Trying to avoid L.A.'s exploitative $68 parking tickets requires the analytical skills of a CIA researcher.

See also: L.A. Parking Tickets Would Be Limited to $23 (!) Under New Proposal

Okay, we're exaggerating a little. Figuring out when, exactly, you can rest your SUV at the curb by reading the city's complicated parking signs is at least a brain twister. You can park for one hour during this time frame but there's no parking on certain days. You can park at night—if you have a permit. Or not. You know the drill.

Here's an idea: Let's create parking signs that you can quickly read and comprehend. L.A. city Councilman Paul Krekorian is on it.

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He recently proposed that the Department of Transportation post easier-to-read “grid-styled” signs as part of a pilot program.

This week the city's Transportation Committee agreed to consider multiple sign concepts, Krekorian's office said. It's tasked with producing a report on what concepts might work, and where the signs might be initially posted, within 45 days.

Krekorian attached a design by New York graphic artist Nikki Sylianteng (above) to his motion. 

The design “features a grid-styled sign which graphically represents parking restrictions by denoting free times in green and unavailable times in red, while also indicating the 12-hour parking cycle by time and day,” his motion says.

As it is, Krekorian states, “parking signs can become almost impossible to decipher” in Los Angeles. His office says as many as a half-dozen “overlapping” signs can be found in communities like downtown and Hollywood.

Krekorian told us this:

Everyone who drives in this city has had to deal with deciphering our confusing and complex parking signs. I don't want parking to be a guessing game where people worry about getting ticketed because they can't easily tell what the restrictions are and when they are in effect. You shouldn't need the Rosetta Stone to park in Los Angeles. My motion proposes that the city create new, grid-style parking signs that provide more useful information that is both simple and obvious to everyone.

If the City Council approves the pilot program you could see the signs in a limited number of areas as soon as winter.

We have a prediction: People will love these signs. Let's do this.

Send feedback and tips to the author. Follow Dennis Romero on Twitter at @dennisjromero. Follow LA Weekly News on Twitter at @laweeklynews.

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