Further discussion regarding parking near the PD

[Ben Wheeler]

@BallinByNature

BallinByNature:
'Um yes, a police officer telling you your vehicle is parked illegally at the police station parking lot does have the authority to do so. He is right, just as a person cant park in your driveway and tell you you dont have a right to tell him to get off your property. You dont have the right to loiter or illegally park at the PD. This has nothing to do with camera footage, what you did in front of me was death matching. Unban appeal wasn't posted for the reason to be unbanned as you already stated. Closed.'

Did you not see that I said I was parked legally? I was parked opposite the PD, not in the PD parking lot. I am well aware that parking there is not allowed due to the signage. If an officer says where I've parked is illegal (when actually it's legal), it doesn't then make the parking illegal. It means the officer is wrong.

How is street parking and parking on someone's drive the same thing. One is public land and the other is private property. So yes, parking on private property can be considered trespass and could end up with you going to court for it, but this is definitely not the case with legal street parking.

Loitering is also when you're hanging around in an area for no apparent reason. I clearly stated my reason as being parked up to pick up potential customers, since I work as a taxi driver, therefore this cannot even slightly be considered as loitering.

[SoloSmith]

Hi Ben.

I understand your frustration with the happenings at the PD recently, I've tried to explain it to you both IC and OOC but it doesn't appear to get through. I'll try again. While I understand under traditional means it would not be illegal to park somewhere that isn't obviously sign posted or painted to show that. However, this is a game, there are restrictions and people need to understand what we are trying to do. We cannot add signs or do anything like that without the developers doing it. At the moment they are working on big things with factions and criminals. The PD is able to function at the moment so our additional requests are "fluff", not priority to a small team with lot of work to do. We've requested more signs but until then, we still have to tackle the problem at hand. We cannot and will not ignore problems purely because the team has yet to put in a few signs.

It's a matter of respect IC'ly and OOC'ly. We are trying to keep the area clean and tidy for the benefit and safety of everyone in the area.

In a perfect world, sure people should be able to park around the PD in the areas opposite and such but that's not viable right now. The last week I've spent 90% of my time at the PD asking people to move, not park etc. It's not fun, it's frustrating, very little RP and just pisses people off.

The area surrounding the PD needs to be pristine, both for realism and new players. It's often atop the list of places to visit and when they visit it should appear to be a functioning department in a realistic environment on a roleplay server. That is not the case when it is surrounded by players.

1 becomes 2, becomes 3, becomes 10. That's literally how it works. When you get a group of bored players in an area, shit gets stupid. They get asked to leave, argue for no reason, and then get agitated when punished IC for ignoring an officers command. We've had shootouts, car jackings, a bus killing 6 people, all because the area gets congested. We need to be proactive, not reactive, as such we try to stub the issue before it becomes a problem. Something that is difficult to do when certain members of the player base would rather argue with an officer IC than just do us a favor.

Based on your principles we should just let the place descend into anarchy until signs are scripted it. I don't think so. Players need to understand and respect what we're trying to do and just park in the bloody parking lot. People are arguing for arguments sake. If this was just an IC thing, I could maybe understand, but you spent nearly 30 minutes PM'ing me about this OOC'ly, so obviously it's more than that.

We are still lobbying for new signs to be put into place. Until then I simply ask for your understanding on an OOC level to not become part of the problem and instead understand what we're trying to achieve. 

 

[Ben Wheeler]

Hey, @SoloSmith,

Thanks for the reply. The issue I've had from the beginning is where you've told me it's illegal to park there and ended up arresting and ticketing me for it. All the other things you have mentioned I can kind of accept such as people parking there just because others have, which results in crowding and the area becoming very congested and untidy.

I'm a reasonable guy and had you explained what you said in your response to me initially I don't think any of the other things that ensued would have taken place. I would have been far more likely to move elsewhere had you given the reasons you mentioned, but at the same time accepted that it was not illegal to park there and therefore had no authority at the time to order me to move. As I'm a law undergrad, I'm sure you can understand my frustration when a member of a public authority forces me to stop doing something when they have no power to. As you say yourself, it's a matter of respect, so by you coming up to me and ordering me to move, it was likely to create a debate on whether I could park there or not.

It's like if you have a problem with someone, you ask them if they could come up with a solution. Going straight up to them threatening them with court action is never really the best approach to take, since it comes across as being unnecessarily aggressive. After you have made the request and they fail to respond, and you know can take legal action, then by all means take the case to court.

If you look at it from my point of view, you came up to me with these orders that I knew were not enforceable and therefore out of principle I defended myself, because I will never give in or admit guilt if I know I have not done anything wrong.

I've discussed this with other officers, regardless of rank, who have accepted that it's legal parking but explained the reasons that you have stated above. After this, I was more than happy to move elsewhere.

I want to make it clear that I don't park there to piss off or troll the police. I park there to get my point across, speaking only in a legal context. I see it that if I was to give in to your orders and not park there it would be as though you were right all along in terms of the legality in regards to parking there. 

I do understand that you cannot get signs up just like that but until they're implemented, asking politely is all you can really do otherwise I can understand why people will argue back, because they will see it as you overstepping your power. I think you will find that with this approach, people will be more likely to move, that is if they are reasonable people and are not looking for an argument just for the sake of having one.

Anyway, because you have clearly stated the issues you are having with massive groups forming, I am happy to park elsewhere when visiting the PD. This is not because I may be arrested if I don't. XD

Thanks,

Ben

 

[SoloSmith]

Well, hopefully that's one less person I have to piss off daily :D

I would like to point out, although this is RP and all that, the rules and laws are not the same as they are in real life. Just in case anyone has the same idea :D