In the spirit of our Lenten obsession with fried fish, we present this delightful tale of fried fish and improperly written parking tickets.
Dear The Expired Meter:
Went out last night with the girlfriend for fish and chips at a great new
restaurant on Diversey. Its called the Firkin for those who care. I tooted
around looking for parking in the neighbourhood found a sweet spot right in
front of Walgreens, parked the car and took note of the time on my
watch 6:48PM.
So I dropped a quarter in the meter to give myself an hour and noticed that
only put me till 7:48 and I had no more quarters so I went into Walgreens
walked around aimlessly wasting time (so that 1 more quarter was all I
needed to put me past 9:00PM) and to find something to purchase and make
change to get me that other quarter for the meter. We came outside after
wasting the 12 or so minutes and getting a quarter for the meter, dropped
the quarter in and it said 2 hours remain on the meter. according to my
watch that would be 9:04 (How perfect I thought to myself)
Well we had an awesome dinner and headed back to the car only to find a
dreaded parking ticket on my car?!?! I was like WTF….opened it up and an
a*shat parking meter person ticketed me for having an expired meter at
8:59PM Thats the time on the ticket and the time it said that the meter was
expired. Are you kidding me? Who writes a ticket at 8:59PM when the meter
does not need quarters after 9:00PM??
It was a bitter ending to a great night out with my girlfriend….. I needed
to vent some frustration about this meter fairy so I found your site and
decided to write in. I dont think there is much I can do other than suck it
up and pay the fine so thanks for listening and dont forget to keep your
meters full or else you’ll be stuck paying 50 dollar tickets 
Bryan
Mmmmmm. I love a good all you can eat fish fry.
Of course, I’m going to tell you to fight this one.
This problem is either one of two things.
1-A meter with a defective timing device. In other words, a fast meter or more likely…
2-An unethical ticket writer who thought they’d get another ticket issued before their shift ended. My guess, by the lateness of the ticket, it wasn’t a PEA but a SERCO employee. I get an average of a complaint a week on SERCO workers writing improper tickets.
Since you can’t prove #2, you are going to have to prove #1.
Go ahead and report the meter as running fast. Call the city’s Parking Ticket Help Line at 312-744-PARK, follow the prompts and press the correct button for a fast meter.
In addition, go to the new Chicago Meters website and use their feedback form to report the problem.
Then just fight the ticket by relating the facts of the story you told here. Explain that you reported the meter malfunction and the hearing officer should be able to look this up to verify your assertion.
Just make sure you don’t mention that you were in the spot for OVER two hours, which would be a violation as well.
Posted in 
The quarter gives you an hour. It was 6:48 and one quarter later makes it 7:48. Another quarter makes it 8:48. Not sure if the story skipped something. The other guess I have is, if it’s a double meter perhaps they paid the other side, or mistakenly looked at the other side.
I can guarentee you that it wasn’t a PEA. Even with overtime, we would have been off the streets by 8:30 pm at the latest. At 8:59pm, we would have been standing at the time clock trying to figure out where to go satisfy our thirst.
Mike-
I sent an e-mail to Bryan about the post and your questions. I’m hoping he responds to clarify.
Your theory on the double-meter might account for the confusion. I’ve goofed on one of those before and have seen others goof as well and get hit with a ticket.
If you’re used to a single meter head per parking spot, it’s understandable why you might get confused.
Mike, I re-read my story and to clarify a little further I dropped in a quarter or two to bring me to 2 hours remaining on the meter once I got out of walgreens that way I knew I would be safe and put me running out of time after 9:00PM. The way I wrote my rant made it sound like I only paid until 8:48 which was not the case
As for the double meter I drove by again last week to check on that… Not the case… it was a single meter where I was parked 
Hope this clarifies, thanks for listening parking geek!
BRYAN
Sorry to hear the bad break. Good Luck fighting the parking ticket. Ridiculous all the way around. As was suggested earlier, try the fast meter defense.
As for your #2 problem suggestion, their shifts are just getting started at that time. And they are disciplined when complaints come through the 311 system, so they have no interest in writing bogus tickets; it doesn’t help them at all. The city isn’t even shy about requiring them to be fired over a complaint.
Mmmmm… that fish n chips looks good, not $50.00 good, but pretty tasty none the less. Good luck on fighting this. As for someone that would write a ticket at 8:59, that should require that they be fired!
Dave…..If there was an Expired Meter at 8:50pm and the Meter stops at 9pm….
The Car is in Violation of the Posted signage.
Am I hard Core enough to write that ticket? On a Meter? Nope…I don’t care if its 1 til the hour.
Rush Hour? yes…I am that big of an Asshole though.
Personally…I think that sucks for the fact that if the SerCo employee had been a minute slower Bryan would have been okay.
On a Fast Timer….contest that way.
For all the Readers…My suggestion:
ON a Meter…….Take a damn photo of the Time that’s given with your cell phone camera……make sure your watch is showing the time in the photo also.
That way…if you walk Into a Parking Ticket for a meter Violation…you can PROVE that its a Fast Timer.
Also Remember to Call 3-1-1 if you drop a Quarter in a Meter and NO Time Is Given (best to drop 2 quarters to ensure its not a 50 cent minimum meter also). Those calls are Time Stamped…and get an incident report Number…or w/e they are called.
If the meter is just flashing Expired…with No Fail or Dead or some other Obvious Indication that its Broken…a PEA or SerCo or Cop doesn’t know its non-functional and will issue.