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Seriously?

Published: April 16, 2009, 4:00 pm ET
By Fritz Farrow
Richmond College '09

This is in response to the article about the on-campus parking and the kiddies who were brilliant enough to reach $1,000 in fines. Let me make it clear that I do not agree with all of the Parking Services rules. Some do need to be changed, but to abuse the rules this much and not learn from it is something that needs to be discussed.

To the students dumb enough to get all these fines, firstly I would like to say, awesome, way to be lazy. If you live in the apartments and you actually have to drive to class, you have some real issues. The campus is not that big, and getting from the apartments to the other side takes no more than 15 to 20 minutes.

As for the A-lot students who parked in C-lot behind Gottwald, I have nothing to say. Your laziness speaks for itself. Second of all, seeing as how those select few accumulated more than $1,000 in fines, you probably are not in fact paying that money yourself, and your mommy or daddy has to pony up the money.

You have an odd way of showing your appreciation for your parents. I mean, they probably already paid for your tuition. What’s an extra grand, right? If I were them, your car would be taken away from you and most likely sold to pay off the fines that you so kindly acquired. I’m sure if you had to pay the money yourself, your habits would quickly change.

Responsibility is necessary for when you leave the bubble we call college, and if you can’t show some while you are here, you have absolutely no chance in the real world. In the real world they won’t just tell you that you can’t have your car on campus. Nope, instead they take it from you, put it in a repo and make you pay to get it back. You should be happy that the parking services here are so lenient and only send you an e-mail giving you a heads-up that your car is no longer allowed on campus.

The final sad note to this story is that one of the two students who were interviewed about their $1,000 in fines was a RCGA senator. Hooray, way to set an example for the students. Your inability to abide by the simple parking rules set on campus is a fantastic way to represent Richmond and its student government. Congratulations.

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  • Taylor Hull

    Absolutely scathing, but oh, so true.

  • Leona

    Word.

  • Peter

    $1000 in parking fines? Only helps further the stereotype that U of R (not “Richmond” or “UR”) is full of rich kids with BMWs that have yellow and/or blue license plates.

  • John

    While I do agree that accumulating $1,000 in fees is excessive, many of us in the apartments have extremely tight schedules and don’t have time to traipse across campus for hours. It’s not an issue of being lazy at all, which you are so quick to assume.
    Between classes, meetings, job interviews, etc. the last thing we need to worry about is parking fines. It would be nice if this university were a little more accommodating.

  • Bill

    The more money UR gets from these parking abusers, the less they will have to take from the rest of us. Marcellies Pettiford is my hero.

  • Alexis

    Sorry Bill, but the money collected from parking fines does not offset tuition in any way. in fact, I heard a rumor it goes toward landscaping. Could explain the gorgeous abundance of tulips we have around campus.

    I appreciate you writing this article Fritz. The amount of entitlement some of the students at this school feel is really appalling. People need to grow up and follow the rules. It’s really selfish and disrespectful of these kids to expect Daddy to bail them out of everything all the time.

  • Fritz

    John, I wrote this article fully aware of time constraints. I also live in the apartments and actually have a class at 9:20 in the morning (something that many seniors cannot claim), and I still successfully navigate my way to class on time. I have meetings and classes just like you, I just know how to manage my time, something that I learned Freshman year. So once again I will attribute the accumulation of so many tickets to laziness.

  • Trey

    So racism isn’t okay, but class-ism is? Who cares if these kids want to rack up huge fines? If they’re paying them, that’s their perogative. Sure, if I racked up in $1000 in fines my daddy wouldn’t bail me out, but if somebody else’s will bail them out, I don’t give a damn.

    Don’t let your jealousy shine through so much, kids.

  • Leona

    I’ve never lived on the Richmond side of campus, so I understand. I’ve gone through days in which I leave at 9am and don’t return until midnight. But parking policies shouldn’t be accommodating just because everyone is busy. It’s not like there are that many parking spots available around RBS and Jepson. There are alternatives…like riding a bike.

    In NYC and D.C., everyone has tight schedules but they (should) still comply with parking policies and find timely ways to get to their destination. That’s just how the world works.

