I decided to start the day with the titular statement and taped 2 receipts to the whiteboard in my classroom. I asked each student to read through them carefully and let me know what you find. I was actually surprised that very few students figured it out.
Can you???
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Hopefully you've already figured it out, but if you haven't, then you'd just shelled out $75. If you're a passive reader, maybe $45.
The whole idea was to demonstrate the importance of reading carefully. It can save you money just as it did for me today. Last night, after my dance rehearsal, I found a ticket on my windshield. I was floored because, "damn, the parking police work pretty fast!" Then, I read through it thoroughly. First I checked that it was indeed my license plate number. Then I observed the time ticket was issued: 20:58. Whoa! What a minute, that's 8:58. I had at least 40 minutes left on my receipt when the parking police wrote up the ticket.
SFMTA has some sort of quota to meet each week, and issuing parking tickets is the city's money maker. They expect people to just fork over the cash without ever inspecting the ticket because that's what people do. They hate to read. SFMTA knows people will only scan for the fine amount and write out a check. Notice how the actual violation is written in tiny print versus the larger, bolder dollar amount and due dates. My students just laughed and said, "Yeah, I've donated quite a bit of money to the city of San Francisco, but you're right. No one reads the tickets. They just pay."
So let this be a lesson to you all. READ every little detail.
Oh and before I end this...I called to contest the fine, and they voided the parking ticket.