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It seems amazing to me that the District government doesn't impose an additional fee when it tows cars illegally parked in rush hour lanes. Whenever possible the city just moves cars to another nearby street, gives the driver a $100 ticket, and that's it, no additional towing fee. Considering the inconvenience drivers who leave their cars in rush hour lanes cause to everyone, the practice seems a little too fair. Well now the D.C. Council looks poised to do something about it. The Examiner reports that they have tentatively approved an additional $100 "vehicle relocation fee" that drivers would be charged on top of the parking ticket fine. The fee is designed to allow DPW to hire more independent tow trucks to help move more vehicles out of the way. Seems like a pretty reasonable solution.
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Does anyone know about the armed robbery on 13th NW last night in Columbia Heights? The helicopters
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Any car parked in violaton of a rush hour "No Parking" rule should be:
Ticketed
Towed not to a nearby street, but to an impoud yard
and the driver should be:
Charged a towing fee, plus storage fee per day
Unable to pick up his or her car until all fines and fees (including past due tickets) are either paid or dismissed by a judge.
Except for the people who've been towed when they were legally parked somewhere. In fact, when have independent towing companies, much less the District's towing ever been reliable or trustworthy?
This is excellent news. I often see cars parked in No Parking zones on major routes during rush hour. It really screws traffic up. Clearly what ever program DC has in place for this now isn't working.
This would be one small step toward DC actually being more like a real city and less like a backwater small town.
the cars should be sold off for scrap metal.
how's that for fair??
The city also needs to get tough on the "don't block the box" charge $500 for blocking. Last week it took me more than 5 light cycles to get from 15th to 14th b/c south bound commuters pushed the yellow and blocked cross town traffic.
A car parked in violation of rush hour restrictions should be impounded, then crushed into a small cube. Then the owner should be given 30 minutes to move their cube. We should also do this to all cars with Maryland plates, no matter whether they're illegally parked, legally parked, or making a right turn on 14th Street.
The cars should be towed to the Blue Plains impoundment lot and auctioned off.
Hi Sommer,
I strongly disagree with the sentiment of your post, and with most of the comments posted so far. Some of the comments even suggest $500 fines for other traffic offenses. Who are you people? Do you realize how hard a $500 hit is on most working families?
The people being towed for rush-hour lane violations are most likely tax-paying DC residents who simply couldn't find a parking spot in their neighborhood the night before. They needed to park somewhere *safe*, close to their house/apartment, and planned on waking up and moving it before the ticketing started. This happened to me once, I didn't wake up on time, and I ended up being towed around the corner, with a $100 fine. Are you saying I deserve to be fined an additional $100 on top of that, all because one quarter of the parking spots on my street are filled nightly by 'residents' with VA & MD tags?
Also, the people who are being "inconvenienced" are almost definitely non tax-paying commuters from Virgina and Maryland. Rather than being environmentally responsible and riding the metro into the city, they insist upon driving, congesting our streets, and turning peaceful neighborhoods into major thoroughfares.
So to summarize, you want to turn lanes in our neighborhood streets, which I pay taxes on, into additional commuter lanes, for people who do NOT pay taxes.
Sommer, you need to open your eyes and see this for what it is - a new tax. DC recently announced a budget shortfall. Whenever this happens, DC looks for ways to make up the difference. Fines from speed cameras have been popular lately. Apparently, jacking up the fines on minor parking violations is next.
I hope you get towed,
Kevin Horgan
honestly, horgan, no one whose car is parked on constitution at 5 o'clock has overslept. unless you meant at their desk, in their office.
kevin horgan: tough shit. rules are rules. you park illegally (i don't care if you were legal to start with), you pay the price for it.
personal responsibility. deal with it.
KH: So!
Fine cminus - then MD cops should be issued with antitank mines and RPGs to blow the fuck out of any cars from "Tha Dissuct a' Kulumbia" that come into MD in search of unspoiled milk or a u-bend.
So you're saying we should lower parking fines and towing costs?
