If you sift through UCLA’s parking applications, you’ll find a disproportionately high amount of students reside with “relatives” who conveniently live just far enough away from campus to warrant a parking pass. You’ll also find students who need passes because of exotic disabilities, odd jobs or legions of “commuting partners.” More ridiculous than the widespread lying is the success it brings to the liars, who distort the truth as much as is required for a coveted UCLA parking pass.
Parking officials, in an attempt to curb this abuse, try and verify the authenticity of students’ claims by auditing their applications, but focusing on verifying parking applications misses the point.
The biggest problem facing the Office of Transportation and Parking Services is not that students lie to beat the system and gain a parking spot; the fundamental issue is the scarcity of parking itself. So long as this scarcity exists, students will continue to lie to make their situations seem more desperate than they actually are. And when parking services steps up auditing efforts, students will find better ways to lie and not get caught. What’s the worst possible penalty? If a lying student gets banned from parking, he or she will just have a friend lie for them.
Instead of wasting resources to track down fibbers, the Office of Transportation and Parking Services should cut down internally and reduce demand for parking to begin with. Why give athletes, Regent scholars and campus organizations parking passes by default, but not guarantee parking to commuters? Why not more vigorously work to maintain BruinGo! and extend it to other bus lines to reduce individual vehicle commuters?
It is certainly not bad for the Office of Transportation and Parking Services to verify truthfulness on parking applications. But the office would serve students better by focusing on the big picture, instead of little white lies.