Eight Tips for Avoiding Parking Tickets for Student

The best way to avoid parking tickets is to avoid driving a car on campus. Walk or bike instead. Your body and your wallet will thank you for it.

Eight Tips for Avoiding Parking Tickets for Student

1. Parking is big business in college towns. For instance, fines for parking violations at the University of Colorado at Boulder totaled nearly $1.25 million last year. This is money students can ill-afford to throw away. Know your campus parking regulations inside and out and make a concerted effort to follow them.
2. Be careful where you park in town near campus. Because parking is so often in short supply on campus, students who can't find oncampus parking try to park as close to campus as possible. Local police patrol these areas looking for parking violators. Many cities collect millions of dollars a year in student parking fines, in addition to the fines collected by the school for on-campus violations.
3. Don't park in handicapped parking spaces on campus unless you have a handicapped sticker. At $50 to $300 per occurrence, it's one of the most costly parking mistakes you can make.
4. If you hate to clock-watch, avoid metered parking spaces on campus. Some of the places you'll most likely want to park have short turnover times because they're high traffic spots (like the bookstore). If your meter runs out you could get a $15 ticket or worse.
5. The parking violations that typically carry the greatest fines are parking in a handicapped space without a valid handicapped permit, parking in the fire lane, blocking traffic, and displaying a lost, stolen, or counterfeit parking permit. If you feel forced to park in a spot you know may earn you a ticket, at least try to avoid these particular infractions.
6. If you park in the tow-away loading zone in back of campus buildings or your dorm, your chances of getting slapped with a fine are high. It's better to park farther away and walk.
7. It's bad enough to get a $15 parking ticket, but if your car is towed because of a parking violation, you could pay up to $100 in towing costs. To avoid an expensive fine, allow plenty of time when going somewhere in order to increase your chances of finding a legal parking spot.
8. If your car does get towed, make sure to retrieve it the same day. Otherwise, you'll pay not only the towing fee and parking ticket, but also an additional $25 or more per day for storage until you retrieve your car and pay your balance.