Students have recently been experiencing issues with fines stemming from guest's vehicles that had previously been signed in.
Any vehicle signed in by a student, even if it is a guest's, remains on the student's account for the duration of their time at the Hall. This leaves student's permanently responsible for a vehicle that is not their own, according to Ann Szipszky, manager of Parking Services.
All vehicles on campus are required to have a valid Seton Hall University parking permit. The student who signs in this vehicle is responsible for it whenever it is on campus, according to the policy.
Students said that when these vehicles receive tickets on campus, the unpaid fees prevent them from being able to register for classes.
Senior Matt Dudek said fines accumulated on his account over a period of time.
"Eventually I had over $400 worth of fines on my account," Dudek said. "(They) were preventing me from registering for classes."
Dudek said he was eventually able to have the car owner pay the fines and register for classes.
This year, when Dudek registered for his own parking permit, he asked to have any other vehicles removed from his account.
According to Dudek, Parking Services refused based on a rule that states any vehicles are on student's account permanently.
"The car that got all of those fines is still on my account last I checked," Dudek said.
According to Szipszky, it has always been policy for vehicles to remain permanently on a student's account after being signed in once.
This policy is stated in parking service's policy overview.
According to the policy, "Resident students who are hosting an overnight guest are responsible for ensuring a temporary permit for the guest's vehicle is obtained. The host will be responsible for any violations incurred by their guests. Previously unidentified citations as well as future citations issued to a guest's vehicle will also be assigned to that host."
In order to avoid this accountability problem, Szipszky said, "Don't sign in another's car."
Dudek said he disagrees with this policy of permanent accountability for a vehicle once signed in on a student's account.
"It is not fair that a ‘temporary' permit assigns these cars to your account permanently," Dudek said.
Dudek said that all vehicles registered on an account as "temporary" permits should be removed from said account at the end of the school year.
There are no future plans to change the Parking Service policy.
Erin Williams can be reached at erin.williams@student.shu.edu
