What IS Cruising Anyway?

Here's an amusing sign from downtown Salt Lake City.  Normally a sign saying no parking or no loitering would not pop up on my radar.  And if it just said "No Cruising" and left it to our imaginations, I would also pass it by.  Of course I wondered how they know someone is cruising, so they spelled out the definition of cruising.




Now we're talking.  Cruising is: "passing a control point in a particular direction more than 2 times between the hours of 11 PM and 4 AM."  That's strangely precise.  Except, where is this control point, and which direction?  If you pass it north and then come back south, does that count as two passes?  They're not the same "particular" direction.  And what if you're just bored and you left your house not really going in any particular direction?  Is that a Get Out of Jail Free card.

Below that is a no parking sign.  So if you're about to pass a second time and you catch yourself misbehaving, you're also not allowed to stop there (no parking) and ponder your fate.

In front of the No Parking sign is a parked car.  So, if you just ignore the signs, you're okay.

Anyway, I just like to goof around with these things.  The civil code is SLC 12.12.090.  Let's see what that says ... here you go.

Wow, that page is a must-read.  It is a very carefully written case study about the problems they are trying to address, the exact area and businesses affected, the number of police incidents in 1997 and 1998, and clearer definitions of the things I was joking about up above.  Well done.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Need More Nines

Image
I know that retailers love to use prices just below the dollar marks to try and fool us into thinking tge price is lower than it is.  So $2.95 instead of $3.  Sadly, it works.  Almost everyone who sees $2.99 has some chunk of their brain thinking it's only "two something", not properly rounding up to three. But what's the deal with this?? $2.99.99 is not a real use of numbers. May 15 update: we saw a short documentary on the 99-cent stores going out of business, and I think it said that company invented the extra .99 bit during a few years of trying not to raise their prices to $1.
Read more

Yield Signs: Flow Chart Style?

Image
  There are some yield signs around town whose appear to targeted at a very small audience: people who like to read flowcharts.  Sure, you can stand there and work out what they're trying to say, but I'm sure 99% of people who walk by just shrug and think "whatever". I don't know if they bug me because they're trying to be too clever, or too dense.  Maybe they just remind me of work.
Read more

I Live Downstream

Image
At many storm drains in our area (San Diego County) there are these cute template graphics trying to get people to stop dumping crap down our drains.  They say "No Dumping - I Live Downstream" (more or less) and with have cute outlines of fish or dolphins.  I always enjoy seeing these, they add a nice human "caring" touch to otherwise drab bits of concrete.  Here is one a drain where I work which has two different graphics, one sprayed on and one engraved: In my mind I thought it was a fish and a dolphin, but looking at the photo now, it's a swordfish and a duck. I have seen a lot of regional variations on these, as if every town has their own version.  Then again, I have seen at least three designs just on my lunch breaks around the office.  I will try to get some more shots of these to show the range of designs. I don't know if this is a California thing or if it's nationwide.  I'm not sure that the kind of people who are going to dump paint or tox...
Read more