Last week I rode along with an officer of the Madison Police Department. I sat shotgun with Officer Robert Hanson as he patrolled the unforgiving city streets Thursday, soldiering on in the war on crime-parking crime, to be precise.
Robert is a Madison Police Department parking enforcement officer.
I meet him outside of the City County Building in a parking enforcement SUV. He is a talkative, animated man. He wears the standard uniform-blue shorts, a white, double-pocketed shirt and a blue baseball cap.
As I get into the SUV, Robert explains that we'll move out as soon as we get a call over the radio. In 2002, the city of Madison received 22,000 parking related complaints, each responded to by Robert or one of his colleagues. But today is a slow day. It is 20 minutes before our first call.
In the meantime, we cruise to a few parking trouble spots. As we drive, Robert explains his job.
He has been working this job for more than three years. He is one of three officers who take over for morning-shift patrollers, working from 2:15 to 10:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
As we pull past Memorial Union, Robert spots an old man getting out of a Buick parked across three motorcycle stalls. Robert advises him of the problem and the old man thanks him.
\If I can solve a problem without giving somebody a ticket, I'll always do that,"" he said. Restraint is Robert's guiding ethos. Later he tells me the parking enforcement motto: ""Educate first, regulate when necessary.""
As we hit the corner of University and Park Streets, we are called to East Mifflin on a report of a car blocking a driveway. Clearly relieved that I'm going to see action, Robert wrenches his left turn signal. We roll.
We pass over the bumpy roads Robert drives every workday. ""I'm qualified to be a cab driver,"" he points out jokingly. He's partly right. Robert drives like Jesus would if he drove a Union Cab-swiftly, but carefully and attentively.
By the time we get to East Mifflin, the offending car is gone. We take another call for an illegally parked vehicle on Regent Street. By the time we get to Regent Street, that car is gone.
About two-and-a-half hours into the ride-along, we write our first ticket. It will be the only one in three-and-a-half hours. Robert said most days are busier than this, and it is the surprise of each day that keeps him happy. ""I almost never get bored,"" he said.
Mostly, we drive and talk. Robert is an amateur weightlifter and history buff with a serious interest in Abraham Lincoln.
Robert says that while ""99 percent"" of students are polite to him, some are not. ""Some students like to yell at us or taunt us,"" he says.
Why would anyone want to yell at Robert for doing his job, I thought? Could anyone honestly say they would follow parking rules if officers like Robert didn't enforce them? What would city streets look like if we followed laissez-faire parking principles?
These questions still rang in my head when I went to find my car last Saturday. It wasn't there. I parked it in one place for too long and the city impounded it.
I got angry, but I'm over it now. I like to think it was Robert who had me towed. He's a nice guy, and he was only doing his job.
dlhinkel@wisc.edu.
