Bureaucracy

I’m always amazed by the laws they have here in Chicago.  When I moved to Illinois, I had never gotten a parking ticket in my life.  Since moving, I think I’m at around half a dozen or more.  I can understand a parking violation for parking in a no-parking zone, parking in front of a driveway, or double-parking, but I tend to get tickets for reasons I didn’t know existed.

The very day I had my first interview for my first IT job, I was ticketed for parking in front of my house.

Yep, in that particular suburb, it is illegal to park on the streets at night.  Where was this marked?  Three blocks away.  Forgive me for not reading every parking sign I pass.  If you’re going to have a parking law, you should make it visible in the areas it affects.

Soon after that, I got another parking ticket for parking in a space and then walking in the wrong direction.  That parking space was for people going to the shops east of the spot, not west.  This one is my fault for not reading the sign properly, but it’s still silly.  I was actually gone for about a minute, and I came back to see a guy finishing putting the boot on my car.  I had to pay that one on the spot, else I wasn’t going anywhere.

Another time I parked downtown near a sign that said, “No Parking: Carriage Loading Zone Mon-Sat.”  Being that it was Sunday, I took the sign to mean that I couldn’t park on those days.  I was wrong.  I came back to a nice orange ticket on my windshield.

So, given all that, the ticket I found on my windshield yesterday didn’t surprise me that much.

I tend to hold off on doing anything the government requires me to do.  I tend to ship out my income taxes on April 15, one year I even filed for an extension, then did them on the last day of that.  Since I got my first car, I tend to drive around on expired plates for a few months before renewing.  When an emissions test notice comes in the mail, I put it off to the last day.  I am not a punctual guy.

This year, when I got my registration renewal, I actually sent it in.  I updated my address and everything, and got that little plate sticker before the current one expired.  One thing I didn’t get, however, is a Chicago City Sticker.

You see, as someone told me and I blew off because I was busy then forgot because I’m absent-minded, along with emissions testing and a $200 registration, you have to buy this little sticker to go on your windshield.  From what I hear, the sticker costs about $75.  It’s odd that the one year I renew my plates on time (for the record, I never got fined for that), I get cited for something else.

One interesting thing I noticed, however, is that no one official told me to get a sticker.  It wasn’t mentioned in the registration papers, ‘Oh, by the way, since you changed your address to Chicago, you need to get this sticker…’ nor did the post office mention it when they sent me about fifty pages of Chicago-area coupons when I filled out my change of address form.  It seems silly to have a law that is only spread by word of mouth.

Another interesting thing I noticed was the fine, at a modest $120.  This is the most expensive ticket I’ve gotten.  And as I’m looking on this citation, I’m looking at the various other fines, and the only thing more expensive is parking in a handicapped spot.

Parking in front of someone’s driveway? $75

Parking in a no-parking zone? $50

No license plates? $50

In front of a hydrant? $100

Parking on the SIDEWALK? $50

Here’s all these offenses that I would deem as far worse than simply failing to adhere to an unnecessary bureaucratic law, and most of them are less than half the fine.

I have seven days to pay this, which is no big deal, I am more than financially secure enough to handle that.  But if I were still working at Wal-Mart… that could destroy my financial state.  I shudder to think what stupid laws like this are doing to less fortunate people.

Zel-kun out.