Airport doesn’t miss a beat on parking tickets

See that sign right there, the one that says “unattended vehicles will be ticketed”?

Well, they ain’t whistling Dixie, tugging on your skirt, blowing smoke up your nose or pulling your leg.

They are telling you the straight-up, honest truth, brothers and sisters, so help me, Transportation Security Administration.

I found it out the hard way whilst dropping off my buddy Dave at the airport to send him off to Detroit.

Not airborne much

Mind you, I’m not up on the most recent airport procedures. I don’t get to the airport terminal often, being as I pretty much can drive where I want to go in about 12 hours without losing my luggage, missing connections, sleeping overnight in a lobby or spending six hours seat-belted into a people-packed metal tube parked at the end of a runway without potty break or beverage service.

So it was in blissful ignorance that I passed the short-term lot with its 30 minutes of free parking and headed right to the departure gate, pulling in front of the airport behind an airport police car.

I leapt from my vehicle. I grabbed some of Dave’s luggage and carried it inside. After buzzing the bell for service, someone appeared and pointed to the automated check-in kiosk that looked exactly like an ATM. Seems you check in nowadays by inserting your credit card into the machine, punching a bunch of buttons on the touch screen and waiting for a computer-printed receipt.

As I turned to leave, I saw an airport officer behind my car with a ticket book. I ran, but I was too slow: When a ticket is written, that’s all she wrote.

‘Sorry, sir’

“I’m sorry, sir, but the sign does say ‘unattended vehicles will be ticketed’ and you weren’t near the vehicle,” the officer said, not in a rude manner but in an effort to explain.

“Yes,” I said, “but it doesn’t say ‘we really mean it.’ I figured five or 10 minutes …”

“Sir, you do have 30 minutes free parking in the short-term lot,” he added.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think I’d have to use it. There should be a sign that says ‘we’ll ticket you if you leave your car, so you better go around and park in the short-term lot.’”

“I’m sorry, sir. There’s a place on the ticket where you can appeal,” he said, being helpful.

“Somehow I don’t think ‘I didn’t believe you’ is an adequate defense,” I said.

“Probably not,” he admitted.

Out of kindness, the officer contacted his superiors to check on possibly voiding the ticket and letting me off scot-free, which I knew was a no-go from the get-go. That meant I had 96 hours to send my $20 fine to the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport Authority before it turned into a $40 fine and, if left unpaid, turned into an arrest warrant and an ensuing evening as the airport’s guest in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Klink.

Hey, don’t ignore the sign if you can’t pay the fine.

The officer apologized again and noted that many people who receive tickets have my reaction, albeit more animated and with more volume.

“A lot of people think it’s only for 10 minutes and it’s too bad there isn’t a way to warn people now that they should park in the short-term lot when they drop people off,” he said. “That would help a lot.”

“You know,” I said, “maybe there is a way to do that.”

Consider yourself warned.