This just in: Downtown parking is confusing!

A potentially earth-shattering news item we've neglected to mention for a couple of days: Parallel parking markings downtown can be confusing! At least that's the case according to KHOU, which took to the streets earlier this week to find out what's really going on with the parking spots marked by numbered arrows pointing to one or two parking meters that serve the whole block. Apparently, people have trouble figuring that system out:

if anyone is not lined up just right, it is hard to tell which space you are actually in. And sometimes drivers pay the wrong meter.

And that could lead to tickets.

Well, yes. But no one KHOU interviewed seemed to have any problem with the numbers-and-arrows system. The mysterious source Channel 11 dubbed the "TIcket Man" — who we assume is a parking enforcement officer, but could just as easily be a second-tier superhero — was able to explain things pretty well:

"What it is. Is go by the arrows. See where it says two. And the arrow is pointing to the meter? That's the one he'll pay,” the Ticket man said.

Even a mere mortal like downtown motorist Dwight Jefferson was able to figure things out:

"The arrow for two is pointing in that direction and the arrow for three is pointing in this direction."

Of course, you have to imagine Jefferson pointing out a couple of parking meters to make the picture complete. Fact is, we've parked at these arrow-designated meters many times, and even when the cars around us have been parked a little off-kilter, we've had no trouble figuring out which parking space we were in. We suppose there could be an extreme case in which a car was parked completely wrong — and Houstonians are prone to bad parallel parking, bless their hearts — but even then, is it really that hard to pay the meter for the right space? Seriously.

As KHOU notes, one solution to the parking quandary is to head over to one of the downtown blocks where the new generation of parking meters has been installed: The new meters don't rely on numbered spaces, but rather on printed tickets that drivers place face-on on their dashboards to let officials know they've paid for their space. We're sure people will have trouble with that, too, though: It can be really confusing to find your dashboard, after all.