Cities eliminate ability to contest parking tickets in-person

wsuffa

wsuffa

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I'm not surprised at this, at all. Just call it another tax.

If you're coming to visit DC, keep this in mind:

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/20/2061.asp

and in Boston
To fight the $200 ticket before an impartial judge, Adcock learned she had to pay a non-refundable $275 fee to the Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge, plus $25-55 in other fees.
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http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/13/1368.asp

But best of all is this:
DC Sunday School Teacher Ticketed for Driving with Open Container of Coffee

(my trigger finger is poised to move this to spin should the discussion veer off...)
 
I have a feeling that fee won't fly on appeal. Being non-refundable, it amounts to a fine to even contest a ticket. You're a criminal defendant in the matter. It's plain wrong to pay a fee to the entity trying to deprive you of liberty or property.

Denver got hit hard by appeals court a few years ago by increasing parking fines without due process.
 
KennyFlys said:
I have a feeling that fee won't fly on appeal. Being non-refundable, it amounts to a fine to even contest a ticket. You're a criminal defendant in the matter. It's plain wrong to pay a fee to the entity trying to deprive you of liberty or property.

Denver got hit hard by appeals court a few years ago by increasing parking fines without due process.
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In most - but not all mind you - jurisdictions parking fines are not criminal, they are an administrative matter.
 
Boston has been getting cute for a while around parking fines. Tax revenue isn't enough... pick up parking fines.

NH has a great (I use the term loosely) system for speeding. First time offender in NH? Contest the ticket, pay the fine plus a $300 (or $250, I forget which) fee, keep your nose clean for 6 months. Ticket goes "away", you get your fine back (without interest), and the state made $300 + interest on the fine during that timeframe. They call it "Pay Before Judgement", and a number of my friends have been snared by it. NH calculated what the insurance increase would cost for the majority of speeding offenses and kept the total cost down below what you would expect to pay over the lifetime of the fee increase - which is downright brilliant from a business sense, but borders on evil from a moral/ethical sense.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
In Dallas, the City made parking tickets civil offenses, so a lawyer I used to work for, when he got a parking ticket, served a complete wave of written discovery on the City.

They just dropped it.
 
I picked up a ticket in Lockport a couple of weeks ago for "backing into space" (the final frontier?) They set it up so that it's $10 for the first 10 days, $25 until the day of your administrative hearing, $50 starting the day of your first administrative hearing, and $125 starting the day of any second administrative hearing. Really peeves me to no end!
 
Parking tickets in NM:

$20 first 5 days, $40 next 14 days, and $60 after that.

To contest? You wait for a court date, where the fine has become $60. You lose, you pay $60 + court fees.

Parking tickets need to be recriminalized.
 
astanley said:
Boston has been getting cute for a while around parking fines. Tax revenue isn't enough... pick up parking fines.

NH has a great (I use the term loosely) system for speeding. First time offender in NH? Contest the ticket, pay the fine plus a $300 (or $250, I forget which) fee, keep your nose clean for 6 months. Ticket goes "away", you get your fine back (without interest), and the state made $300 + interest on the fine during that timeframe. They call it "Pay Before Judgement", and a number of my friends have been snared by it. NH calculated what the insurance increase would cost for the majority of speeding offenses and kept the total cost down below what you would expect to pay over the lifetime of the fee increase - which is downright brilliant from a business sense, but borders on evil from a moral/ethical sense.

Cheers,

-Andrew
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after my recent speeding ticket, i learned that Cedar Rapids does the same thing. if you "win" your case, you still have to pay a bunch of Court Fees, amounting to much more than the ticket itself, which includes court fees.
 
What an ingenious way to control the outcome of trials!
"Hey we increased our conviction rate from 75% to 99% overnight!"
Next they will get to thinking about applying it to all their legal cases.
 
Isn't speeding still a criminal offense? It is here in Virginia. No court costs at all if you're found not guilty.
 
gprellwitz said:
I picked up a ticket in Lockport a couple of weeks ago for "backing into space" (the final frontier?) They set it up so that it's $10 for the first 10 days, $25 until the day of your administrative hearing, $50 starting the day of your first administrative hearing, and $125 starting the day of any second administrative hearing. Really peeves me to no end!
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Crystal Lake Recently passed the 'back in parking spot' law. Retarded law IMHO.

But BTAIM the last parking ticket I got was back in college where I was cited for "not having my removable parking tag permanently attached to my vehicle". The university had only recently allowed the sale of parking tags that you could move from vehicle to vehicle but their own codes had not allowed for that to happen. So I got a citation. I fought it for 7 months, trying to appeal to their common sense. But University administrators have very little common sense. I eventually had to pay the $10 to get my grades released but not before at least 4 appeal hearings. I figured I used up several hundred of $$$$ on their staff having to deal with me.
 
When I was in college my wife and I were hit by a car that ran a stop sign. We spent significant amounts of time with casts on our legs (1 1/2 months for me, 5 months for her) and got a student disability parking permit for our car. This gave staff/visitor parking privileges on campus. They gave us a student parking permit with a parking lot number that did not correspond to any existing lot and that was supposed to be the disability parking permit. I got several parking tickets which were torn up when I took them to the campus police department. I finally chewed on them about getting their parking Nazis trained on what a student disability parking permit looked like and what it allowed. If I didn't need it, it wouldn't have been such a pain to come in to get them taken care of. Idiots. Oh, and when my son was a student at the same place, the campus cops weren't any better. Something about Keystone comes to mind. :P
 
TMetzinger said:
Isn't speeding still a criminal offense? It is here in Virginia. No court costs at all if you're found not guilty.
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It is in some, not in many, and in a few it depends on whether you are cited under state law, or municipal law. Some states it depends on the actual traffic offense.

Short answer: It depends.

Same with parking tickets: in some states it depends on the parking offense. So, while maybe overstaying your parking meter time is administrative/civil, parking in a handicap space might be criminal.

Best thing to do is not worry about it, IMHO. If you are guilty, just pay the thing on time! If you feel you aren't go to court.
 
NYC has a different strategy. They simply patten the experience of attending a hearing at the Parking Violations Bureau after the Eighth Circle of Hell.

They do allow ticket recipients to fight their tickets by mail, however. (The attached example of one such actual document was redacted for the Web.)

Rich
 

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smigaldi said:
Crystal Lake Recently passed the 'back in parking spot' law. Retarded law IMHO.

But BTAIM the last parking ticket I got was back in college where I was cited for "not having my removable parking tag permanently attached to my vehicle". The university had only recently allowed the sale of parking tags that you could move from vehicle to vehicle but their own codes had not allowed for that to happen. So I got a citation. I fought it for 7 months, trying to appeal to their common sense. But University administrators have very little common sense. I eventually had to pay the $10 to get my grades released but not before at least 4 appeal hearings. I figured I used up several hundred of $$$$ on their staff having to deal with me.
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Well, I have to say that they returned the judgement quickly, as it was in my mailbox today. The original letter was only on 11/27. Of course, they found against me. They cite a posted sign that I never saw. Since I'm off tomorrow anyway, I think I'll just swing on by to see if I can find this alleged sign.:dunno: At least it's before the original trial date, so it should still be $25. Of course, they didn't provide any payment stub or similar with the adjudication letter!:no:
 
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