Actually, what happened to KH happened to me twice while I was living in Baltimore (parked on St. Paul, overslept, towed the next morning). Fortunately, the impound lot was about a half-mile walk, but I was still out a couple hundred bucks when I could least afford it. It was one in a series of incidents that convinced me to get rid of my wheels.
Between gas, insurance, registration, and taxes (and I agree these "fines" are de facto taxes), owning a car in a city is an expensive proposition. Either deal with it, sell the car, or move someplace that's more car-friendly. Or do like I do and send long rambling letters to the Council demanding low-income vouchers for jetpacks, monkey chauffeurs, and ski lift gondolas.
As a tax-paying citizen of DC, I'm all for it. Finally, the city is doing something that could push people to obey the laws (and make my evening commute just a little more peaceful). But to address KH's issue, why not wait for, say, 30 min before beginning towing? That way, if you oversleep in the AM, you get the ticket, but you've got 30 min to get out there and find a legal spot.
As for the idiot who cussed me out when I politely reminded her that parking on Rhode Island between 17 and Conn. is illegal, bite me bitch. I don't care if you're only there for 5 minutes. No parking means no parking.
Now when are we going to start ticketing the UPS and FedEx drivers that decide to park in rush hour zones? And can we tow them too? Talk about blocking traffic...
They should have a $500 fine for people doubleparking when THERE'S AN OPEN PARKING SPACE 20 FEET AWAY. So many layers of stupid/lazy/narcissism going on there.
I love the "I'm only here for 5 minutes" illegal parking excuse. I need to use that one next time I'm strangling hobos under the freeway. "I'm only doing it for 5 minutes!"
LRonHoover: I thought Prince George's police were already doing all that, without even checking license plates first.
Monkey - I saw that happen a couple of nights ago. No, not strangling hobos under the freeway but little Miss Spoiled 'n Rich parking her Mercedes SLK in front of a fire hydrant (with flashers on like that's supposed to help) while she ran into the Old Lady Makeup Store for five minutes. Sure enough, she came out and the little parking Hobbit was writing a ticket. Heedless to her iron-clad 'it-was-only-five-minutes' and 'aw c'mon-cut-me-a-break' and 'don't you know who I AM??' logic he continuted to write and silently handed her the ticket. Finally she let loose with the killer: "MY HUSBAND'S GONNA HAVE YEW FIRED", got in her car and sped off, narrowly missing a delivery van.
Priceless!
cminus - give me your plate # please. I want to make sure Officer EagleEye is on duty the next time your local Korean Krapmart runs out of something essential and you come skulking over to MD. Or at least tell me how many "Barry/Cheh '12" or "Bikes not Bombs" bumper stickers are on whatever shitty little bike or EuroTrash scooter/moped you drive.
So long as we're talking about parking in front of fire hydrants for no good reason, way to go DC MPD on Monday about 12:30-1:00 PM.
Location? Where else. In front of Hooters.
As for cars parking during rush hour? They should not only be towed, but should be towed to the arson alley on the Hill. That'll fix 'em.
LRonHoover: I don't own a car, or a bike for that matter. I also don't go to Maryland -- who would, what with the Prince George's police starting up their own local chapter of the American Autoduel Association? If I need anything not readily available in DC, I either shop on-line or go to Virginia. Also, I'm voting Republican. (Really. Well, for Patrick Mara, anyway. Probably.)
(And you really need to review both your Simpsons quotes and your DCist running gags. The correct response to my original post would have been either to ask a question about your cube or make a reference to Jim Graham as agent of Satan, not to go into a paroxysm of Sarah Palin impressions.)
Why not kill two birds with one stone? With the closing of the Franklin shelter, the City needs to use towed cars as temporary shelters for the homeless.
The incontinent homeless.
A turd on the dashboard is the kind of "motivation" that three-digit fines just can't equal.
Hey cminus, let me quote from St Paul's Letter to the Hermaphrodites..
"Dear Hermaphrodites - Go Fuck Yourselves..."
