Stephen L. Carter, Columnist

I Forgot to Pay My Parking Ticket. That Got Me Thinking.

It’s strange that Americans make it cheap and easy to clog their own cities with cars. But very American.

September 2, 2018 at 2:00 PM UTC

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of law at Yale University and author of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.”

Seriously?
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images

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I finally paid my parking ticket last week, but only because my wife reminded me. The ticket arrived unbidden on my windshield while we were on vacation. I parked too long in what I should have recalled but didn’t was a one-hour zone. I had no defense and sought none. As one who tries to be a good citizen, I stuck the small manila envelope above the visor on the driver’s side of the car, planning to pay up as soon as possible ... and immediately forgot its existence. We arrived home from vacation with the ticket still hidden above the visor.

Until my wife pointed it out.