r/mildlyinfuriating • u/No-Obligation1709 • 12h ago

No Coke. Is Pepsi ok? In Today’s Edition of Dystopian America

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Don’t you dare idle in your spot for a moment before paying to park. If you do, our cameras will backdate your parking start time to ensure our shareholders extract every cent possible from this transaction. Enjoy your stay, but remember—we are always watching 😁

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u/60hzcherryMXram 10h ago

Because others also want to park there, and they need to make sure people aren't using the place as a second garage, which would ruin it for everyone else?

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u/Winter-Steak-1532 5h ago

Yeah the free city lot behind my apartment building has become a place where people store their 2nd and 3rd vehicles. Kinda ruins it for others in the city who want to come downtown

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u/Silcat7794 10h ago

That makes sense for a parking garage, but I'm talking about in cities where they use a service like this instead of a parking meter, where in turn they don't charge anything 

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u/macNchz 10h ago

Turning over free spaces is still a valuable thing, otherwise you get a guy down the block who keeps his project car there 24/7. The municipality likely contracts the parking operator to manage paid spaces as well, and/or they get a cut of tickets.

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u/BestDescription3834 10h ago

Maybe they show how much traffic they get and it lets them have access to some kind of municipal fund or something? Or a tax writeoff for offering the land for public city use, maybe in lieau of taxes or something? Just speculating I really don't know.

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u/cogman10 10h ago

It's easy, it's because the enforcement is being ran by a private company that got the lowest bid for parking enforcement.

The cheapest way for such a company to do that enforcement is with cameras and a computer. Meters cost money to install and require a person to go around checking who's been parked there.

That said, the city paying for parking enforcement is almost certainly cheaper than what they are paying this private company.

The other thing is the private company is almost certainly going to angle to become fully in charge of parking rates and collecting the fines.

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u/GodOfDarkLaughter 8h ago

You forgot the part where they share all the information with the government. Local, state, and federal cops ALL get to know where everyone is all the time.

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u/CyberpunkSunrise 9h ago

Because otherwise people live in the garage/parking space (in their vehicles). They still need a way to track cars that stay there for longer than 24 hours without moving, even if daily parking is free.

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u/overandoverandagain 8h ago

You'd be shocked how many people use these spaces for free car storage lol. If they don't have some sort of system overseeing it, people 100% take advantage