The Police Department & You

[Trupiano]

Parking Laws.

 

I think The PD need to start enforcing parking laws more actively, maybe even going as far as assigning more officers to parking enforcement or creating an entire team for it. Why? three reasons.

 

1. The amount of illegal parking is.. idiotic. Lets be real, We don't have AI, there are PLENTY of real parking spots in every corner of the map; some may be a bit of a walk but that is life. You don't just get to park where ever you want on the side of the road or on the sidewalk. Cars should be getting tickets, boots and tows. 

2. Spreading out the urban sprawl. When a night club opens, people tend to try to park as close as possible, for the most part people assume they won't get tickets or tows. But if the threat of losing your car for parking wrong was real, people are going to park where ever they can find "Legit" parking. This leads to a larger of the map being used for RP. 

3. You would be increasing the chances for dynamic RP. Most of us have gotten a parking ticket or a tow, its a part of life and it sucks. Your creating RP for everyone and more Civilian/PD Interaction. You also increase the distance needed to travel and the area where your officers need to effectively patrol. Look at the picture below:

 

 

Green Stars = Businesses or RP hotspots (I probably missed a bunch)

Purple Check marks = Where people live.

Blue areas = Areas with public or available parking.

Red Areas = Where people illegally park.

 

So lets look at Vespucci. People like to park as close to the action as possible. This means people block access roads, go around traffic blockades to park on the walkways or illegally park on the curb or in narrow streets; blocking them. They do all this even though there is tons of public lots around the area. Many homes with personal parking are also within walking distance of many of the hot spots. If PD enforced parking laws, how would that effect the different styles of RP?

 

Civilian: Introducing a new fear for Characters, especially if they have a nice car which they might not want to see impounded. More police interaction, there is nothing that feels quite like the dread of seeing your car about to be ticketed or towed. Civilians might choose to park a bit farther away or leave they're vehicles at home all together if they don't want to deal with the hassle. 

 

Criminals: Its kind of hard to commit crime when everyone is standing within the same 200 square feet. Forcing characters to use the real parking lots by way of parking tickets means that characters have to spend more time on foot between their vehicle/home and their destination. This allows more chances for robberies, car thefts and other illegal activities.

 

PD: Beside the previously stated interactions with Civilians and the action of actually enforcement of the parking laws, It'll force them to patrol a larger area. If more the  a block or two of Vespucci is being used at a time then the PD have more area to patrol that actually has the potential to produce actual RP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Westen]

39 minutes ago, Henning said:

Parking Laws.

 

Hi. So, I help run the traffic division (main division responsible for towing) and I can give some insight into this, and simply put, the PD cannot win.

 

On the first day that we were able to impound vehicles for illegal parking, we impounded 20-30 cars for it. Good result, you'd think, except no.

People complained to me how it was non RP for police to tow their vehicle, how they didn't even get a chance to move it, how it should be the city's job etc etc.

[Raindance]

12 minutes ago, Westen said:

Hi. So, I help run the traffic division (main division responsible for towing) and I can give some insight into this, and simply put, the PD cannot win.

 

On the first day that we were able to impound vehicles for illegal parking, we impounded 20-30 cars for it. Good result, you'd think, except no.

People complained to me how it was non RP for police to tow their vehicle, how they didn't even get a chance to move it, how it should be the city's job etc etc.

Can't you just ticket them instead?

Edited October 1, 2019 by Raindance

[Trupiano]

 

This is the Del Perro area where the new apartments that were added yesterday are. I don't know who said it wasn't realistic but they've clearly never lived in an actually city before. Yeah in the suburbs, if your car is parked illegally somebodies gonna tell you and give you a chance to move it but not in the city. One time I was working on a project in the heart of downtown. About twenty five of us were sitting in the space when someone ran in screaming "The tow truck is coming!" Because they had seen the cop calling the company. We all scrambled to move our cars. It wasn't the cop that gave us the heads up, we were just lucky enough to have had someone spot the cop. 

 

In my area there is a city park where a lot of people my age like to hangout in the summer, the streets surrounding it have meters and there are a few pay lots on site but Multiple times I've parked in a massive public lot about 9 blocks away. I park in that lot because I don't have to pay and I know I won't get towed, also I know security won't be an issue as it next to major road way with cops passing every few minutes. The only issue? 6 of those 9 blocks is a pretty harsh neighborhood at times. I have am forced to run the risk of being in a dangerous situation in order to avoid getting a parking ticket. 

[Westen]

44 minutes ago, Raindance said:

Can't you just ticket them instead?

