Driveways in D.C. Now a No-Parking Zone!

So, when you buy a house in DC you can say. No thanks; I'm not paying for the driveway since it won't be mine; then have 'em fence it off. Can you ask for your money back if you already paid for one? If I lived there I would be finding out... They should also change the name from driveway to something more appropriate like 'sucker's surprise'
Wonder what a DC driveway is worth these days?
I think this is B S ...

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Hmm. This brings to mind a little run in with a local cop I had back eight to ten years ago.

Just to set the stage before I get into it, my house (My parents house where I was living at the time.) was a 4 bedroom set on a 60' wide by 100' deep lot in a residential neighborhood. We had a small camper trailer, and a car with a siezed transmission in the driveway (For Sale sign included), a small box trailer in the corner of the yard, my brothers car (which was towed home the weekend before after breaking down.) was parked in the street. (and my car, but it wasn't "parked". I'll get to that later.)

I was driving home from work Friday morning, (I worked graveyard shift at the time and that was the start of my weekend.) and pulled on to my street. A police car pulled in behind me but I thought nothing of it as I hadn't done anything wrong. I pulled up to the house and parked in the street behind my brothers car. The cop pulled ahead and parked in front of my brothers car in front of my neighbors house. Again, I thought nothing of it at the time as I had done nothing wrong.

As mentioned earlier, my brothers car had broken down the weekend prior, and being the "mechanic" of the family, I parked my car and went to the garage, got the tools I thought I'd need, and went out to try to figure out what was wrong with it.

About this time, the police officer got out of his car and approached me. He asked if it was my car. I told him it belonged to my brother and that I was just working on it. He then told me that the city considered it to be an abandoned vehicle since it had been parked on the street without moving for more than three days. (City Ordinance, I can't complain about that.) I told him the deal with it breaking down and not having time to look at it until then.

He then put his attention on my car and tried to tell me that it was also considered to be abandoned for the same reason. (The same car that I was just driving and he was following down the street not five minutes earlier!!!)

I told him it was my only car and I drive it to and from work five days a week and always park it in the same spot. I then asked him if he noticed it right in front of him while driving down the street. (I noticed him, why wouldn't he notice me?) He didn't seem convinced so I asked him to put his hand on the hood to see if it was warm and if that wasn't enough, put his hand on the exhaust pipe. He then got a look on his face like he just messed up and quickly dropped the subject.

He then set his eyes on the car and the two trailers that were parked up in the yard. He told me they all needed to go.

I asked him if he was aware of the city council meeting that had been held not too long before about that very issue where they decided that anything parked in your driveway or yard was your business.

Again, he quickly dropped the subject.

So, that only left my brothers car parked in the street that he still had reason to have a problem with. (That city ordinance thing.) There was an empty spot in the driveway so I asked him if pushing it up there would settle the issue.

He quickly said yeah, put it up there and we're good and got back into his car and drove away. That was the end of the discussion.

At the time, I was just left wondering WTF just happened??? He never even asked if I was the homeowner.
Now that I'm a bit older, Seeing how he handled it, I'm thinking it was just an inexperienced officer trying to put pressure on some "dumb young punk" he saw on the street. If that's the case, I guess he now knows that young doesn't always mean dumb.

I've had more "experiences" with the law than I can count. Nothing bad on my end. Just them doing their job. (Working graveyard shift in a bad neighborhood didn't help.) This one is an exception though being both the most memorable, and on topic.

There's no substitute for experience so I'm glad I was able to help all of them with that.

[edit on 5/9/2009 by Americantrucker]

[edit on 5/9/2009 by Americantrucker]

Those DC cars were probably parked behind another car in the driveway, down at the end of the driveway, sticking out into the sidewalk, or something, or whatever. Or like it was a really big long car that obstructed the sidewalk area and prevented the passage of skateboarders and junkies searching for smack.

Parking tickets is one of my pet peeves and I'm afraid I would go ballistic if I was ticketed for parking in my own driveway.

Taxation without representation is what it is.