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A Citizen’s Parking Tale

Copyright © 2005, W. David Tarver

Imagine this:

A citizen of Red Bank stops downtown to get a cup of coffee. He parks in English Plaza and walks over to Zebu on Broad Street. After a half-hour, he returns to his car to find a parking ticket on the windshield. Oh shucks! In his haste for caffeine, The Citizen forgot to feed the parking meter. Oh well, c’est la vie. The Citizen tucks the ticket into his jacket pocket and heads for home. Back at the house, The Citizen throws the ticket into a pile of bills on the dining room table. He’ll have to deal with that stupid ticket later. Right now he is heading out of town for a much-needed vacation.

The Citizen spends a couple of weeks out of town on vacation. A few days after he returns, he sits down to pay the bills and sees the parking ticket again. He’s upset that he got that stupid ticket (it made his expensive cup of coffee even more expensive), but he signs the ticket, and writes a check out to Red Bank Municipal Court. A few days later, The Citizen takes a car trip to another state to see his folks. On his way out of town, he deposits the ticket and his other bills in the mailbox.

When The Citizen returns from his car trip, he notices a piece of mail from the Red Bank Municipal Court. He thinks, "Oh, they’re probably just acknowledging receipt of my check." The Citizen tosses the unopened mail onto his "I’ll read it later" pile and goes about his business. He has a lot of things going on, and has little time for extraneous mail. A few weeks later, The Citizen notices still another piece of mail from the Municipal Court, but again he tosses it into the procrastination pile. "Why do they send out so much nuisance mail?" he thinks to himself.

Now about three months have passed since the day of the parking ticket. The Citizen is down at Motor Vehicle Services in Eatontown registering a new car. After suffering the interminable waiting lines, The Citizen is summoned to the counter where a clerk announces, "Your driver’s license has been revoked. You need to go and see the police department in your town."

Flabbergasted, incredulous, frustrated and angry, The Citizen rushes over to the Red Bank police station. The officer at the police station explains that The Citizen’s driving license has indeed been revoked, and that there is in fact a warrant out for his arrest. The reason: late payment of that parking ticket! The officer goes on to say that it is a good thing The Citizen came in, because if he had been stopped by police for a traffic violation or anything else, especially in another town, he could have been arrested and locked up.

Despite his head-splitting anger, The Citizen talks quickly and diplomatically to avoid getting arrested right there on the spot, and then arranges to settle up for the parking ticket. The costs? A late fee, court costs, a driving license reinstatement fee; the total comes to nearly $200. By now, The Citizen is thinking that he will never park in Red Bank again. In fact, he is thinking of moving out of the state.

A year passes, and by now The Citizen’s anger over his parking near-arrest has subsided. He travels to Motor Vehicle Services again, this time in Trenton; this time to get a special license plate that he has owned for years assigned to the car he purchased a year earlier. After the usual long wait and confusion, a clerk summons The Citizen to the counter and announces, "You can’t have a special plate at this time because your driving privilege was revoked within the past two years."

Now The Citizen is back at the boiling point. He’s still "paying" for that damn Red Bank parking ticket over a year later! To make matters worse, he’s being lumped into the same category as drug dealers and other common criminals – people the State of New Jersey doesn’t want to see riding around with their own special license plates.

I know the above scenario seems hard to imagine, but I don’t have to imagine it. I am The Citizen. All of this actually happened beginning in early 2003. At the time, I was extremely busy volunteering as the president of a community service organization that helps Red Bank kids, running for the school board, and taking care of a dying relative out of state. I didn’t handle my parking ticket perfectly, but I didn’t need or deserve to be treated like a criminal.

This parking situation is way out of control, and it needs to be fixed sooner rather than later. The high fines and the draconian enforcement make Red Bank appear to be a really unfriendly town, and they can make the average person afraid to venture into downtown Red Bank. Is that what we want?

In the meantime, if you get a parking ticket in Red Bank, run, don’t walk to 90 Monmouth Street and pay it right away. Don’t let The Citizen’s fate be your fate.

Red Bank

April 19, 2005