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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 1976)
Wednesday, february 18, 1976 daily nebraskan page 5 fKin. COY 9 1 1 1 By Gail Smith Have you ever searched for a campus parking space five minutes before your class started or dueled with another driver to get the last empty space in a lot? Is your car's glove compartment full of parking tickets? . Maybe you would have fewer parking problems if you planned where and when to park and learned the UNL parking and traffic regulations, said John Duve, parking and traffic coordinator and assistant to the Campus Police director. Students, faculty members and staff members commut ing to campus should allow themselves enough time to get through traffic, park their cars and walk to work or classes, Duve said. Commuters know when it will be easy to find spaces in particular lots and when those lots will be Ml, he said. , Student commuter lots usually are congested between 10 ajn. and 2pjn. Monday and Wednesday, he said, but Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays aren't as busy. If com muters cannot find a space in the lot they want to park in, they should be prepared to use public parking or alter native lots listed in the regulations manual, he said. For example, a person with a number 20 parking permit can park in any lot numbered in the 20s on the City or East Campuses. f Reading regulations encouraged . Duve said he encourages persons who drive on campus to read the Traffic and Parking Regulations manual, which is distributed with parking permits and .is available at the Campus Police office. "If people would read the regulations, we would write 50 per cent less tickets," he said. , Some new regulations went into effect Aug. 25, Duve said. He said he thinks the new rules eliminated some "in equities" in the regulations. ,.. For example, he said, if a person violates regulations, he is labeled a Violator," not "student' or "faculty member" Formerly, there were two different appeal processes for student and faculty member violators, he said, but now the appeals systems are identical. Duve said penalties for violation of parking and traffic regulations vary. Most penalties double if they are not paid within five business days of the date the ticket was issued. Then a violator has up to 20 business days to pay the new penalty rate before his car is either immobilized with a rhino boot or towed. $25 penalty for unauthorized permit . The most expensive penalty is $25 for use of a counter feit, unauthorized, facsimile parking permit, or obtaining a parking permit under "false pretenses" andor falsifying a parking permit application. The fine is $25 whether it is paid within five days or within 20 days. Tickets can be issued for 16 other violations listed in the Parking and Traffic Rules and Regulations manual. They include moving violations ($10 penalty if paid within five days), parking in an area not designated as a parking area for motor vehicles ($5 if paid within five days) and parking at an expired meter ($1 if paid within five days). Visitors are excused from two violations if the tickets are returned to the Campus Police office -within five days of issuance, Duve said. After the second violation, he said, visitors must pay penalties. Duve defined "visitors" as persons who are not stu dents, faculty members or staff members or persons whe do not provide or use university services on a regular basis. Anyone who falsely claims to be a visitor is responsible for any violations he receives, he said, and may also be subject to "disciplinary action," Duve said. Registrations no longer held Another change in the regulations eliminates the regi stration "hold system," Duve said. Under the hold system, he said, a student could not register for classes unless his parking tickets were paid. It was unfair to interrupt a stu dent's education because he did not pay parking tickets, he said, because education and parking are not related. However, the hold system still applies to unpaid tickets issued before Aug. 25. Some persons with those tickets may leave school for some time, but when they return they still must pay the tickets to register for classes, Duve said. Now violators who do not pay tickets within 20 days will receive a rhino boot on their car or will have their car towed, Duve said. Rhino boots, which immobilize the vehicle, have been used by Campus Police since October. The boots are used instead of towing when possible, Duve said, but the boots do not fit some types of cars. m : ltd QZD CCBI p RETq QU O OU. ED rrn rm :H m Slucm J "J" , - w4 I J I ' ' ''' ' '"'I ' E I 35SS w""Mirf -p in M QtBtm m mo H0 ceo hm. kpj cni'Hi im , SI . . . rpfj If the boot is still on the car at 8 pan. on the day it was put on, the car will be towed so the boot can be used the following day, Duve said. Rhino boots are economical for both Campus Police and the violator, he said. If a person's car is towed, he is charged $15 but the charge is $5 to have a boot removed, Duve said. He said a system is needed to inform violators they have the responsibility to pay tickets. If a red flag on a car was accepted as sufficient notice to pay tickets, he said, that could be the system. But he said he doubts there would be compliance with that type of notice, so rhino boots and towing are needed. Removing boots illegal Five persons have removed rhino boots from their can, he said. If it becomes common practice for violators to remove rhino boots themselves, Duve said, towing will be the alternative. Persons who remove rhino boots may be pro? secuted, he said. Theft of parking signs also is a criminal offense. Duve estimated $20,000 worth of signs are stolen from the UNL campus each year. The signs include no parking signs, valued between $30 and $40 each, and the restrict ed area signs, which cost about $50 to $85 each, he said. The best way to stop the sign-stealing, Duve said, is to make people aware that they pay for the signs with their parking fees. If people would not take signs and damage meters, Duve said, the money saved from repair and replacement' costs could, be used to create new parking lots and to maintain existing ones. If signs are missing from a lot full of chuckholes, he said, replacing signs is the first priority. Gale Gade, Campus Police director, said operation and maintenance of parking lots is self-supporting. Figures vary each year, he said, but he estimated permit sales and money from penalty and meter payment will reach over $300,000 this year. He said $187,000 of that is used for salaries of five office workers and nine officers who are involved in park ing business, and also for other operating costs. The re maining $113,000 is used for the construction and main tenance of lots. 8,500 spaces available Duve said- there are 8,500 parking spaces on the UNL East and City Campuses combined. About 200 of those are 30minute visitor time zones, he said, and about 250 are meter spaces. The rest are in restricted lots and are sold to faculty members, staff members, commuter stu dents and residence hall students, he said. This year, Duve said, approximately 3,000 faculty and staff members and 7,000 students purchased parking permits. Faculty and staff members are given spaces near the buildings they work in and residence hall residents get spaces near their dormitory, he said. Student commuters can park in the card lot or in 20 series lots, which are located at various parts of the East and City Campuses, he said. He said the State Fairgrounds lot has not been used since October 1974 because the cost of operating buses to bring the students to campus was too high. Each bus cost about $25,000 a year for opera tion, he said, and there usually were only 15 or 20 cars parked at the fairgrounds every hour. A lot wiih about 250 spaces was added last summer to be used instead of the fairgrounds lot, he said. Permit prices are' the same for students, faculty and staff members', Duve said. A 12-month permit costs $25 A permit for first semester only is $15 and a permit for $15. A summer school permit is $10. Permits for motor cycles are $15' for annually, $10 for the first semester only or second semester including summer school, and $7 for summer school only. A combined permit for a fulUize vehicle and a motorcycle costs $26. Also available are $8 -monthly permits, $3-weekly per mits and $1 -daily permits. , , Permit not a guarantee Duve said a permit does not guarantee the purchaser a parking space but is an an authorization to park on campus. He said the spaces are sold on a "usage basis," which means more permits are told than there are parking spaces on campus. Parking spaces would he wasted if this was not done, he said. Sines everyone does not have their cars on campus at the same time and some persons leave school because of graduation and other reasons, enough spaces are available to person who want them, he said. But residence hall dwellers may rarely move their cars and faculty end staff members may park on campus eight hours a day, he said, so Campus Polled try to sell those spaces on a one-to-one basis. During the first two weeks of each semester, Duve said, there are problems fitting all the cars with commuter permits into the lots. Many persons spend more time on campus during thosa two weeks because they must buy books and drop and add classes, he said. Dut during the rest of the semester, spaces are virtually guaranteed If drivers will uts alternative lots, Duv said.