Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 139 posts

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#51

Post by ceejayoz »

lostlogin wrote: post #47
SeanLuke wrote: post #45

> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes money from the community. There's no good argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results in speed traps, perma…

Agree with all the above except the red light camera thing. Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely.

> Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely.

Most of the folks getting red light tickets are getting them from rolling forwards at 1mph while they look for oncoming traffic, though.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#52

Post by stinkytaco »

nostromo wrote: post #34
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #11

I hate parking tickets so much that I follow posted signs and obey traffic laws.

That's a little naive. Local jurisdictions are heavily incentivized to hand out infractions of any kind -- deserved or not. Why? Because they keep the money. What do they spend the money on? Things like public employees and their benefits, including pensions. It's clearly a perverse incentive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive I've always thought that government shouldn't benefit from fines or seized p…

As someone who works for local government, I think you are over thinking "heavily incentivized". Governments are heavily incentivized to respond to political whims. It's the reason NYC has free street parking and that North Dakota has no parking meters, despite some cities desperately needing them. The fact that it's so easy to be released from a parking ticket is proof that this isn't some cash cow localities are sitting on.

I frankly see no problem with citizens benefiting from people who don't think parking laws should apply to them through the increased services and lower taxes gained by parking revenue.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#53

Post by parennoob »

lostlogin wrote: post #47
SeanLuke wrote: post #45

> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes money from the community. There's no good argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results in speed traps, perma…

Agree with all the above except the red light camera thing. Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely.

In which case someone running red lights should have their license to drive revoked to a certain extent, e.g. "run three red lights and you will lose your privilege to drive for five years." or something like that.

This will go far more towards curtailing people running red lights than the existing "pay $100 and go consequence-free" system.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#54

Post by DanBC »

SeanLuke wrote: post #45

> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes money from the community. There's no good argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results in speed traps, perma…

I have never quite understood the problem with speed traffic cameras. There's a problem if they're set too close to the speed limit for that road, but other than that they only catch people committing a criminal offence. The problem there is not the speed camera, it is either an inappropriate limit on a particular stretch of road or the speed limit law in total.

In England speed cameras have gone through a few weird changes. The first is that they must only be put up in accident blackspots. The second, following from the first, is that the cameras must be highly visible.

So now instead of grey cameras installed on many roads helping keep all drivers under the speed limit we have a few very visible cameras in known locations that many drivers can slow down for, but driving fast at all other times.

Frankly, anyone getting caught by a UK camera deserves the fine.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#55

Post by khuey »

ceejayoz wrote: post #51
lostlogin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with all the above except the red light camera thing. Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely.

> Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely. Most of the folks getting red light tickets are getting them from rolling forwards at 1mph while they look for oncoming traffic, though.

[citation needed]

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#56

Post by stinkytaco »

ivanplenty wrote: post #49
nostromo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little naive. Local jurisdictions are heavily incentivized to hand out infractions of any kind -- deserved or not. Why? Because they keep the money. What do they spend the money on? Things like public employees and their benefits, including pensions. It's clearly a perverse incentive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive I've always thought that government shouldn't benefit from fines or seized p…

Agreed. I've always wondered how differently municipalities would behave were the fines forbidden from funding operations. For example, what if all fines had to be paid to a trust, and only the interest from the trust may be used for capital projects? Then only taxes could be used to pay for operations. At the federal level this change wouldn't make a big difference, but at the local level it would affect 50% of some…

Taxes would be higher, for one. Instead of using that revenue, they would reduce services or raise taxes. When a city department draws up its budget for the year, one of the things they need to account for is expected revenue. Budgets are set based on that revenue. If that revenue were not there, something would have to give.

It's not like they are walking into your driveway and giving you a ticket. People who get tickets are parked illegally. Those who are not are welcome to challenge the ticket and not pay it.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#57

Post by toomuchtodo »

lostlogin wrote: post #47
SeanLuke wrote: post #45

> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes money from the community. There's no good argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results in speed traps, perma…

Agree with all the above except the red light camera thing. Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely.

Still waiting to see a red-light camera that physically stops the car from entering the intersection on red and killing someone.

If red light cameras were there for safety, they would ding your driving record, not just be monetary fines.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#58

Post by quanticle »

lostlogin wrote: post #47
SeanLuke wrote: post #45

> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes money from the community. There's no good argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results in speed traps, perma…

Agree with all the above except the red light camera thing. Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely.

The problem with red light cameras that the OP is referring to is the fact that red-light cameras aren't pointed at the straight-through lanes, where running a red light would potentially cause a fatal T-bone accident. Instead, they're pointed at right turn lanes, where they're more likely to make money from people who didn't stop 100% when performing a right-on-red.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#59

Post by toomuchtodo »

khuey wrote: post #55
ceejayoz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Running red lights has a non-zero risk of killing someone and while I can construct a scenario where my bad parking kills someone, its pretty unlikely. Most of the folks getting red light tickets are getting them from rolling forwards at 1mph while they look for oncoming traffic, though.

[citation needed]

http://blog.esurance.com/are-red-light-cameras-actually-caus...
Post reply on HN