I find it annoying when people send me emails containing urban legends even though a quick Google search would have set them straight, saving everybody time and bandwidth. So I should have known better than to write about something without checking the facts first.
Last month, I repeated something I had read online about a way to use Montreal parking meters for evil. Fagstein jumped in to tell me I was wrong. Today, I finally got around to double-checking with Stationnement de Montréal, the outfit that runs the city’s parking meters. A spokesman told me that what I had read (and passed on) was an urban legend that several reporters have called him about over the years.
Say I put $2 in a meter for an hour of parking. Another person can’t come by a few minutes later and “reset” it to 7.5 minutes by inserting a quarter in a bid to try to get me ticketed. Basically, if someone does that, they’re just wasting a quarter because the higher amount is what counts, the SdM spokesman says.
Sorry about that.
2 Comments
February 7, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Great. I’ve gone and wasted about 3$ over the past several years on ‘guerrilla’ eco-terrorism. Those SUV owners always seems to win.
Upsetting to know that it would be impossible to add say 0.50$ to my meter if I mistakenly only put in 2$, got my receipt and had meant to put in 2.50$… No way around that I take it?
February 7, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Nope – no way around it. To add your 50 cents, you’ll have to go back just as your $2 is about to run out.