I've had a tough time driving down to Virginia last week (from New York) on Interstate 95, which is surely the old-folks superhighway. Time and again you have dummies hogging the left lane, and if it's not someone on a cell phone, then it's some old biddy or old guy with a hat! [:@]

Anyhow, the above is not the issue for this thread, it's more about understanding math (although after last week's experience I'm kinda wondering if anyone can understand anything!).

We have a situation where we'd like to discourage commuters parking in our town during the day.

Okay, so one guy suggested we should have "a three-hour parking limit" imposed "between 7 am and 10 am."

I'm trying to explain to him that with such an ordinance, it would be impossible for anyone to break the law, since there are only three hours between 7 am and 10 am.

Is this so hard to understand??? There has to be someone out there who can see why such a law would be inane! None of my colleagues or relatives seem to understand this. I kinda feel that people who don't understand this, really shouldn't be driving.

 

I beg to disagree with your assesment of the parking ordinance.
If someone parked his vehicle at 5:00AM, at 8:01AM he would be in violation of the ordinance, as stated.

 

What kind of street is this? Is it in front of stores or homes?
You could put parking meter's out and give out parking tickets.

 

That's immaterial (although, yes, there are better ways to enforce same).

The issue is one of logic. I'm saying it would be impossible to break the law with such an ordinance, so this law would simply be futile. For instance, we have a two-hour limit overnight on another street, from 12am to 5am. So if you park before 12am, you have to remove your car by 2am. Alternatively, you could park at 3am and not risk a ticket at all, for example. However, this particular law stops people parking all night, of course.

 

so, what you want is to win teh argument, not solve teh problem... Ooooookaaayyyyy... You've GOTTA be American, yourself, to have such a myopic POV.

 

^^^^^ Funny.

 

Interestingly, you're both right. While yes, it would be impossible to actually break said ordinance, the simple fact that he doesn't get it is proof of it's feasability. Since he doesn't get it, you can safely assume that many other people wouldn't either, and those people would try to obey the law without actually understanding it (like most laws in this country). As long as people think that they can't be parked for more than 3 hours at a certain time of the day, then many won't park for more than 3 hours, even if there's no real way to enforce it. It won't cut down on the problem as much as it would if the law was worded in a way that made it actually enforceable, but i'd be willing to bet that it would work better that you think.

I think it's a great idea, if for no other reason than being a version of "survival of the fittest". The local people who are smart enough to figure out that they technically can't be ticketed will park there all they want without repercussions, thus being rewarded for being smart. The people too dumb to figure it out or out-of-towners will park elsewhere or limit their parking time out of a simple misunderstanding of the laws or simply playing it safe, thus making room for those who are smart AND helping to solve the parking availablity issues. Plus, the parking issue will be helped without cluttering up the traffic court with dozens of useless tickets wasting public officials time.

There should be more laws like this.