Having just received a hefty parking ticket, I’m led to wonder: are there any standards, regulations, or laws regarding how municipalities set their parking fines? Can the city of Redmond, Washington set theirs to a billion dollars and hope to catch Bill Gates at an expired meter?
Parking fines are set by your local elected representatives. Sometimes fines are established or raised in order to help a city make its budget.
Blood not boiling yet? Well here is a list of people who are exempt from parking regulations in DC:
• The mayor
• The city council
• ANC commissioners (who are exempt from meter charges)
• All 535 members of Congress, with official plates
• All diplomatic vehicles (which can be ticketed but not forced to pay the fines)
• All city agency vehicles
• All federal government-tagged vehicles
When fines are set too high, businesses without private parking tend to lose customers. So the local government isn’t [supposed to be] blind to the handicap this places on said businesses. I suppose Redmond could set their fines to a billion dollars, but not one single person would ever dare risk parking at a meter again. I suspect local merchants would have something to say about that at the next town hall meeting.
This depends on the salary level averages of the staff at city hall that collect and process the fines. The fines have to be high enough to cover the wages for the entire period that you stand in line to do this…
Same reason property and income taxes can’t be set too high. For one thing those that set the rates; park, own homes and have incomes. They also can lose their jobs. Why do you think the Republicans keep wanting to cut taxes? Now, why haven’t the Democrats caught on?
Where I live (Ontario, Canada), the set fine amounts the local city council put in its bylaws must be approved by a judge before they become law.