Last Updated on May 11, 2022 by Fair Punishment Team
We’d all be lying if we said that we hadn’t been there… We’ve all been in a rush at some point and we have all received a parking ticket and then asked ourselves WHY didn’t we just pay for a permit or just park somewhere else. But, sometimes it just can’t be helped. After all, you have told yourself that you will only be a second.
Well, you might change your mind when you learn just how much a parking ticket can amount to these days. Yeah, we are sorry to say that gone are the days when a parking ticket will just cost you $20 or $30.
The First Ever Parking Ticket
That’s right, there was a time when parking tickets were not even a thing. They did not exist. Until they did. The precise date that the first parking meters were installed was July 16th 1935. This happened in downtown Oklahoma City and then 150 new parking meters were installed. These meters just charged a nickel per hour, so quite a lot has changed since then. Naturally, businesses were elated, but drivers were pretty angry about this, and that kind of perspective hasn’t really altered since back then.
Getting A Good Parking Space In The City
You can basically ask anyone who lives in a city, and they will tell you that a great parking space will be gold dust in the city. Yeah, a good parking space is especially valuable. It is true that getting the best parking space is a fight that is worth having. The way that cities will protect their prime parking spaces is through parking tickets. That classic tactic of hitting the wallet is employed by the vast majority of cities.
But, it is true that just how much each city will take a hit on your wallet can really vary. When it comes to thinking about how much they hit the wallet is left to each city’s own devices. It is true that prices can range from $10 to $20 in the New Hampshire cities, or it can be more than $50 in the areas of the metro in Los Angeles.
What Is The Average Price Of A Parking Ticket?
The answer that we are going to give you to this question is pretty disappointing, so don’t say we didn’t warn you… But this just totally depends on where you are parking! The prices can vary that much that it is hard to calculate an average price. You will be pleased to know that there actually are a few constants in the long list of parking variables.
When you think about this from an economic perspective, the logic does make sense even though it is not the most agreeable ever. So, an expired meter fee will have to amount to more than what the hourly rate equates to over a typical work day, so that would be eight to ten hours. For instance, if your hourly rate is 60 cents and you will need to be parked up all day, then the meter rate would be $6. Yeah, most people would just ignore this, so the expired meter fee is much more expensive than this due to this very reason. This is meant to stop people parking up all day every single day, and it is meant to encourage parking space sharing if you will.
Paying to park all day should defer workers to pay the prices of a parking meter and this in turn will end up opening up spaces for shoppers who will need these spaces to buy goods and also services from the business in the city.
Can Rising Parking Rates Hurt Businesses?
The logic behind the rising parking meter rates is supposed to help businesses. It is meant to free up the parking spaces for shoppers, so it is meant to promote a browsing shopping culture along with just a quick visit to the shops too. The parking meter rates are meant to put people off long periods of parking, so those who work long hours in the heart of cities. Naturally, this logic is pretty tricky to make people understand.
Although we would argue that if the rates are raised too much then businesses can end up being hurt by this instead.
How Much Would Be Too Much To Pay For Parking?
We know that ultimately there is a line between groaning about paying for a parking ticket, and then paying more for your parking ticket than the goods that you are buying when you are out in the city. There would be nothing worse than parking up for a quick visit to the store and then finding a $50 parking ticket stuck to your windshield. This is surprisingly common in parts of Chicago and the hourly rate can be anywhere from $1.25 to more than $4. Yeah, it is fair to say that the expired parking meter fees will have sparked a lot of anger.
Parking tickets are a source of outrage from anyone who drives, and they view them as unessential and a money-spinner for the cities themselves. I mean… parking tickets were issued by the Department of Revenue so it is understandable where this perception comes from.
If you are not planning on paying by the hour in the city then you need to be prepared to pay out $40 for a parking ticket on average. You should keep an extra $40 on hand for contingencies. There would be a much simpler way of resolving this. You could just pay the meter and avoid the ticket altogether.
In Conclusion
If you haven’t come to this conclusion already, then this might help you out. If you are lazy about paying for a parking meter charge and take the risk of being subjected to a parking ticket, then our best piece of advice would just be to pay for the meter. The price difference between a parking meter and a parking ticket are so unmatched that it is not even worth risking a ticket these days.
