Ronnie Hale takes parking rather seriously, probably because he has done it for 18 years.Hale is one of three parking attendants at ETSU and it’s his job is to make sure that every car parked on the university’s campus is in compliance with all rules and regulations. When they don’t, their owners receive a ticket.

“Most students are more upset with themselves than they are with me,” Hale says. “Most people know what they’re doing and they just hope they don’t get caught. It’s pretty rare that people get truly upset.”

Hales job requires him to spend roughly seven hours inside an enclosed golf cart, trolling around campus in search of offenders and while this seems fairly easy, it wasn’t always such.

“We used to walk,” Hale says, rolling his eyes. “That was the worst. Everyday we would patrol campus on foot looking for offenders. Rain or shine. Warm or cold.”

Although his working conditions have improved over the years, Hale says the violations have not.

“Most commonly we have students parking in the faculty lots,” Hale says. “Occasionally we get some people who pull up on the sidewalk. One of craziest things I have seen was a car parked in the motorcycle spots . you can’t get away with that for anything!”

Hale is good at what he does. As he looms over a vehicle parked in a handicapped spot, his eyes scan the car.

“No handicap tags,” he says looking over the car. “And they aren’t even parked in the spot, they’re parked on the lines. That’s considered blocking a handicapped ramp. This person has also had five or more tickets this semester, so they are considered a repeat offender. After five, it’s an extra $50 added to the ticket.”

That offender had already received a ticket from another attendant almost two hours prior, but it wasn’t for the same offense or even at the same spot on campus.

“They try to do this all the time,” Hale says. “They’ll put a ticket from another violation on their windshield, hoping we’ll think they were already caught, but we always check the tickets, mainly to see if they have been parked illegally for more than an hour.”

Even though the offender had tried fooling him, Hale wrote another ticket; blocking a handicap ramp and repeat offender, the total was $150.

When he encounters a scene like this, he usually snaps a photo of the vehicle before he leaves.

“We do that so it can be attached with the ticket, should this person try to appeal the fine. I usually try to get the license plate in the photo as well, just so there are no questions.”

Hale’s eyesight is keen. So keen, in fact, he spotted that offender from about 100 yards away and spotted several others that afternoon from even farther, but he scoffs at the idea.

“I’ve been doing this a while,” he says. “One of our biggest problems is people backing into spots or pulling through spots. Those are pretty easy to spot.”

Hale says that while most don’t understand why there is a policy against backing into spots or pulling through them, there is a reason.

“We have to check decals on every vehicle and they are supposed to be displayed on the back windows, but if someone is backed in, not only is their decal not displayed for myself or public safety, it is also a danger the cars around it . most people aren’t very good at backing-in.”

Hale doesn’t spend his entire day in one area, he rotates shifts with the two other attendants every hour and a half, and he says he likes it that way.

“I get to see this whole campus every day . a few times actually.”

Hale says that while he usually gives between 70 and 80 tickets per day, he still has faith in students.

“I really think that students have been parking better,” he says, “even though we still give citations daily. Eventually, we hope that one person will get tired of getting tickets and decide to park correctly.

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