Seems boston.com has a service to remind you to move your car on street-sweeping days. And seems the service didn't notify people in Somerville last week and they didn't move their cars and they got $50 tickets, and boy are they pissed, Wicked Local Somerville reports. Seems boston.com didn't realize that Somerville keeps sweeping its streets through December.
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That's funny...
By eekanotloggedin
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 2:09pm
...because I'm signed up for the alerts, and it's STILL sending me "THE STREET SWEEPER COMETH" every Monday night, except that I'm in Boston, where it cometh not in December.
That sucks, but...
By koala21
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 2:55pm
whatever happened to that thing where you take responsiblity for yourself and just remember stuff? Or write it on your calendar? Nobody sends me an email reminding me to pay my rent, but I haven't been evicted yet. If something happens on the same day every week/month/whatever, it really isn't that difficult to remember. It's one thing to use technology for convenience, but to rely on it to that extent is a little bit scary.
Yes, but...
By coffeeweasel
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 3:02pm
Paying rent is comparatively simple. You arrange for a payment to get where it's supposed to go by a certain date, and you don't get evicted.
On the other side of the coin, there's at least one bureaucracy involved in street cleaning. I have yet to see a bureaucracy simplify anything.
Remembering which day of the
By Bea W
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 3:37pm
Remembering which day of the week/month your street gets cleaned and not parking there isn't really that complicated - unless Somerville's schedule is totally random. I can only speak to living in Boston where it's always the same days between the same hours clearly posted on signs everywhere which really makes it a no-brainer.
I rely on technology to pay my rent
By Ron Newman
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 3:04pm
I have my bank automatically send a fixed payment to the landlord on the first of each month, via the bank's online bill-pay system. Much easier than remembering to write a check, put it in a stamped envelope, and drop it in a mailbox on time each month.
The thing is its not like
By ShadyMilkMan
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 3:16pm
The thing is its not like Boston.com is some random website (like oh say universal hub) its an extension of a major source of news, and is connected to the main newspaper in the region. If the service is offered its the same thing as if they posted the wrong info on their website if they fail to live up to the service. It would be like if your kid got suspended from school because WBZ listed the school as being closed when it really had a 45 minute delay (another unname channel used to get all the info wrong all the time from my school as a kid so the principle would actually send every kid home, more then once, with a piece of paper saying that WBZ was the only station tv/radio that had the official announcements, and that any other stations announcement would not be a legitimate excuse if it were wrong.) Sure there is no legal recourse, but it sure is shitty.
I don't think they're
By Rob
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 3:24pm
I don't think they're analagous situations. I live in Somerville, didn't get the Boston.com email, but knew enough that our street sweeping doesn't end until December 31. I even checked the sign real quick on the street to confirm it. Anyone that lives here should know when the street sweeping is if they have a car. It's not that hard. It'd be a different story if the city sent out an incorrect email or posted the wrong date on the signs and then ticketed of course, but that didn't happen.
That's not really the same
By koala21
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 4:40pm
That's not really the same thing. In your situation, you proactively checked if the kid was supposed to have school or not, and you were told he didn't. If people had made the effort to go to the website and there was a big notice posted saying "NO STREET CLEANING TOMORROW!!" then it would be the city's fault and the tickets shouldn't be enforced. The failure of a technology which was designed for convenience isn't an excuse for people to be irresponsible about moving their cars when they know that they have to do so on a specified day that's always the same. The fact that people rely 100% on the technology rather than using their brains isn't the city's fault.
Ya...
By DVDWow
Wed, 12/17/2008 - 3:25pm
Boston.com told me it was snowing this morning. And I went outside, and guess what... it was raining.
God I hate them.