It’s a nightmare for anyone, but particularly for those who live or work in busy city downtown areas or urban centers. You’re racing to get somewhere and you’re trying to find a place to park, often in an unfamiliar area. Finally, you land a spot and go do your thing…only to come back to find a nice juicy parking ticket under your wiper blade.
Often, if you can push back the anger long enough, you’ll look around and see a sign that warned you against parking exactly where you did.
But even if you’d seen the sign ahead of time, that doesn’t always mean you’re in the clear. If you live in Los Angeles, a city known for its incredibly confusing parking signs, your problem is usually compounded. What if you find a spot that seems to be governed by as many as four or five different signs, all indicating different ways of handling your parking paradox?
That is what the new Park Safe LA iPhone app is for.
Once you download the app (free in Apple’s iTunes store; or you can splurge for the 99-cent ad-free version), you can flip through informational sections detailing the top 5 L.A. parking myths, what the most common signs actually mean, what curb colors and configurations you need to know, and what to do when your car gets towed.
While it’s an excellent reference source for locals, newcomers and visitors to the City of Angels will probably get the most out of the easily searchable material. It also comes in particularly handy for L.A.-based actors, musicians and other entertainment types, who regularly find themselves heading to auditions or gigs in parts of town where they’ve never been before.
And when Park Safe’s reservoir of information isn’t enough, there’s even a new feature that allows you to pay your parking tickets through the app.
But it won’t come to that now, right?
Photo by Getty Images
