Today, for the 2nd consecutive day, I called HPD to let them know that there was an illegally parked vehicle on Front Street along the yellow-curbed NO PARKING zone at the southeast corner of the intersection with Warren Street.
Yesterday, within ten minutes of my call, a HPD cop issued a $25 NO PARKING ZONE ticket to the RAV 4 with Massachusetts plates. Today's illegally parked vehicle, a pickup owned by a contractor working inside a nearby house, had not been issued a ticket after one hour. Within 5 minutes of today's call, the new white HPD SUV drove slowly through the intersection headed south on Front Street in no apparent rush to get anywhere.
HPD cops on patrol have no means of issuing parking tickets. If they see an illegally parked vehicle or are informed of one, they must drive to the HPD station to grab a ticket machine from the charging unit and then return to issue the ticket if the vehicle is still available to be ticketed. HPD stopped handwriting parking tickets long ago, likely at the same time the ticket machines appeared. It's time to bring them back.
Like almost all yellowed curbs at intersections, the extended yellow curb on Front at Warren is there for good reason. Keeping parked cars away from the intersection helps drivers turn safely off of Warren without being T-boned by northbound Front Street traffic. The no parking zone also benefits pedestrians crossing Front Street from that corner by opening up the intersection, allowing them to more readily see oncoming Front Street traffic and vice versa. Parking along a yellow curb at an intersection is a really stupid, dangerous and selfish thing to do. Even for one minute and even while seated in the driver's seat.
Two hours after my call to HPD, the contractor's pickup truck was legally parked two spaces to the south. I have no doubt that a police officer or a parking enforcer showed up and, instead of issuing a ticket to the pickup truck, tracked the owner down and asked him to move his vehicle.
While that vehicle wasn't issued the ticket it deserved, another one was today. At 2:03, I let HPD know about an illegally parked car on State Street at Dodge, also along a yellow curb and also making an intersection unsafe for turning vehicles and pedestrians. At 3:19, that white Subaru was issued a $25 NO PARKING ZONE ticket.
A few years ago, I asked Police Chief Ed Moore when HPD was going to start sending me commissions for all the parking tickets his officers and enforcers had been issuing thanks to me. He said that he would have to "talk to the commissioner." Funny guy, that Ed!
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