Is it illegal to put change in meters?

her209

No Lifer
Oct 11, 2000
56,336
11
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I'm not talking about when you park your car... when you walk down the street and put money into other parked cars meters that have or are closed to expiring.
 

xuanman

Golden Member
Oct 5, 2002
1,417
0
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nope. you're not violating any statute by donating your change to other's parking...
 

notfred

Lifer
Feb 12, 2001
38,241
4
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Depends on your municipality. They made it illegal in my hometown (Santa Cruz, CA) because there was this guy who would dress up as a clown on weekends and go downtown with a bunch of quarters and jsut feed parking meters and make balloon animals for kids and stuff all day. I guess he wanted to make the world a better place for it. Anyway, the police dep't was losing a LOT of money on parking fines, so they made it illegal and cited the clown guy for it. Bunch of assholes.
 

her209

No Lifer
Oct 11, 2000
56,336
11
0
What if I put a fake parking ticket on my windshield? What that be illegal? J/K :p
 

amnesiac

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
15,781
1
71
Tip: you can park at any meter that says "FAIL" without penalty.
However, they are prone to be reset at any time, or a meter maid can open it and reset it if they have the tools handy, hence it works best with vehicle-based ticket nazis since they often don't want to get out of the car.

A friend and I did this a few weeks ago, the second we sat in the car a meter maid walked up, and fixed it right as we were driving off.
 

MaxDSP

Lifer
May 15, 2001
10,056
0
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Originally posted by: dparker
Originally posted by: TheEvil1
actually it is Illigal. B'C its not your car

What does it matter if they are still getting the money?

like notfred said, they care about the money theyll (the city) get from the ticket if the meter isnt fed.

EDIT: GAH! he beat me to it...:D
 

masterxfob

Diamond Member
May 20, 2001
7,366
5
81
Depends on your municipality. They made it illegal in my hometown (Santa Cruz, CA) because there was this guy who would dress up as a clown on weekends and go downtown with a bunch of quarters and jsut feed parking meters and make balloon animals for kids and stuff all day. I guess he wanted to make the world a better place for it. Anyway, the police dep't was losing a LOT of money on parking fines, so they made it illegal and cited the clown guy for it. Bunch of assholes.
that sucks :(
 

boyRacer

Lifer
Oct 1, 2001
18,569
0
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Originally posted by: notfred
Depends on your municipality. They made it illegal in my hometown (Santa Cruz, CA) because there was this guy who would dress up as a clown on weekends and go downtown with a bunch of quarters and jsut feed parking meters and make balloon animals for kids and stuff all day. I guess he wanted to make the world a better place for it. Anyway, the police dep't was losing a LOT of money on parking fines, so they made it illegal and cited the clown guy for it. Bunch of assholes.

That's fcked up... :| stoopid asses... :frown:
 

CrazyDe1

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2001
3,089
0
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Originally posted by: her209
What if I put a fake parking ticket on my windshield? What that be illegal? J/K :p

I do that at my school...I got sick of running out to my car 2 minutes late as they were writin my ticket so I just kept one one day and I throw it up on my windshield and haven't had a ticket since:)
 

xuanman

Golden Member
Oct 5, 2002
1,417
0
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Originally posted by: notfred
Depends on your municipality. They made it illegal in my hometown (Santa Cruz, CA) because there was this guy who would dress up as a clown on weekends and go downtown with a bunch of quarters and jsut feed parking meters and make balloon animals for kids and stuff all day. I guess he wanted to make the world a better place for it. Anyway, the police dep't was losing a LOT of money on parking fines, so they made it illegal and cited the clown guy for it. Bunch of assholes.

in general, it seems like it would be hard for the traffic cops to catch you doing this unless you're going around with a huge bag of quarters dropping quarters into each meter...and i wonder why someone would do that?
 

PsychoAndy

Lifer
Dec 31, 2000
10,735
0
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Originally posted by: xuanman
Originally posted by: notfred
Depends on your municipality. They made it illegal in my hometown (Santa Cruz, CA) because there was this guy who would dress up as a clown on weekends and go downtown with a bunch of quarters and jsut feed parking meters and make balloon animals for kids and stuff all day. I guess he wanted to make the world a better place for it. Anyway, the police dep't was losing a LOT of money on parking fines, so they made it illegal and cited the clown guy for it. Bunch of assholes.

in general, it seems like it would be hard for the traffic cops to catch you doing this unless you're going around with a huge bag of quarters dropping quarters into each meter...and i wonder why someone would do that?

Businesses on the beach lose business because customers keep having to feed the meter. Instead they hire someone to feed it quarters and they have more foot traffic as a result.

-PAB
 

datalink7

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
16,765
6
81
Yup. At least in Eugene, OR. Some lady got sued and lost because she would go down the street putting change in peoples meters. One of the stupidest things I'd ever heard of :|
 

ApacheXMD

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
2,765
0
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I've always thought that meters say on them that the time limit on the meter is the time limit, no matter how much you keep feeding it. If it's a one hour meter, you can only park in that space for one hour, regardless of how many times you march your butt out there to feed the meter. That's what I recall from the last time I read the fine print on a meter.

-patchy
 

HiTek21

Diamond Member
Jul 4, 2002
4,391
1
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wasn't this on Dharma & Greg?

Dharma gets tickets for putting money in other peoples meters?
 

Nocturnal

Lifer
Jan 8, 2002
18,927
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they did this on the show jackass once. i believe steve-o went around dressed as a fairy and was putting money into the parking meters.
 

gopunk

Lifer
Jul 7, 2001
29,239
2
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that's why y'all should vote for me... i'll make it a federal crime to prevent anybody from feeding a parking meter. federal laws trump local laws :)
 

MrBond

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
9,911
1
76
I do that at my school...I got sick of running out to my car 2 minutes late as they were writin my ticket so I just kept one one day and I throw it up on my windshield and haven't had a ticket since
At my college, they'll continue to give you tickets, even though you have one. I've seen cars with 2-8 tickets on them at once. It's kind of idiotic, because most people would park their car on a sunday and not move it for several days, so they'd never know they even had one until they went out and had several.
 

ScrapSilicon

Lifer
Apr 14, 2001
13,625
0
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Originally posted by: gopunk
that's why y'all should vote for me... i'll make it a federal crime to prevent anybody from feeding a parking meter. federal laws trump local laws :)
too many laws now
rolleye.gif