A Rough Kindness
While I was wandering around taking photos before breakfast, I had a chance to observe the New Jersey approach to ticketing parked cars prior to the street sweeper coming along to tidy up things up. Someone driving an official pickup with little flashing lights on the top would drive up behind a parked vehicle and then lay on a distinctly annoying horn for several seconds. If there was no movement after 30 seconds or so, the person would get out of the pickup and write a ticket. But once in a while, a car’s owner would come scurrying out of one of the shops or houses and move their car before a ticket was issued.
When I described the interesting methodology to Colleen, she observed that East Coasters have “a rough kindness about them, unlike the civil rudeness one finds on the west coast.” I thought that summoned it up nicely. In spite of the density and intensity, you’re given a shot at correcting your mistakes, however brief. In San Francisco, the parking enforcers would look you dead in the eye and write the ticket anyway.