Parking officers' ticket 'fare'

UMD’s two parking officers swear that the new form of waving is a fist with the middle finger extended. Mike and Ed, who asked that their last names not be printed for personal reasons related to safety and privacy, have been UMD’s parking officers for eight years. In that time they have received glares and abuse from students, and have been labeled a gambit of names and titles ranging from “ruthless” to “Parking Nazis.”

“It’s just such a misconception that we’re after the students,” Mike said. “No, we’re not. It’s a university job that was offered and we do that, and we try to do it as fairly as possible.”

Posts on “Overheard at UMD,” a Facebook group for students, have been especially negative towards the two. In 2013, a car started on fire in the maroon parking lot outside of the library, which Mike called in to 911. A student took a picture of the car on fire and posted it on the group. Soon after, a student superimposed a photo of Ed writing a ticket to make it appear as though he was ticketing the burning car.

This is just one example of the abuse the two receive on campus.

“The negative experiences are swearing and threats,” Mike said. He added that he’s had a student confront him in the parking lot with the intention to physically harm him. Mike was able to talk to the student down, but it was a scary situation nonetheless.

Mike and Ed understand that receiving a ticket is frustrating, but they say the students need to understand that the two have a job to do. In fact, when asked what they disliked about their jobs, the first thing Mike answered was “having to write tickets.”

“I’ve had a couple kids go through college,” Mike said. “My kids have gotten tickets. I understand the costs of college and I understand responsibility. In my eyes we aren’t responsible for the cars; we don’t know what their schedules are.

“That’s the bad part — you write a ticket and somebody got held up in class,” he added. “I’m very sorry for that, but what we have to try to do is remain consistent with what we do, because inconsistencies create more confusion.”

Part of staying consistent includes when the point of no return for receiving a ticket is reached. Once a ticket is printed, they are required to give it out, regardless of the situation. But that doesn’t mean they don’t do students favors.

“If (students) yell, particularly at the meters, and get our attention before we print, we are more than happy to just let it be,” Mike said.

Ed said that when he and Mike were being trained eight years ago, the parking officers would write a ticket while students stood right beside them, pleading them not to write it. When he and Mike took over, they decided to change how they operate.

“When Mike and I started doing this, we started trying to be more fair to the kids,” Ed said. “We tell them, ‘be yelling,’ because if you see me printing (a ticket), I’m not looking at who’s yelling, I’m just printing. If I hit print, that ticket is yours. If you can stop me before I hit print, I’ll back off.

“We give a break to the students as much as we can,” he added, “but we still have to do our job.”

The misconception that the two officers are out to get students may stem from the fact that Mike and Ed cover a lot of ground throughout the day, and the duo doesn’t miss many illegally parked vehicles. Both officers average double-digit miles per day as they cover the 52 lots on and off campus.

“Our miles we walk indicate that we’re not hanging out anywhere or place too long,” Mike said, debunking the idea that the officers wait for meters to run out. Additionally, there is a buffer for students whose meter runs out before they are able to leave or refill their meter.

“When people think we are standing by the meters or that it must have ran out 10 seconds ago, there’s actually a four-minute buffer in there,” Mike said. “We don’t have time to (wait for a meter to expire). There’s only two of us with (52) lots; we run a lot.”

Mike said that most of the time they walk behind the meters and look for the red expired signs, not the time remaining on the meter. Often times they can check the meters from a distance, and if they don’t see red, they will continue on to the next lot.

“If we see blinking, we’ll be writing,” Ed said. “If it isn’t blinking, we’ll just keep on going.”

Still, the two receive a lot of grief from students, which begs the question: “Why work at such a negative place?” The duo said that these instances are more rare than one might think, and the job does have its benefits.

“Most of the students — I would say 99 percent — are cordial and nice,” Mike said. “They don’t appreciate a ticket, but understand.

“The amazing thing is a lot of students are thankful when we’re in the lots,” Mike added, using the example of ticketing a car with no permit that parked in a maroon or white lot.

There are other benefits to the job as well, including enjoying the outdoors and helping people out.

“I enjoy being outside,” Mike said. “Contrary to belief, we do help a lot of people here.”

Mike used admissions week as an example of when he and Ed direct new students and their parents to lots around campus, as well the location of buildings.

“In the wintertime — and this is the stuff you don’t hear too much about in parking, because you hear more of the bad stuff than you do the good stuff — we get people unstuck,” Mike sais. “Up in housing, many times students don’t have shovels. We certainly try to help them out.”

Mike added that they have called the police for students who have locked their keys in their cars, have alerted students that their lights were left on, or even that their car was left running. They are able to get in touch with the students by looking up their permit number.

“We’re out there to help the kids out,” Ed said. “Every time I see a student putting money in the meter, I’ll tell them ‘put an extra quarter in’ because they have an hour class. But they forget that they have a 10 minute walk there and 10 minutes to walk back.”

In addition to letting students out of tickets as long as they alert them in time, they have also helped students and faculty out in other ways.

Ed told a story of a professor who had a handicap and double-parked in a handicap spot and an adjacent spot. The professor came out as Ed was writing a ticket, but it was not printed yet. Ed explained to the professor why he was about to receive a ticket, but, like he does with students who approach him before a ticket was written, Ed let the professor go with a warning.

Mike gave an example of a student who followed him on his rounds outside of the Kirby Bus Hub, putting quarters into expired meters. The student wanted to stay and continue putting quarters in the meters, but had to catch a bus. Mike offered to take a few quarters and put them into the next expired meters he came across.

At the end of the day, both Mike and Ed want students to learn from their mistakes, and know that they are not going out of their way to ticket students.

“I have a job to do and I’m doing it,” Mike said. “Hopefully you’ve learned something from it.

“We’re not as evil as everyone believes,” he added. “You can’t ever curb that, and everyone here is at a learning stage in their life, a very exciting time in their life, and we totally understand that. We were young, but part of the learning process is responsibility, so if we contribute to a little bit of them learning about responsibility, so be it.”

BY SAM STROM News Editor

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