Thursday, November 29, 2012

Don't even think of parking there - sign

For as long as the university has been issuing parking tickets, offenders have been trying to talk their way out of paying them. The parking enforcement office has established an appeals process to provide a forum for presenting evidence of enforcement errors or extreme extenuating circumstances. Appeals range from the perfectly sincere to the complete wacky—the best of these end up in the parking Appeals Hall of Fame. Marc Laliberte '89, transportation operations manager, shares some of his favorites.

The excuse of one young man who had let his time expire on his parking meter was that he was working at his part time job in the art department posing as a nude model, and he couldn’t very well run naked into the streets to pay the meter. (and, I suppose, didn’t have pockets for change anyway.) Then there’s the guy who tells a vivid account how he accidentally severed his toe and got a ticket while waiting for the toe truck (get it?) Another disputed the time of his ticket by issuing his wristwatch’s certification with the Controle Officiel Suiss des Chronomitres, and requested an independent objective timing test of the parking meters in question. Another invoked the great American Founding Fathers and the unalienable right they proclaimed so long ago to park your horse to any hitching post they felt like. One young lady figured any kind of information or detail might prevent her appeal from being granted and simply said, “I would like to appeal this ticket.” Finally, one mom who seemed unusually involved in her son’s campus life, submitted an appeal on behalf of an honest-to-goodness French maid she had hired to keep his dorm room clean—good old Mom.

All of these appeals were denied, but are kept on file in the prestigious Appeals Hall of Fame.

UNH Winter Parking Ban Starts Dec. 1, 2012

Originally published by:

UNH Connection

Words and photo provided by Mylinda Woodward '97, UNH Archives Assistant