snibble, You have just had a very good lesson in government enforcement of a law. You were brought into the legal system(ok, perhaps just the fringe of it) and should have learned a good lesson. In case you missed the point, OBEY THE LAW OR YOU WILL HAVE TO REPEAT THE PROCESS AND IT MAY BE WORSE NEXT TIME. Sorry about the loud screaming voice but sometimes it's hard to get through to you kids.
I am a father of 4 with 2 of them through university and the other two still doing the stupid stuff that you just described. What part of NO PARKING did you not understand? Yep, you're right, no sympathy from over here, only regret that you are finding fault with the hard a** system system instead of accepting it as a hard reality.