COLUMN: Thank goodness for driveways

During the winter months a driveway or garage is the only thing that stands between motorists and parking tickets.

That’s parking tickets for parking on the public streets in the middle of the night.

It’s understandable that Logan city officials want to have streets cleared between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. so that the snow plows can do their work without worrying about stray vehicles on the side of the road. But setting an ordinance saying residents can’t park on the sides of the road, on any night, snow or stars, just makes no sense.

Give us who drive a vehicle some credit for having brains. We are obviously smart enough to pass a driving test and smart enough to deal with the happy people at the DMV … one would think that we are smart enough to not park on the street when snowfall is imminent.

Now that snow is actually falling once in awhile, motorists should stay off the street at night, or receive a ticket for parking there. But on the nights when there is no chance of snow and therefore, no chance of snowplows … there should be no chance of tickets.

There are some who live in dwellings that are not endowed with Wal-Mart-sized parking lots. These people are forced to park at the nearest church or department store just to avoid getting a ticket at night.

If there is very little chance of snow on a given night, motorists should be allowed to use their common sense and park on the road. If by some miracle of Mother Nature it snows, then let the Logan Parking Authority give all the tickets they please. At that point it is the motorists fault for parking on the road.

The problem with this issue stems from people like others and myself receiving citations for parking on the street on clear, not-snowy, nights.

It just doesn’t make sense.

Go figure that on nights when there is a significant amount of snowfall, it is not uncommon to wake up at 7:30 a.m. and find the road still not plowed.

I realize that the snow plowers have bigger roads they need to plow before mine, and they are short-staffed, but there shouldn’t be a double standard being set here.

If we can’t park on the road at night so the snowplows can have unimpeded access to the roads, then the roads sure as sugar better be plowed when morning comes.

It’s just a common sense issue. But it seems everyone is capable of using common sense except for the people that enacted and enforce this law.

Though the ordinance is stupid, they do enforce it, as I once found out. Some others might be brave and try and park on the street in protest of this silly ordinance, may all attempts to thwart this law not end in martyrdom.

Go stick it to the man.

Tyler Riggs is a sophomore majoring in journalism. Comments can be sent to str@cc.usu.edu.