I don't give a shit about any of your ubergeek quotes or running gags. Go back to your Hot Pockets, Red Vines and Mr. Pibb. I'll do what I please
I don't give a shit about any of your ubergeek quotes or running gags.
E pur si muove.
I'm torn on this. I'm not very sympathetic to either party. You parked where and when you shouldn't? Tough luck. But alternatively, you're some Maryland leech that has to wait a little while longer to get to your job because of the actions of a District resident? Suck it; I don't care.
I think the balance may tip for me when I consider the spotted past of DC's towing regime. When Youngin's isn't illegally towing you to get fees, they're towing you without telling you that they towed you until it's too late.
As to whether it's a new tax, I say it sure is. But so what? We need the money, so might as well tax undesirable behavior (e.g., car-based violations) than desirable behavior (e.g., work).
Wowza. Who took a shit in DrLRon's "I Hate DC" coffee mug this morning? I think someone should read another ist for a while to cool off. What's up with all the running out of food references? Starved as a child much?
More fines are good for all. Since being able to drive across a crowded city as quickly as possible is the highest priority, we should just shovel everything that gets in the way into Blue Plains, including pedestrians, trees, hell why not monuments- imagine how much faster you could commute from downtown to the suburbs if we just bulldozed all of NW and just made a big 20 laner in and out. Whiny little...
I am another DC resident/taxpayer that supports higher charges for cars illegally parked in tow-away zones.
I live near a school where parking is prohibited from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm school days, and I park there frequently when there is not a space closer to my house. I should be gone by 7:30, but I get 3-4 tickets a year because I was late or didn't go to work and forgot to move it. It costs me money each time, but it is the cost of my mistake.
One car parked in a rush-hour tow away zone may save the car's owner a few minutes, but it wastes time for hundreds of other people backed up behind it. The parking restrictions are there to keep people moving, not to raise money. And if it does raise money, that's a tax on people who think their individual convenience is more important than everyone else. They deserve to pay for being so inconsiderate.
I mean really .. What's wrong with parking in front of a hydrant ..it's probably a non-functioning hydrant anyway. Oh and those damned bus stop shelters after all doesn't dDot know that nobody takes the bus in DC. How many more parking spaces could they account for.
Cars parked on main streets during rush hour are worse than Hitler.
There! Someone had to say it.
STMove - no one crapped in my mug...although the last cup was a bit nutty... and I am quite cool and fine thanks. The food references were to what the average 300lb computer geek (as I imagine cminus to be) would eat.
I get sick, sore and tired of this forum piling on MD drivers. There are a lot of crap drivers everywhere and at the risk of reigniting yet another flame war, MD drivers are no worse than DC, VA or any other drivers. And I find it rich that those who complain still come here to shop or dine on the weekends.
ohh.. cminus. Am I to be offended because you quote Galileo? Nemo me impune lacessit. Or, if you prefer in Scots: "Wha' daur ye feck wi' me?
LRonHoover: No offense intended; I'm not the sort who easily gives or takes offense. I'm not offended by your mental image of me, for example. Why should I be? You're some pseudonymous guy at the other end of a system of tubes. Hell, imagine me ordering roast babies with Hitler sauce and not tipping the waitress if it makes your day that much nicer. No skin off my nose, and good karma for me.
But it seems strange to me that, as someone who supposedly doesn't give a shit about ubergeek quotes or running gags, you're spending your time reading DCist, which is the second hit on Google for "cesspool of ubergeek quotes and running gags." The more you post, the more the evidence just doesn't support your claims of indifference. Me, I am a geek, freely stipulated. You'd do well to own your own geekiness too, or else stop acting like a geek by, for example, obsessively posting on internet fora.
"Well now the D.C. Council looks poised to do something about it." I'm surprised no one mentioned anything in regards to Council members being exempt from parking tickets, fines, no parking zones, etc. Will they include themselves with this new ticketing approach to drum up some extra funds for our ailing budget?
