Michigan Man Nick Taylor Gets $128 Ticket For Warming His Car, In Driveway

Nick Taylor is not a fan of his home city of Roseville right now — at least not in the area of city government.

The Michigan native did what most Michigan natives do during the winter during a recent morning. He had driven to his girlfriend’s home to pick up her and her 2-year-old and went inside for a few moments, leaving the car in the driveway with his keys in the ignition.

Nick said that he stepped away from the car for all of five minutes, and when he emerged from the home, allowing his frosted car to thaw further, he found that a police officer had left a ticket on his car with a message.

“Vehicle parked in drive with keys in ignition, motor running — no one around.”

Irking Taylor more than the ticket itself was the way the officer gave it to him. He simply left the ticket there for him to discover rather than offering the courtesy of informing him.

In fact, in a social media post, Nick Taylor said that he did not even realize the ticket was there for “about seven or eight minutes,” Click On Detroit reported.

https://www.facebook.com/taylor.trupiano/posts/10211804448333319

In the post itself, Nick calls the officer who wrote the ticket “officer dips**t K. Keary” and thanks him for “wasting the taxpayer’s money and giving me a ticket for warming up my car in my own d*** driveway.”

The post quickly went viral with friends of Nick Taylor weighing in, urging him to fight the ticket. He may do just that, but it will be an uphill battle with the department actually encouraging officers to write this type of citation.

In comments to CBS Detroit, Roseville Police Chief James Berlin admitted to being the mastermind behind it.

“I encourage our officers to write this ticket,” he said, remarking that it was due to the threat of car theft. “All it takes is someone to hop in this car and take off. Then there’s a chase often at a high rate of speed and all that could have been prevented.”

Berlin said that if the car had been started by remote starter with no key in the ignition, the ticket would have never been written. He also had a pretty unprofessional response to the post in his refusal to tear up the ticket.

“You see the disparaging comments he made about my officer? Drop dead,” Berlin said.

The Chief has not won any support from the 5,000-plus commenting on the Nick Taylor Facebook post.

“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read and so was Berlin’s ‘drop dead’ comment,” said one commenter. Added another, “Really chief Berlin? How old are you? Two? ‘He called my officer a name so I won’t dismiss his stupid ticket? Drop dead?’ No, go play in the mud with your siblings you immature child! Start over. You missed some of your mother’s parenting lessons.”

A Michigan man got a $128 parking ticket on his own property – for leaving the keys in his car’s ignition: https://t.co/ywMh15waQ3 pic.twitter.com/x3c9Zdm4nA

— KLTV 7 (@KLTV7) January 10, 2017

Some have decried the ticket as a violation of privacy and actual trespassing on the part of the officer because he had to enter private property to deliver the ticket.

However, and this is something that Nick Taylor and few of the other Roseville residents realized, there is a city ordinance that prevents warming up your car with the keys in the ignition unattended.

But what do you think about it, readers?

Is the ticket justifiable, or is this a cash-grab from city government? Do you think Nick Taylor should fight this? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Featured Image by Igor Chus/Shutterstock]