You See, Officer, It’s This Way. . .

A friend of mine is angry that he got hit with a $275 fine for parking in a handicap spot near the Seal Beach pier. He contends a multitude of street signs made it too ambiguous for anyone who might be in a hurry to recognize that spot was reserved for the disabled.

He’d never park there intentionally. But here’s the part he has to face: The police have heard it all before.

They’ve heard so many wild arguments over parking violations, maybe they’ve become immune to any legitimate complaints. Not that they’d agree his is legitimate.

Police officers I talked with all agreed that the public is usually 10 times more irate over a parking ticket than getting cited for a moving violation.

“Some people always have a crisis. And that creates creativity,” offered Sgt. Mike Kelly of the Huntington Beach Police Department.

Like the woman who told him, yes, she parked in the fire lane, and yes, she knew it was illegal. But here’s the thing: She has to pick her kids up from school and this was the only time she could drop off her dry-cleaning. And look, it’s not like she left the car unattended; she could see it from the dry-cleaning shop. She could have moved it before the Fire Department needed the lane for an emergency.

She got the ticket.

We’re making our parking mistakes in large numbers too. In Garden Grove, just for example, parking tickets brought in $515,000 in revenue last fiscal year; projections are even higher for this year.

Some people fight their tickets, but I’m told they rarely win. Maybe because most claims are laughable.

Sgt. Joe Vargas of the Anaheim Police Department recalls a man who filed appeal after appeal unsuccessfully on a ticket. His sole argument for illegally parking in a handicap spot: There was plenty of other parking available if a handicapped person needed it.

Street-sweeping day brings in a majority of tickets in most cities. Garden Grove City Manager George Tindall said the federal Clean Air Act requires weekly street sweeping. It’s just hard for some people to remember.

Tindall once got ticketed on street-sweeping day, then got hit the same week for leaving his vehicle on the street more than 72 hours, a ticket rarely issued.

“The fellow that gave me the ticket was someone I’d hired,” Tindall said with a chuckle. He wasn’t chuckling then.

I’ve had my own frustrations with tickets. I parked the wrong way on our street once over my wife’s strong objections. She still reminds me of my words: “It’s Easter; they won’t ticket on Easter.” Wrong.

I looked into my friend’s Seal Beach pier complaint. He’s correct that there are three street signs on a single post. A handicap sign would be more visible if it stood alone. Also, the handicap symbol on the street surface needs repainting.

But my friend also overlooked the very nicely painted blue curb. I doubt he’d stand a chance on appeal. Actually, his big mistake was not following the axiom that many of us have had to learn the hard way:

If a parking spot in a busy location looks too good to be true, it probably is.

I asked police at the Seal Beach substation at the pier whether very many people get nailed for illegally parking in that handicap spot.

“Never more than once,” one officer responded.

As Sgt. Kelly of Huntington Beach noted: “We listen politely, but we get the last word. We hand you the ticket.”