To whom it may concern,
On July 17th, 2006, I was parked at a parking meter located on Edgett avenue in Moncton, NB. Me and my wife were going to the hospital for a routine follow-up ultra-sound of our baby boy. Since we expected to be less than an hour, I put a single loonie into the parking meter and checked the time. It was 1pm in the afternoon. My wife’s car also had about an hour or so’s worth of time on her meter.
At approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, me and my wife were told that our infant son of 24 weeks was dead. It had been dead for several weeks. This led of course to a series of tests and exams which would then last the length of the entire day. In utter shock, me and my wife would spend the next 3 days having to endure a delivery and many other aspects of fetal death that no one else will ever understand. If you doubt this, I can provide a death certificate or notice from a doctor. Believe me, it’s all too real.
At 2:10pm that Monday, after still being in shock of the death of my son, I came out to put more money in the meter, and found the enclosed citation on my windshield. I was furious. The meter had only been expired for maybe five or ten minutes and there was a ticket on my windshield. After having just been told that my wife and I’s first child was now dead, I had to come out and find this ticket on my car.
To be perfectly blunt, it added insult to injury.
I have therefore enclosed the ticket and will not be paying it. If you have to summon me to court to pay a $30 parking ticket, so be it. On a day of horrible tragedy, the last thing in the world I should have to worry about is a stupid parking ticket that had to have been issued a mere minutes after the meter expired. Is the city really that desperate for cash that the meter guys now sit and wait for these things to expire so the city can make money?
I have had tickets in the past and have never contested them because I knew I was in the wrong. But in this case, forget it. The city can spare the $30 and if you really think that sending me to court over a $30 parking ticket on the day my son died is worth the effort, then I’m damn glad I live in Riverview and I’ll be sure that the local press knows all about what happened.
Sincerely, A mourning father,
Matthew Klem
P.S. Since both me and my wife had taken separate vehicles to the hospital, we continued to put money into both meters for the rest of the day, until we went home shortly after 5pm. Between the two of us, I know we put at least $10 into the meters. Enough to cover the fine.
