Dear Mahatma: I work downtown, where there are many No Parking signs, clear directives devoid of ambiguity or nuance. Yet the large delivery trucks from UPS and FedEx park in these places on a daily basis. Is there some secret handshake agreement between them and the city? Can you help us out? -- Sincerely
Dear Sincere: We can't help. But we can ask Jack Wrenn, Little Rock's parking enforcement coordinator.
There is no agreement, he said, with any of the delivery companies, although there is a silver lining for the city. Most often the tickets issued go through a process that delays payment past the 30-day period, meaning a higher fee for a nonmeter violation. It's $30 if paid within 30 days, and $45 if paid after 30 days.
Wrenn said that when parking enforcement people come upon an illegally parked delivery truck, they issue a ticket. When annoyed citizens see a delivery truck parked illegally in Little Rock, they can call parking enforcement at (501) 371-4528. But the delivery drivers are fast, most often gone by the time an officer gets there.
Dear Mahatma: A while back I asked if the Revenue Office had made a decision on what to do when license plates get all the way to 999-ZZZ. You were told there was no decision yet. What about now? -- Good Old Lew
Dear Lew: That certainly was a while back. Please don't ask when. The Mahatma has written more than 400 of these columns, a number that makes him tired.
We again posed the question to Roger Duren, administrator of the Office of Motor Vehicles and a longtime -- no doubt also long-suffering -- source for this column.
No decision on what to do when the current numbering system reaches its maximum, he said. But it should last another five or six years.
After which ... what?
Most likely, Duren said, a switch will be made back to three alpha/three numeric with a space in between. Other options would be four alpha/three numeric with no space, or three alpha/four numeric with no space.
Sir: You refer often to the Arkansas Driver License Study Guide, and recently quoted it as saying it "has rules about when to honk and when not." Are the rules in the study guide actual laws or just suggestions? Can the violation of a "rule" result in a ticket? -- Wondering in Conway
Dear Wonder: We figure the information in the study guide comes from the legal code. We figure this because we read both, and they sound a lot alike. Sort of. The study guide reads like a normal person wrote it. The legal code reads like it was written by lawyers.
Bingo. Our figuring was confirmed by Bill Sadler, spokesman for the Arkansas State Police. He also said the study guide is written for a specific population -- young people studying up to take the written and skills tests in order to get their driver's licenses. Someone who gets a ticket gets cited according to the legal code, not the study guide.
Mahatma@arkansasonline.com
Metro on 08/13/2016