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Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

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Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#331

Post by analog31 »

jessaustin wrote: post #304
closeparen wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are college kids driving in the first place? Are there not enough apartments nearby to rent a room in walking/cycling/shuttle range? Isn't that a pretty foreseeable need when choosing a site for a university? I can understand this problem if you're serving a lot of nontraditional students who already have households, but not with 18-22 year old full time students.

This really depends on the college town. In East-Coast urban cores, most students won't be able to afford to park at any time. Everywhere else in USA, they have free parking where they stay, and also they're culturally conditioned to consider walking or biking to be beneath their station, so they'll consider free parking near their classes to be their birthright.

Which university? I've never been on a major college campus where it was even possible to park near the classroom buildings, much less practical. I live a few blocks from a Big Ten university in the Midwest. When classes are in session, the extensive rows of bike racks are stuffed full of bikes, to the point where illegal bike parking is actually a problem.

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#332

Post by analog31 »

eptcyka wrote: post #22
ISL wrote: post #7

Like adversaries who attempt to outrun a radio, "outsmarting" law enforcement who have your license-plate number is a generally poor strategy. Likewise, putting the police-department's SIM in your phone has some pretty clear downsides.

I don't believe campus police actually has any legal power. It also isn't the police department's SIM card, Barnacle owns it - of course it's still considered theft.

In my locale, "campus police" is a division of the city police department.

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#333

Post by brewdad »

angry_octet wrote: post #326
petee wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Park legally then. It's easy, and tons of poor people do it every day. It's just a select noisy few who want to park wherever and blame someone else.

Says the person who has always had enough money and has strong opinions about poverty.

If you can't afford the $4 for parking, you can't afford a car. The rules don't become optional because you can't afford them. Being poor sucks but it doesn't give anyone the right to ignore the law.

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#334

Post by brewdad »

cortesoft wrote: post #323
jhloa2 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is is not? Many colleges now have more administration staff than education faculty... I know that at my university they constructed a massive new building to house their growing administrative staff.

Do you have an example of where there are more administrators than educators?

Not quite 50/50 but the University of Oregon lists 2075 faculty and 1521 administrators and officers of administration. Also, 112 of those faculty are listed as retired.

https://ir.uoregon.edu/overview

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#335

Post by intopieces »

emptybits wrote: post #183

I spent a decade in the parking technology space. (Co-founder PayByPhone -- don't hate me, I genuinely tried to make things more civilized and convenient, I swear!). Anyways, I miss hearing about hilarious and genius hacks and escalations like this. The brilliance deployed to work around parking regulations is amazing. Not condoning, but here's a (naive?) though experiment if the Barnacle shows up in use again... Par…

Hi, I'm a fan of PayByPhone! If you're partying with friends, you can exchange PayByPhone QR codes and pay each others' meters when the time is up without moving your cars.

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#337

Post by disillusioned »

mikestew wrote: post #256
javiramos wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day I went to a concert and parked my car at a parking lot. When the concert ended, of course there were masses of people trying to exit the parking lot. There were only 2 cashiers to pay the parking ticket — no automated machines. So we waited over an hour to pay our ticket. Time that we ended up paying with our ticket (per hour parking). The cashier didn’t want to refund us for the waiting time. If the la…

Had an attendant try to pull a similar stunt once. I simply told them that I was willing to sit at the booth until it was resolved to my satisfaction, or the cops showed up, while cars piled up behind me. A few moments of hemming and hawing, and out I went no charge. I was willing to pay what was owed, but I imagine “the system” couldn’t handle that, so write it off.

There's an entire Frasier episode based on this exact scenario.

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#338

Post by Gracana »

chrisseaton wrote: post #215
legohead wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So only the privileged should be able to park? If that would seriously be the issue with free parking, then build parking garages.

If you're driving around in a private vehicle as a college student you're probably already pretty privileged. There's no way in a million years I could have afforded my own car as a student.

I saved money by living off-campus and driving to school using the cheap car that I also needed to get to work. There are a lot of places in the US like that, where you can't afford not to have a car.

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#339

Post by Talanes »

hanniabu wrote: post #230
javiramos wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day I went to a concert and parked my car at a parking lot. When the concert ended, of course there were masses of people trying to exit the parking lot. There were only 2 cashiers to pay the parking ticket — no automated machines. So we waited over an hour to pay our ticket. Time that we ended up paying with our ticket (per hour parking). The cashier didn’t want to refund us for the waiting time. If the la…

While I agree that's a hassle, I don't think this should result in a refund. It's like ordering dinner, eating it, and then wanting a refund for the meal because you waited a long time for the meal.

It's more like eating dinner, finishing, and then no one being willing to take your money for an hour after you're ready to leave. A scenario that I've been in, and considered walking out, but the restaurant was too close to my house and I wanted to avoid any unpleasantness in the neighborhood.

Re: Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet

#340

Post by Talanes »

brewdad wrote: post #333
angry_octet wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says the person who has always had enough money and has strong opinions about poverty.

If you can't afford the $4 for parking, you can't afford a car. The rules don't become optional because you can't afford them. Being poor sucks but it doesn't give anyone the right to ignore the law.

And we've designed much of the world in such a way that if you can't afford a car, you can't participate in society in any meaningful way, so maybe come up with better solutions than "Don't drive lol."
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