LETTERS: YELLOW CURBS, STREET SIGNS ARE CONFUSING

To the editor:

I am writing in regard to a recently issued ticket placed on my car. I am a student at Southeast Missouri State University and am confused by the signs on and around campus. To my knowledge, it has always been OK to park a car as long as it was outside the yellow paint on the curb. I thought that's why the curbs were repainted a couple of years ago. In this recent experience, my car was definitely outside the yellow border of paint. I even checked before I went to class. Upon returning to my car from the one and only class I had that day, a ticket was on my windshield.

I immediately went to the Cape Girardeau Police Department to dispute the ticket. The nice ladies who were assisting me agreed that I should not have gotten a ticket as long as my car was outside the yellow perimeter of the curb. But they also brought to my attention that, in court, it would be my word over the officer's word. So, to give me reassurance, they had an officer come speak to me in the lobby.

This officer was direct and to the point, but he upset me extremely when he informed me that the yellow lines mean nothing anymore in Cape, that anyone could paint a curb yellow. "Since when did this occur?" was my response. And his reply was, "Ever since Cape changed the laws." Well, I'm sorry, but I don't ever remember being notified of that law's changing, that yellow boundary paint no longer means anything, that they've been substituted with written laws that in no way are marked along street curbs except for the exceptionally few white signs with red writing.

I don't know if this town has forgotten, but it hosts a state university. At Southeast, there are students who come from all over the country. Many of these students have grown up in towns and cities where yellow paint means everything. That's what they judge by. This town cannot realistically expect the thousands of students who are from out of town to know the unmarked rules of Cape's parking. Realistically, most of Cape's own residents don't even know the written laws about Cape's parking. Also, virtually no on carries a measuring tape in his car for the sole purpose of measuring the curb when they park to make sure he is 20 feet from an intersection, 5 feet from a driveway or 8 feet from an alley. This is why the yellow paint is so important. When there are students from all over the country searching for a parking spot on a campus that has a horrendous parking problem to begin with, of course they are going to look for any spot that doesn't have yellow paint restricting it.

I'm not saying students should be allowed to ignore Cape's parking regulations, but I do think Cape should take the little bit of extra time and spend the money on yellow paint to better host the university that it so desperately wants to please and expand. Maybe instead of expanding the university, Cape should just take care and improve the quality of the one it has. Besides, if Cape is going to keep jurisdiction over the streets that run through the campus, then the city should be a little more aware of the diversity in students, be conscientious of it and mark the streets in and around the campus. If Cape doesn't want to invest in yellow paint, maybe it should spend even a greater amount of money for pretty little white signs with red writing. At least the paint wouldn't be as much of an eyesore.

In conclusion, I now realize my car was possibly illegally parked according to the sign, even though it was legally parked outside the boundary of the yellow curb. But if the yellow paint no longer means anything in this town, maybe some lucky people should be assigned to sandblast the paint off the curbs and really confuse everybody.

EMILY WIPFLER

Cape Girardeau