Everyone at Kent State has a parking story. It isn’t hard to figure that out. But most of these stories deal with the students getting pushed around. In a few cases, students pushed parking services around.

In any situation that involves getting a fine, students always wish they had ways to cheat the system — except for all the Honest Abes out there.

With parking passes on a “first come first serve” basis, a lot of students get shut out of the opportunity to get passes to that one lot they need. Of course, there’s always Summit East lot left, but who wants to pay $80 a semester to park so far away?

And with only 12,000 parking spots on campus, 7,000 of which are allocated to students according to Parking Services’ website, it’s a real gamble not getting a parking pass.

So far it’s been working for these students:

Case #1: “The Church Parker”

The first-time sophomore computer animation and design major David Thursby can remember having trouble with parking services when he tried to pick up his brother’s C-lot parking pass last spring semester. His brother was leaving for an internship with Disney and this was his only option.

“I thought that I could go claim it, since I was his brother and I had a photo copy of his I.D.,” Thursby said. “They told me I needed his actual I.D., and I thought this was dumb because what’s to stop someone from just taking his I.D. and getting a parking pass?”

After his third visit to Parking Services, they finally told him he couldn’t do it.

In an attempt to avoid ever dealing with parking services again, Thursby decided to take a friend’s advice and purchase a parking pass from Faith Lutheran Church on Main Street.

The pass is $75 a semester, which is cheaper than the cheapest pass on campus, aside from evening/weekend passes.

“All the people there are extremely nice and I’ve yet to experience any kind of drama or issue like I did with Kent Parking Services,” Thursby said.

Case # 2: “The 30-minute Meter Man”

Last school year, Patrick Reardon left his home long before his classes started in an attempt to find a 2-hour meter to park at.

The senior environmental geography major may enjoy the outdoors, but walking from his house by Holden Elementary School is a far for a 9:15 a.m. class.

“If I left my house too late, finding a spot would pretty much be impossible,” Reardon said.

Instead of parking somewhere ridiculous and getting a ticket, Reardon would settle for a 30-minute meter. The 30-minute meter soon turned into an everyday parking spot for him.

“The way I saw it was that parking services doesn’t check the 30-minute meters every 30 minutes,” Reardon said.

Every time he went back to his car his meter was expired. Every time he looked there was no ticket.

“Usually I would make sure that I saw a parking service employee near where I parked,” Reardon said. “That way I knew they’d look at my meter when there actually was time left on it.”

Reardon has been a student at Kent State for three years and not once has purchased a parking pass.

Case # 3: “The I-Do-Whatever-I-Can Man”

It was January 2008, and Tim Long was beginning his first semester at Kent State. At the time, the senior integrated studies major was living in McDowell Hall and had no idea where buildings were on campus yet.

“I got a campus map and drove to my first class at McGilvrey,” Long said. “I ended up parking at the Art Building because that was the closest place I found to McGilvrey.”

When he pulled into the spot, he realized he was not authorized to park there. With no parking pass in possession yet, Long decided to do something clever.

“I saw that a car right in front of me had a ticket on it,” he said. “I grabbed the ticket off the car and put it on mine and went to class.”

Once he came back an hour later, he replaced the ticket and drove back to McDowell Hall, problem free.

Warning: Not all plans are foolproof. Park at your own risk.

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