The Penal Code allows for us to impound vehicles if they are illegally parked per section 406. We cannot ticket vehicles for illegal parking through the script, meaning if a vehicle is illegally parked we need to /pm the owner (if they're even online) and then get them to come to their car OOCly so we can /ticket them. Not ideal.

[Topinambour]

4 hours ago, Henning said:

its a part of life and it sucks

It does. Both IRL but also in RP ? 

 

The question I tend to ask myself when creating a scene or RP situation is: "What sort of interesting character development does it offer?".

 

Here, what sort of character development or interesting story does it create for the cop involved? Most likely not much, he will copy/paste a "/me give a ticket and calls a tow truck", cool. What sort of character development for the person affected? Zero. He will actually be unable to move around the city and as a result RP less (please don't tell me "call a cab", there are barely any unfortunately - I tried to get one last week and ended up going back home on foot long before I found one ? ). 

 

So the result of that RP interaction would be:
- The RP for the cop wasn't that interesting (a /me most times)

- Less RP for the affected person since they can't move around

- More money grinding for the affected person, which can result in less RP

 

 

Unfortunately, it's a situation where nobody seems to win much ? 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Topinambour

[Trupiano]

7 hours ago, Topinambour said:

 

 

So the result of that RP interaction would be:
- The RP for the cop wasn't that interesting (a /me most times)

- Less RP for the affected person since they can't move around

- More money grinding for the affected person, which can result in less RP

 

 

Unfortunately, it's a situation where nobody seems to win much ? 

What about the criminal who now has a better chance to rob someone because they are away from the crowd? The person RPing a Taxi driver who is going to get triple the calls now? The police officer who has to deal with someone walking out on their vehicle being ticketed and towed? The mafia boss who has to park down the block and risk walking in the open? What about the entire group of traffic cops like @Westen who wanna do their job? 

 

Nobody wins? I don’t know how your getting to that conclusion. 

 

 Tell me the last three times you went to a nightclub in real life and parked right in front of the door? I’ll wait. This is a serious RP server, it’s sad that people forget that. 

 

So so the result of that RP interaction would be: 

 

- the cop has to RP a mundane and routine task. This gives the cop more development and more of a chance to interact with the public. 

 

- More RP for the person who’s car was impounded. Have you ever been towed? The cop doesn’t come find you and say “hey! We towed you because you were parked illegally, you can go here to pickup your car.” No the cop says absolutely nothing and you only find out your car is gone when you come outside. But wait, was the car towed? Was it stolen? Now your character has a dilemma they have to deal with. 

 

- No cab drivers? Do you blame them? They probably get two calls an hour. God bless the people who actually go RP it. It’s supply and demand, if more people are making calls more people will be active taxi drivers. 

 

Also sometimes, there just aren’t any ??‍♂️ Two weeks ago I was at the bar with my friends and we went to call an Uber and there were none! Forcing us to call a friend who lived a few blocks from the bars to come pick us up and drive us home. (Oh look more character interaction) other night we would have just walked the 13 blocks back home. (Running the risk of getting mugged = more RP)

 

- Less RPing because of money grind? Wait a minute ?. You shouldn’t be grinding money in the first place, that’s not what this server is about. If your character can not afford to pay the impound fee then they clearly don’t have the money to own and maintain a car. That sucks that your car got impounded, now your Character has to find a paying job, go to work and actually do something other then drive around in his half a million dollar ricer mobile doing donuts and drifting turns. 

 

Also you know what the best part is? There is enough parking for everyone.. everywhere. But sadly people want to just park on the curb instead of walking another 15 extra feet. 

 

Your just gonna stand around on a dance floor for 45 minutes typing /me’s anyways, I don’t see how it’s that frustrating to just park a bit away and walk to the venue before hand?

Edited October 1, 2019 by Henning

[Raindance]

I think having wheel clamps scripted would be a fair middle ground solution

[Hira]

11 hours ago, Westen said:

People complained to me how it was non RP for police to tow their vehicle, how they didn't even get a chance to move it, how it should be the city's job etc etc.

Tell em to report it. If it’s in the penal code it’s IC. It’s definitely realistic and you’d win the report. 

[Topinambour]

14 minutes ago, Hira said:

Tell em to report it. If it’s in the penal code it’s IC. It’s definitely realistic and you’d win the report. 

I think the problem wasn't the "am I in the right, legally speaking" aspect, but more the amount of complaints. It can be discouraging, if everyone you interact with is annoyed and grumbly - and it's usually a bad sign. When a specific RP interaction is interesting to nobody, it's probably because it's not that interesting in the first place. =/ And making sure RP interactions are compelling is important to a major extent.