

'Robin Hoods' who feed parking meters are hit with lawsuit in New Hampshire - dylangs1030
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/15/18274592-robin-hoods-who-feed-parking-meters-are-hit-with-lawsuit-in-new-hampshire?lite

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noonespecial
_The city of Keene says its three parking inspectors have been taunted,
insulted and followed by the group — to the point that one of them says he has
suffered heart palpitations and is thinking about quitting his job._

In case its not clear from the headline (its not) they are being sued for
harassing the parking inspectors, not simply putting money in meters. If they
were just wandering around feeding meters, they would probably have been left
alone.

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dylangs1030
Thanks for noting this. I think it's still technically illegal to put money in
meters, but you're right. It amounts to a teenage prank.

They probably shouldn't have harassed people and tried to be "activists."

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fixxer
_" Linda, guess what you’re not going to do today — write tickets."_

That isn't harassment. That is hilarious.

This just boils down to a municipality relying on parking tickets rather than
meter fees for revenue. Fuck them.

The solution is simple: raise the fee.

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bifrost
AFAIK feeding meters has been illegal for a while, but I have yet to hear of
anyone being cited for it. This is nuts! Maybe if the meters were more
reasonable people wouldn't do stuff like this...

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dylangs1030
I don't quite understand why feeding parking meters is illegal.

Bear with me...

In some cases of abuse, like with NYC metro cards, there is a legitimate
reason not to use a single metro card for a number of people (the limit is
four I believe). The reason is because putting a large enough money on the
metro card to accomodate those people automatically gives extra money as an
incentive for large purchases.

But if you use this other people, you're technically ripping off the system,
because those individual $2.50 cards wouldn't have gotten any extra
percentage.

So in examples like the foregoing, I get why it's illegal to "share" money.
But feeding parking meters has no such incentive anywhere, as far as I know.
Why would it be illegal?

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plorkyeran
It's not. They're being sued for taunting and harassing the parking
inspectors, not for feeding the meters.

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bifrost
The "taunting and harassing" is a smokescreen, these guys posted video of
several interactions, I wouldn't be surprised if more came out.

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VMG
The headline is misleading in a way that this is not even a story