  • Fritz

    Trey, let me make this perfectly clear, I don’t believe in “class-ism” as you so politely put it. I was not making an attack on the class of these students at all. I have friends in all classes, and in this argument class-ism is not a factor. I am merely responding to these students’ attitudes towards their punishments. The act as though they do not care about the rules. When they break these rules they have to pay the consequences, but when the punishment comes they feel as though they are being treated unfairly. Class-ism is not the issue, it is students who are acting spoiled and believe that the world should revolve around them. The University of Richmond waits on its student’s as though they are royalty, and takes care of its students in many different ways, with willing people there to serve students however they can. The fact that people still think they can complain when their school does so much for them is absolutely ridiculous.

  • Allen

    Alexis and Fritz, you seem to make a lot of prejudgements about Ali and Marcellius. It is disgustingly self-righteous, but that seems to be the trend for the collegian so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. Just realize that, I could easily prejudge you same based on your article and responses, but I won’t.

    I will say that they chose to break the rules, they chose to face the consequences. Who cares if their parents paid. It is none of your business and this is America, not the People’s Republic of China.

    And on the note about the university staff being helpful and accomodating, which for some odd reason Fritz acts as if it is a bad thing. For 50k a year they better be helpful and accomodating. I think you forget that this is not only a university, but a business too. Customer service should be one of the univeristy’s top priorities.

  • Fritz

    Allen, I did not act as though the University’s treatment of its students and its customer service was a bad thing first of all. Secondly, if you are going to attack me, why not attack the original author who wrote about the fines in the first place. And as for you not prejudging anyone, you already have, and you have done it publicly by posting on this website. You act as though you are above it all, but in fact you are not.

    As for the school yes, they should be accommodating, but I was pointing out that there are other schools out there who do not take care of their students as well as Richmond does. I know people who have attended other institutions and they do not get the one-on-one experience that UR students do.

    As for the fines, as you mention they are entitled to their privacy. I really don’t care if their parents paid their fines, if that is what their parents wish. I’m just saying that they abused the law, and it led to one of the students having his car removed from campus, and in my personal opinion I don’t think that he should complain. He consciously knew what he was doing, and after continually breaking the law, as with most law, the punishment becomes more severe. He shouldn’t complain because he had $1000 in warnings before his car was actually removed.

  • Alexis

    How are you people (Allen & Trey) missing the point? Fritz has made it very clear. This is about respect for authority. No one is above the law (or in this case, rules). Would it be okay for me to completely demolish my apartment (as so many of the students here do) just because I’m willing to pay the damage repair fines? No, it’s childish and disrespectful. And so is repeatedly parking in places where you know you aren’t supposed to.

  • Allen

    Alexis, I’m not missing the point, you’re missing the definition of ‘above the law’, above the law would be getting a ton of parking tickets and not having to pay them. Both students have accepted the consequences, it could easily be argued that this is following the law as much as not getting the parking tickets.

    Fritz you obviously care who is paying, you dedicate an acidic paragraph
    and a half in your article to ‘mommy and daddy (who) have to pony up’. This also happens to be more speculation.

    Just a note also, accumulating a 1k of fines isn’t nearly as ‘lazy’ as you preach Fritz. With 8 months in the academic year they would be averaging about a ticket a week at the lowest fine. Since the fines increase, they probably got less than one a week. Hardly ‘lazy’ or ‘abusive’.

    And the issue of questioning authority, do the American Revolution or Civil Rights movement ring a bell? Not to equate parking directly with the two but questioning authority can lead to benfi ciao change on large and small scales. Perhaps the regulations could provide for a little more wiggle room.

  • Margaret

    Just a quick comment to refocus the discussion… The issue here is not the amount of the fines, or even who they should be paid by. The problem is receiving multiple parking tickets, being made aware of the penalties for continually parking out of your assigned lot, and then making a statement to a newspaper complaining about it.

    If the people quoted in the article had kept their business to themselves, there would be no problem. Quietly and privately claiming responsibility and paying for bending the rules is a respectable and entirely acceptable action. Complaining to a reporter about receiving repeated fines when it entirely within your power to avoid receiving further fines is childish and objectionable. The apparent inability of the quoted students to handle the consequences of their actions with grace and maturity is what seems to me to be the focus of Fritz’s original commentary.

  • Phae M.

    The real world has more parking spaces.

  • Phae M.

    The real world has more parking spaces.