Forming an Opportunity Belief

I have noticed that one of the most frustrating things in Gainesville is the constant towing companies. Almost everyone that you talk to has had a bad experience of getting towed here in Gainesville. My opportunity belief is that we can, for the most part, get rid of the towing for Gainesville city parking and instead adopt a ticketing system like there is for the UF campus parking. It's very simple, if you are parked somewhere in Gainesville city parking where you shouldn't be you will get a ticket instead of getting towed. No one wants to ask a friend for a ride all the way down to Superior Towing to pay $100 to get their car back. Instead a ticket is much more reasonable and a lot easier to handle and take care of. I think that everyone that I interview will have heard of someone getting towed, but may not necessarily have been towed themselves.

The first interview that I conducted was with a 22 year old female who is now a Senior in her graduating semester here at UF. She said that she agrees that towing is ridiculous and needs to be toned down. She said that she has only been towed once and it was a wrongful towing. She was parked in a spot that she was allowed to be parked in, but was towed regardless. The company didn't make her pay for it, but she said it still ruined her day having to drive all the way over there and get her car back. She also agreed with my solution that a ticketing system would be much easier to deal with.

The second person I interviewed is also a Senior here, but is doing a 5th year. He told me that he had been towed once from where he used to work. This time he actually was in a spot that he wasn't allowed to be in, but had parked there because he had to be somewhere right after work and took the chance. Obviously his car got towed and he had to call a friend to quickly go get his car, so that he could try to be where he needed to be not too late. He said the ticketing system would be a great idea and would have gladly taken a ticket over getting his car towed.

The last person I interviewed is a 24 year old male who is now graduated from UF, but was visiting for a couple days. He told me immediately that he hates the towing here with a passion because he has been towed 6 times while being at UF, and he said all of them were wrongful towing. The places that he parked were where his apartment complex told him to park, but he got towed multiple times anyway. He said he would have to go down there, pay to get his car back, and then his apartment complex would pay him back. He said it was such a hassle and would love to get rid of towing.

Reflection
I learned a lot from this assignment. The main thing was that almost everyone here at UF has had problems with towing, and some people have had multiple encounters with this problem. Everyone seemed to like my idea of making it a ticketing system instead of towing system.

Summary
I don't think my opportunity belief has really changed from the beginning of this assignment until now. The problem still is there and a great way to solve it would be tone down on the towing of all the cars and instead implement a ticketing system.