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First, some background. My best friend was driving around the other day looking for a parking spot. She found one that was reasonably close to her school and took it. She came back to her car later that day and found a parking ticket. She is not inclined to pay this ticket (for reasons that I'll get to in the facts section) so she needs to write something that explains what happened in such a way that she can avoid paying the ticket. She has until June 1st to do this. She does not know I'm doing this but I'm hoping that some of the fine writers of this forum will be able to come up with a masterpiece that allows her to elude the foul clutches of the law.
Here are the facts:
1. The violation in question had to do with parking in front of a fire hydrant. Her vehicle was indeed in front of the hydrant
2. Normally, if it is illegal to park in a certain area, the area is marked by red paint on the curb. No such paint was evident.
3. Other cars park there all the time, all apparently making the same error my friend made. Further, most of those cars do not appear to recieve tickets
4. The fire hydrant is not on the sidewalk. The sidewalk adjoining the spot my friend parked continues unabated by the prescence of any hydrant. Instead, the hydrant lies about 1 meter (yard) away from the sidewalk. This limits visibility.
5. The hydrant is not on a corner of a block. It is in the middle of the block and lies in beteween several completely legal parking spaces. (Combined with the limited visibility and lack of markings, this adds to potential confusion).
6. There are several other hydrants in the area with the same attributes. Most can be found to have a car parked in front of them.
7. The driver's side of the car parks away from the sidewalk. This increases the chances of not noticing the hydrant.
8. My friend has taken photographs of the offending hydrant and similar hydrants on the same street.
All who enter this contest must write an effective appeal. Your arguments should show why it is unfair to pay this ticket. I will select the winner on June 1st. The winner will be announced at that time.
P.S: It is not required to utilize all the facts I have written. Choose whatever you feel you need and dismiss the rest. Also, the limitations on length are those that have to do with effectiveness. Be as concise or expansive as you need to be (though not necessarily as you want to be).
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Does your friend have picture of the other cars parked in front of the hydrants without tickets. She should take 10-20 of these pictures with time references to show how other people have these problems and how they get away from it. Then she should say something along the lines of if you are gonna charge me charge all these other people too they will not for fear of annoying many other people.
If this fails do surveys on peoplr to see if they know that it's illegal to park here and if they noticed them. If you have the time do 100 of these answer and If I get a chance I'll draft a letter using these.
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Monk, can you close this? Its pretty useless now.
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very well Demon It shall be done.
I hope everything works out ok.
