Ok, normally I'm a supporter of policemen, but a few weeks ago, Tom got a parking ticket that was a little un-necessary in my opinion. See what you think....
It was the last day of Spring break for our girls, so Tom took the day off work to go with us to the science center in Birmingham. We made a quick stop at Wal-Mart on the way out of town to grab some lunchables. Tom was driving, so he dropped me off to run inside & grab them. When I came back out literally w/in 10 minutes, I happened to see a cop car off to my right with his lights on. I thought for a quick second if Tom could have possibly done something wrong, but quickly dismissed the idea since I thought it was highly unlikely for him to get into enough trouble in 10 minutes to warrant a cop. But, as I scanned the parking lot for the van, I couldn't find him. Finally, I looked over by the cop again, and saw our van headed down the aisle beside him. I started walking that way, and as I got closer, noticed that it looked like Tom was not in the driver's seat. That seemed a bit suspicious since all 4 kids were in the van, and the van was still running and parked in a position like it was ready to pull into a parking spot.
I opened the back hatch of the van to put the bag of stuff in, and the girls immediately told me that daddy was in the back of the police car. I thought they were kidding with me, but they were real serious and seemed a bit scared, so I started walking to the police car & as I got closer the cop put his window down & told me Tom would be back in just a minute. I just kinda looked at him like what in the world??? He then proceeded to tell me that Tom didn't tell him he had kids in the van. I was like "yeah...there are 4 of them in there!". I asked if I could go ahead & pull the van the rest of the way into the parking spot & he said yeah. So, I got in the van and started asking the girls what happened?! Mackenzie kept saying "I think the cop thought daddy was parked in the wrong place" They explained that Tom had stopped in one of the striped areas at the end of the aisle when the policeman came up and when Tom went to move & pull into a parking spot, the policeman told him he wanted to see his license. I asked if Tom had given the cop a hard time or something, and they both said no, he didn't say anything, he just gave the cop his license & then the cop made him get in the back of the car.
I got back out of the van to go see what was going on and as I was headed back over Tom was getting out, so I commented loudly enough in hopes that the cop would hear "Ok, our kids are freaking out that you just left them!" The cop didn't really acknowledge if he heard anything.
So when Tom got in the van he told what happened. He had indeed pulled into the striped area for a minute & was checking his e-mail on his phone while he waited for some old person to pull out of the parking spot about 4 spots down. The person was really slow I guess, and just as he was getting ready to pull out, he saw the cop coming up behind him & put his lights on. He figured he would pull into the spot & then see what the cop wanted. As he pulled forward the cop got onto his PA and told him the blue flashing lights mean stop! So, Tom stopped, stepped out of the car to point to the parking spot so the cop would understand he was just pulling in to get out of the way and for whatever reason the cop got ticked off. He told Tom he was not supposed to get out of his car, but asked for his license & told him to get in the back of his car.
In the end, he gave Tom a parking ticket for parking in the yellow striped lines. I guess when Tom tried to tell him he wasn't really parked there, the cop was real snippy & asked "was the van in park?" When Tom replied yes, he was like "well, you're parked then!" What a jerk. What cop would make you leave your 4 kids unattended in a van?? I was so mad! Of course he claimed that Tom didn't tell him he had the kids in the van, but c'mon, what guy is going to be driving a mini van mid-morning on a Friday & NOT have kids in it?? A little common sense please!
So Tom is going to court in May to fight the ticket. I mean really....the guy couldn't have given a warning?? Is "parking" in the yellow lines really a big problem around here that we need to give out tickets?
What do you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Sounds like the guy was having a bad day and took it out on Tom!
I would fight it.
This sounds a bit ridiculous - I'd have done the same thing Tom did. On the other hand, Tom's never had that great a history with PA's and parking - what goes around comes around . . . maybe.
Post a Comment