They certainly like to make street parking in Seattle complicated

My general rule for road-trip dining is to pay for parking only when absolutely necessary. But cities, particularly their downtown areas, conspire against this. Which forces me to carry a bunch of coins or figure out how to use their credit card machines or attach receipts to windows (see photo above).

So all this plugging of downtown parking meters—constantly checking my watch and devouring my meal to make sure I won’t get ticketed or towed—has got me thinking. You know how parking patrollers will rarely bother you if you’re sitting in your car? They must think you’re either about to get out of your car, and plug the meter, or about to leave.

So why not just plunk a dummy in the driver’s seat while you’re dining nearby? You know, like those uniformed policemen dummies you see in old patrol cars, to get you to slow down in small towns. Wouldn’t that work?

If a dummy can get people to slow down, maybe it can be used to avoid paying for parking