A broken meter is a valid reason in other cities?
Huh. Every parking meter around here specifically says if it is broken you can't use it. People are ticketed accordingly if they park there.
Huh. Every parking meter around here specifically says if it is broken you can't use it. People are ticketed accordingly if they park there.
Here (Melbourne), if a meter is faulty but the council doesn't know, you can SMS your numberplate and the meter ID to their faults number. The automated response tells you that the time limits still apply and gives you the number to call if you still get a ticket.
If the council knows the meter is faulty and they haven't fixed it, they generally put a locked bag over it so no one can use it with instructions that the time limits still apply.
Yes it seems a bit stupid but governments often don't operate with efficiency or common sense as a primary goal or concern.
Yes, it does. Seems a bit unnecessary for the US to spend more than the next 20 countries combined in military, but the government doesn't always do the necessary part well.
I would imagine this leads to a lot of intentionally broken meters.
Unless they had some kind of rash of people breaking meters that they're reacting to, I'm calling shenanigans on that law. In fact, if they haven't had a _recent_ rash... I'm still calling shenanigans.
http://consumerist.com/2009/10/01/hidden-cameras-catch-la-va...
http://sfmta.com/ru/services/streets-sidewalks/maintenance-r...
Although apparently that's not quite true, since there's another rule that says it is two hours max.