Feeding someone's parking meter

Quarter? Coin?

I know some places take credit cards too. Not as simple at the old days.

Ed P wrote on 1/17/2024 5:31 PM:

How would law enforcement know the car at that parking meter you are feeding is not yours?

Is it illegal for a car owner to hire someone or send a friend to feed the car's parking meter?

If you were walking down the street ahead of the ticket guy and fed three meters, good chance they are not all yours. Things like that happen in some neighborhoods.

Feeding a meter is illegal many places. Meters are there to prevent long term parking in favor of people who need to park to quickly access local businesses. You can indeed be ticketed for it. Whether it is your car or not. The car can also be ticketed.

A friend owned one of many stores on a busy street with meters. Sometimes employees would park at the meters in front of the store and then wonder why people did not come in.

These do. I went to lunch downtown with my boss and he used a credit card at the meter. I realized I was behind the times. I think that was before there was an app for it.

I'm adverse to paid parking so I only go downtown after 5 or on weekends. That's not the greatest thing for merchants. I was going to get a pair of Cloud Nine booties but couldn't find a free parking space so I went home and pulled up Amazon.

When I lived in CT, I used to go to a Polish grocery store maybe 6 times a year. They had metered parking so about half the time I'd snag a meter with time left. Aside from that place, don't recall the last time I parked at a meter.

That is one of the few time I had to parallel park too. I don't miss parking like when I lived in Philadelphia.

Parallel parking is one thing I did perfectly on my driving test. I still don't like to do it.

Mark Lloyd wrote on 1/18/2024 3:59 PM:

I should be a lot easier with a backup camera in most new cars.

The backup camera is handy for gauging the distance to the car in back of you but I find I use the side mirror for most of the operation.

Parallel parking was one thing I was told I would not be asked to do. Snow banks had blocked of any possible places to do it.

Sign on a college dorm door, "Parallel parking is the only true art form".

rbowman wrote on 1/18/2024 8:25 PM:

Sure you need the side mirror so you car doesn't sideswipe the rear corner of the car you are trying to park behind. The backup camera helps in gauging how far your car's rear end is from the curb when you are backing in at a diagonal angle to the curb.

Most backup cameras have imaginary lines like this to help the driver gauge distance and angle:

I learned to parallel park 60 years ago. I've had a car with a backup camera for three years. How did I ever manage?

Putting money into someone's meter is an act of kindness.

Making it illegal is designed to make the cities money.

That is an act of greed.

Andy

They got rid of the meters where I live years ago. Probably because of the free parking in all the malls and such in the area.

Yes. That's one of the good things about the new car I'm looking at.

Even better, some have surround view with four cameras. Very handy in a tight spot.

They have expanded metered locations here. The theory was it would aid parking space turnover providing more traffic to downtown businesses. I think it backfired at least on that selling point.