You guys are retarded. This is just another way to raise money for city with out of control spending. You think someone will say to themself "Aw hell ill leave the car its only $100 fine" NO. $100 will sting anyone. Its an undue burden. Hell why not make it $5,000 if you guys think the Law is so indominable and wonderful.
"I get sick, sore and tired of this forum piling on MD drivers."
Whenever I complain about Maryland drivers, it's less about their reckless behavior (although there is plenty of that) it's more their sense of entitlement that the District should give a rat's ass about them. Why should we care if a policy unduly burdens them? Screw them. Let them unduly burden our visits to Maryland if they want. I know I sure as hell wouldn't be writing in to the Washington Post to whine the way Maryland commuters do.
The District should take their cue from the Metro and do what WMATA does: declare the hours between 5:30am and 7pm "rush hour" and charge the appropriate fees.
Also, doubleparked cars should be treated like recycling bins and be removed as potential terrorist bomb threats.
Finally, half of all stop lights should be under a perpetual state of "maintenance," thereby forcing people to abandon their cars and walk everywhere.
I know these views aren't popular. But I for one have never courted popularity.
am I the only one here against it? I don't have much sympathy for those parked there, but this "solution" doesn't solve anything except giving towing companies and DC more loot.
a) No one who's gotten towed is thinking that it's a pretty sweet deal for parking. There's no real "incentivizing" going on here, which bring me to point b) that it's...
b) ...bad for tourism and DC. Most of the cars I've seen have out of state plates, and not just MD/VA. Finding out that you lost track of time with your family and now have to pay a $100 fine for that extra 15 minutes is one thing, having to shlep your entire family to White Plains to get your car out of impound is the type of thing that will get tourists saying "never returning to THAT shithole again" (well, more than the current number).
c) This will make traffic worse, not better. Right now it takes 20-30 minutes to get the Ave cleared when there's a few cars there and they're only moving them 100 feet away. How long will it take to get all of the cars moved to the impound facility? Does this do anything other than give towing companies more money?
d) Lastly, you're giving the parking enforcement branch of the DC government greater powers with no extra oversight and are entrusting them to get it right. Good luck with that, my personal experiences don't make me optimistic.
mojo, i have no problem with upping DC's commuter tax and i doubt it will have the side-affects many worry about and your describe.
pseudo-related personal reasons: I have a small consulting service with clients coming to us from around the dc metro area. Most of our clients like our ~1 block proximity to red line station. We are also across the avenue from 4$ half day parking which seems to always have extra spaces. I lost count over the years with how many drivers (including a small number of our own staff) complain about "not able to find parking". Listening to their (whining ~ 1st graders or primadonas) complaints all seem the same, if there is no metered parking in front of our doors, or free street parking around the block then it's not good enough for them. We get incredulous reactions when we offer good ideas like try the garage across the street or come here 15 minutes earlier, or some secret street parking 4 blocks away we know about.
I support fining UPS and delivery drivers who double park everywhere downtown during rush hour. Allowing delivery at all during those times is insane. Make them deliver earlier and you'll remove a whole lot more headaches for both residents and commuters, not to mention "taxing" national corporations who can probably afford it a whole lot better than, say, non-profit workers renting in Columbia Heights. Besides, occassionally oversleeping (or being sick) is one thing. Making a business practice out of making everyone else's life miserable in the morning is very different.
I think it was ClevelandRocks who mentioned (a few weeks back) the Garbage collection model using a mothership and fleet of smaller garbage trucks feeding her. I think UPS, DHL, FedX ... could reverse that model with the MotherDelivery Van offloading from within small zones around the city to an expanded fleet of smaller delivery vehicles.
Horgan: Taxis and buses get stuck in the traffic caused by rush hour parkers. Not everyone on the road is a single-occupant car from MD or VA.
"Now when are we going to start ticketing the UPS and FedEx drivers that decide to park in rush hour zones?"
I've actually see this happen... once. I was quite surprised.
am i the only one who really really enjoyed the back-and-forth between cminus and drlronhoover further upthread? it really made my day!