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Opinion | Parking & Transportation Services encourage awareness of parking regulations on campus

Lt. Ben Spilman, Director, Parking & Transportation Services

A very long letter to the editor in Tuesday's The Miami Student excoriated Miami's office of parking services for following long-established policies to manage and preserve parking availability and car owner safety on campus.

The letter writer, a clinical professor, admitted to sharing her parking permit with a student in order to accommodate a last-minute change of plans for a field trip.

While the reverse side of Miami employees' permits outlines rules for use of parking permits, the university's policy and procedures do not outline penalties for giving/lending a permit to another driver.  The Student Code of Conduct does outline such penalties.  Unfortunately for the student, who expressed caution about the decision, the faculty member's advice and action placed her in violation of parking rules.

Neither did the faculty member call parking services to explain the circumstance or ask for advice.

Miami's parking control technicians who left three citations and a "boot" on the vehicle had no way to know the tag was not stolen.  The parking control technician followed protocol upon finding a non-registered vehicle with the tag from a registered vehicle.  Parking control technicians find between 12 and 20 stolen parking permits per year in cars parked on campus.

The student followed the right procedure and appealed her citations, two of which were voided.  

I am pleased to know the faculty member reimbursed the student for the remaining parking fine.

The negative feelings the faculty member and her students had following this incident were avoidable, had better advice been given.  We encourage awareness of parking regulations on campus and communication of extenuating circumstances.  We also encourage students, faculty and staff to act responsibly when parking their vehicles on campus and to call the parking office when they have a question about parking.  


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