Imagine getting a parking ticket. Would you move your car, or would you leave it there thinking, what’s the point of moving it if you already got a ticket?

In this story, one driver takes the second approach, and he even clarifies the situation with a parking officer. However, he made one big mistake, so it didn’t work out the way he expected.

Let’s read all the details.

I promise I won’t give you a second parking ticket…

My brother used to be parking enforcement for the city.

One day he was approached by a man while ticketing a car parked illegally. The man was upset, of course, at getting the ticket and failed to argue his way out of it, so he tried a new tactic:

Man: “Isn’t true that once you put a ticket on my car you can’t write any more until I move it.”

It turns out this is true.

Bro: “As a matter of courtesy, no parking officer will ticket a car a second time while the first ticket is still on the windshield. That way we don’t hit you up a second time without giving you a chance to move your car after the first ticket.”

Man: “So I can just leave it here for the rest of the day and you won’t put any more tickets on it?”

Bro: “I promise won’t give you a second parking ticket today.”

Man: “Then I’m staying here. Bye!”

But the guy made a big mistake.

With that, the man grabs the ticket and walks off leaving his illegally parked car behind.

My brother promised to not ticket the guy again, and he kept his word. However, upon noticing that the driver had taken his first ticket with him, bro radios for another parking officer to come over and help with his street.

So of course second parking officer finds the illegally parked car, sees no existing ticket and therefore writes him a (second) ticket.

The man was really upset.

Man arrives back later in the day and is livid. Goes hunting for brother. Finds him.

Man: “You said you wouldn’t ticket me a second time!”

Bro: “I didn’t. Who wrote the second ticket?”

Man: “Officer 34!”

Bro: “I’m officer 22, you can see that on your first ticket.”

He did keep his word.

Man: “But you said that as a courtesy no officer would write a second ticket!”

Bro: “Sure, I said if they see the first ticket on the windshield they won’t write a second ticket. Did you leave the first ticket in place?”

Man: “No.”

He explained the problem.

Bro: “So you made it so the second officer had no way of knowing you’d been ticketed already. You can’t blame her. And I promised I wouldn’t ticket you again and I kept that promise. I tried to cut you a break but you did that to yourself. You can try to fight it by saying you didn’t see the first ticket and I can give you the number to call for that, but by removing the first ticket you can’t claim you didn’t know about it. I tried to help you, sorry!”

The man muttered an apology and a thanks for trying to help, then disappeared again.

Bro and other parking officer shared a good laugh about the guy who failed to game the system on the way back to the station.

That’s funny! The guy thought he found a loophole, but he messed it up by taking the ticket. He wasn’t as smart as he thought he was!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

One person compliments the brother.

Here’s an interesting thought.

This person needed to vent about parking tickets.

Another person vents about parking tickets.

This guy should have been smarter.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.