time debating the legality of my “offense,” but the spirit in which the law was enforced (I was sending my grandmother off, when I inquired about the ticket, the officer recinded his offer to reduce the ticket.) I would assert that the officer was using the Patriot Act not to secure our nation against terrorist threat, but to make money for the county. Just because an officer is entitled to issue a ticket, doesn’t mean he is entitled to issue a ticket if the situation turned out to be innoculous. My issue would be with the manner in which the officer carried out their duty. The validity of the Patriot Act itself is beyond the scope of this incident.

This is what I believe I would do. But it is only you that will be spending the time, effort or money to address this situation as a result of your decision. You must weigh your sense of principle against your sense of budget.

Let us know what you decide. I, for one, would not fault you whichever you decide.