I just got a summons to appear at municipal court for an unpaid parking ticket. I got my mail after the municipal office closes, so I can’t call them, but I’m really steamed right now, so I’m hoping you can sooth me.
I never actually got a ticket on my car. Of course, they can be blown away or stolen by people who want to make it look like their cars have already been ticketed, so that doesn’t prove anything.
The biggest thing is that I don’t recall ever having being on the street in question. I even called my boss to see if he might have ever sent me into the area for anything (he knows a lot of the streets in Providence). Looking at a map afterwards, I saw that the street is in a rather unsavory neighborhood, so I would definitely not have gone there on my own. The summons doesn’t say what time the infraction occurred.
Assuming that it was during working hours, would bringing my timesheets from work for the week be acceptable? How else can I prove that I have never been to this location?
If it helps, my driving/parking record in this state is perfectly clean.
Is one of your license plates missing, or was one missing about the time of the ticket? Or: some municipalities have a description of the vehicle as well, so if the ticket copy the cops have describe a car different than the one attributed to the plate number in DMV records, you might have a defense.
Timesheet/travel records signed by you boss as being accurate would be another proof that it wasn’t your car.
A missing license plate was the first thing that popped into my head as well, but they are both securely on my car.
All our timesheets are signed by the boss, so that’s a relief.
I’m hoping that when I call in the morning, that they will have a car of a different description for the ticket. There are both a 4 and a 9 in my license plate number, and they are easily misread, especially if the parking enforcement people had fingers anywhere near as numb as mine are in January.
Some years ago my wife got a ticket for parking in a disabled space. She took a picture of her car as it was parked and got her roommate to write a note. Obviously, neither of these are really a proof of innocense, but it got her off. Just be honest and you should be OK, but you’ll lose the time it takes to handle the problem.
It’s just that I sometimes have to go into Providence for work reasons, like dropping off plans or permit applications. I know where, for instance, the DOT building is, but I might have to drive around for quite a while to find a parking spot. So my quandry was more whether I had ever had to go to the neighborhood that the ticket was issued in. After checking a map, it doesn’t seem that I have. Unfortunately, there is no street number on the information I have so far.
kniz, my boss thinks that it’s a little silly to fight it, but as my dad always says, “It’s the principle of the thing.” I’ll probably wind up paying half as much as the ticket costs just to park my car (legally, I assure you)
On a related note, what does one call a magistrate? Is it Your Honor?
I just got off the phone with the court. A different vehicle was described in the parking ticket, so I never even have to show up in court. Oh, happy days!
Some years ago I got a notice from a town I had never been to that I had an outstanding parking ticket. They enclosed a copy. The licence number was obscure, and the make of car was even moreso. I called them and told them it wasn’t me and they asked that I drop them a note to that effect. Never heard about it again.
It seems they just go through the outstanding tickets every so often and pick a likely candidate. If you don’t give a crap and pay it, fine. If you don’t pay it, fine too. Next month they send it off to someone else until someone pays it.
