One cool thing about the legislative session is that the parking rules on the state capitol grounds change, which explains the bag over this NO PARKING sign adjacent to the capitol mall. LD80, or Legislative Day #80, arrives on May 6th this year according to the calendar on the state website. After that, some convenient areas available for parking now will once again be off limits. Of course, there will be fewer people vying for those spots.

I remember a time back in the early 90s when my car was hit by an inattentive driver on the capitol grounds. I had parked near the State Library to return some books, and came out to find my driver’s side door pushed in. They backed into it with their van, then accused me of parking illegally (thus making it my fault). I pointed out to the highway patrol officer writing the report that, due to the legislature being in session, I was not parked illegally and the guy should have been looking where he was backing up. The officer agreed and noted so in his report.

A short while later I got a call from the guy’s insurance company indicating that they were refusing to pay my damages because their insured told them I was parked illegally. I referred the person to the policy regarding parking during the session, and they agreed to pay to fix my car.

It’s a bit of an odd phenomenon to see signs bagged like this, but here’s the explanation. Two more interesting North Dakota facts: the parking meter was invented in North Dakota, and parking meters are illegal in North Dakota!