I had to go into the city yesterday, and parked on a side street by Gov’t Center (Boston). I put some coins in the meter, and off I went to my appt. Upon returning to my Jeep, I spotted a bright-orange “Parking Ticket” on my windshield, even though there was still plenty of time on the meter. No problem, I think to myself. It’s obvious that A Mistake Has Been Made. But the ticket isn’t a “Parking Ticket” at all - it’s a $20 fine for an Expired Inspection Sticker.
We received a parking ticket in the mail a while ago for a parking violation near the State House, but our car was in the shop that week, so there was no way it was ours. We phoned the RMV and they looked up the ticket. The make/model of the car was wrong in their records, though the license plate # was right. It was obvious the parking enforcer had written the license plate down wrong, so they forgave the ticket. Strange but true (the forgiving part, not getting the ticket in the first place).
If it’s a violation of the law, a law enforcement officer with jurisdiction can arrest or ticket for it. And city cops generally have the right to enforce city, county, and state laws so long as they are within the city limits. So yeah, they can do that.
It’s a little hokey that they would do that, seeing as how you probably have to pay some administrative fine for the expired sticker when you re-register, but I’m sure the City Treasurer approves wholeheartedly.
Move to Mercersburg, PA! Parking meter violations are $2. And the meter guy is about 90 years old, with very poor vision. About 70% of the time, he puts the wrong time on the ticket (1 AM instead of 1 PM–no meter is in effect at 1 AM) or the wrong state in the license information. And when he does this, I complain to the bourough office and they write it off. Yeah, its $2, but its the principle of the thing.
I fight all parking tickets. (Expired meters and tags, I don’t hog handicapped spaces or red zones.) First the why: I figure if they are going to demand $25 bucks of my hard earned money, I’m damn sure going to make sure that they spend a few hundred in their parking enforcement officer and administrative court’s time so that it is non profitable for them to do so.
Result: they always drop the charges, finding some flaw with the ticket before actually having to get their witnesses in.
I got two tickets in Queens: Improperly displayed registration and no front license plate.
lick lick - place regi sticker where it should be
*juryrig with wires and duct-tape a front plate on my 88 T’bird"
submit two polaroids as evidence
The judge reduced $65 to $10.
I still have no front plate on my (now ancient 88 T-bird) or my 2001 Mustang Cobra.
<anecdote>I did make the mistake of passing two NY State Park Troopers - at Jones Beach - me on my bicycle - the sky misting and overcast - nobody but them and me there – I passed their car and the guy said ‘No Bike Riding’ and whatever I said amounted to blowing him off. A mile up the bike-path, I got pulled over. Dammit - his fellow officer was a rookie and garbed in proper rain-wear and she assumed the passenger-side rear quadrant - hand on her weapon - when the trooper pulled my 10-speed over.
“ID?”
I’m on my bicycle. Told him my name. He runs it through. Apparently I don’t exist. He’s about to cuff me… I suggest my driver’s license has my middle initial ‘E’. He runs that through (not telling the rookie the sheer brilliance of all this). I reckon I’d not have minded being cuffed and dubbed the ‘Barrier Island Bicyclist’’
He tells me he was about to cuff me. Good thing that my -drivers license- matched. So I get a ticket.
But get this: The date was early June, the court appearance was late July - the date of the infraction was early August! I thought it’d be a cinch to beat that! I show up in late July and show the judge a ticket that’s still dated two weeks in advance!
Didn’t happen. The judge said something to the effect of ‘the cop could re-issue a new ticket’ - and his language squelched any idea I had of a crusade - like telling the media that a bored cop who ticketed a bicyclist in an empty state park was a dumbass - would not go over well. Plus I’d have to go into Hempstead again. $10.
<anectode>
Ugh. Back in '91 I went to NYC for a “day trip”, and while I was there, I got a parking ticket. To make a long story a little shorter, I never paid the ticket, despite increasingly frequent letters from the NY Sherrif’s Office & Etc. The last of the letters indicated if my “Property” was found withing the State Of New York, it would be impounded, sold, and the proceeds of said sale would be applied towards the fine (which had grown from $25 in '91 to hundreds or maybe even thousands by '95). In any case, I traded the car in and bought another in Dec. of '95. Around April of '96 I got a letter from the State Of New York indicating they located my auto (not my new one, mind you, but the old one I had traded in) - seized it, were unable to auction it, so they crushed it into a cube. Why would they crush it into a cube? To this day, I have no idea. I’ve never summoned the courage to call and ask.
Homer: Here are your messages:
“You have 30 minutes to move your car”,
“You have 10 minutes”,
“Your car has been impounded”,
“Your car has been crushed into a cube”,
“You have 30 minutes to move your cube”.
I got a notice in the mail for a ticket in Knoxville. I’ve never parked in Knoxville, although I’ve driven through a few times. I called the county police department and they asked me the make and model of the van. When it didn’t match they said it was void. I asked for some sort of record of that, but they didn’t have anythign to send. I can only hope it’s not sitting there like some time bomb.
Nah, just pulling your chain, though can you imagine how pissed off a guy would be to have the car he traded for confiscated and cubed without so much as a by-your-leave? If I were you I’d change my name to “Smith” just to be safe from this guy–but I guess you’ve already done that.
Yeah, but in Boston, parking tickets are generally given out by BTD officers, who don’t seem to be real police officers at all. I have no idea what sort of other laws they might be able to enforce, so they could easily have the power to issue tickets for expired registration and the like. They probably can’t arrest people, though.
I’d like to hear the story. Why didn’t you pay the $25?
BTW, last year, I got a ticket for an expired tag and paid it without argument. I wouldn’t have been able to contest it, since at the time, I wasn’t supposed to be driving.