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Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

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

#101

Post by joeframbach »

rhino369 wrote: post #90
joeframbach wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do lawyers need to be involved? The rules are here: http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-cita... All it takes is to submit a letter. Doesn't say who has to submit the letter.

It wouldn't have to say anything like that. The determination of practicing law without a law license isn't based on what the government body requires, but generally on rules about what is and isn't legal practice. I assume they've looked at legal ethics decisions before they opened for business. But who knows, start ups sometimes cut legal corners.

Practicing law? This isn't a courthouse. Sure the SFMTA operates with the blessing of the government, but I do not believe "parking court" is in the same realm as the "courthouse" you're thing of.

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

#102

Post by scarmig »

stinkytaco wrote: post #96
scarmig wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political oversight is the issue: to supply revenue, a politician is given a choice, between raising taxes and issuing more fines. Raising taxes is always a difficult battle, while jaywalkers or people who speed on the highway make a convenient target. So the latter happens more than it should. These tickets disproportionately target the poor, who have the hardest time paying them on short notice, leading to addition…

People keep saying this, but I really have nothing more than anecdotal evidence to believe that it is true. But seriously, if you are concerned, that is why we have a democratic process. Deal with it in the election. >Fourth best would be going straight to the general fund. I'm curious where you think it goes? I have worked at a number of municipalities and all revenue goes to the general fund. During the budget proc…

Couple points:

1) I said nothing about whether parking enforcement should be lax or not: that's an entirely separate question from how it's funded.

2) Municipalities do differ, but the fee associated with a ticket either often ends up divvied up to agencies related to the ticket-issuing. See [1], for instance. (I couldn't find one where that wasn't the case, but I suspect that's probably because of people complaining loudly about this issue, resulting in Google giving a bad sample)

3) The meta-political discussion seems odd to me: no one (here, at least) is saying we should move to an authoritarian regime that institutes all these regulations by fiat. Speaking for myself, I want the public to build democratic governance structures that give officials the correct incentives to maximize social good.

[1] https://exploreb2b.com/articles/where-does-your-traffic-tick...

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

#103

Post by russell_h »

joeframbach wrote: post #3
rdp wrote: post #2

The first question that came to mind upon reading this was: "are lawyers involved in the contest letter filing process? If not, I wonder if they may have a problem re: unauthorized practice of law in CA.

Do lawyers need to be involved? The rules are here: http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-cita... All it takes is to submit a letter. Doesn't say who has to submit the letter.

Have you done that successfully?

My fiance got a ticket on Muni that was clearly in error (her Clipper Card record showed her tagging 9 minutes prior to the ticket being issued). We followed the instructions for submitting a protest, and never heard back. After some back and forth, it seemed like the protest process was just /dev/null-ed, so we paid up just to make the problem go away.

My take-away was that if you wanted to actually fight a citation you'd have to take them to court. As I understand it, fare evasion was a criminal offense until a few years ago, when they decriminalized it in favor of the new citation system, in order to save money on court costs.

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

#104

Post by Zigurd »

stinkytaco wrote: post #61
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…

>Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop I never buy an argument that is so simple. Tickets are a revenue source and that keeps taxes lower on the backs of people who flaunt the law. If the alternative is New York where parking is such a cluster it's an impediment to business, I think I might take the corruption. It's a far more nuanced problem than you're making it. Political oversight of revenue s…

> on the... people who flaunt [sic] the law

That's only correct if you believe parking fines are fairly administered.

If not, they are in fact a social ill.

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

#105

Post by josephlord »

stinkytaco wrote: post #61
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…

>Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop I never buy an argument that is so simple. Tickets are a revenue source and that keeps taxes lower on the backs of people who flaunt the law. If the alternative is New York where parking is such a cluster it's an impediment to business, I think I might take the corruption. It's a far more nuanced problem than you're making it. Political oversight of revenue s…

Sorry to be picky on language but I think this misuse may be spreading and this comment is pretty high.

You 'flout' the laws and you 'flaunt' your ridiculous good looks.

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

#106

Post by jessaustin »

jjcm wrote: post #98
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #11

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

If you've lived in SF for any period of time, you'll know just how difficult obeying parking signs there actually is. There are zones which you need decals for to park during certain hours, but even if you have that decal you still have banned hours which vary per street in order to have the streets cleaned. Going out of town for the weekend? Make sure you call your friend and arrange to have your car moved once or t…

I've never lived in San Francisco, but I dealt with similar situations in LA and Honolulu by not having a car. At some point, it just isn't worth it.

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

#107

Post by stinkytaco »

scarmig wrote: post #102
stinkytaco wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this, but I really have nothing more than anecdotal evidence to believe that it is true. But seriously, if you are concerned, that is why we have a democratic process. Deal with it in the election. >Fourth best would be going straight to the general fund. I'm curious where you think it goes? I have worked at a number of municipalities and all revenue goes to the general fund. During the budget proc…

Couple points: 1) I said nothing about whether parking enforcement should be lax or not: that's an entirely separate question from how it's funded. 2) Municipalities do differ, but the fee associated with a ticket either often ends up divvied up to agencies related to the ticket-issuing. See [1], for instance. (I couldn't find one where that wasn't the case, but I suspect that's probably because of people complaining…

The meta political discussion is more to address the point that the OP made that parking tickets as a revenue source are a "social ill, full stop". It is hard for me to believe that parking revenue should not be allowed to be used to offer services to the citizens of a municipality if there is adequate political oversight. If you feel the parking money is misappropriated or downright being fraudulently collected to raise revenue, this is an issue that local elected officials are designated to deal with. If you feel that is not being done, that is what the political process is for. I am not saying that this does not occur, I am saying that there is recourse and that its occurrence does not rule out the use of parking fines as a revenue source everywhere without exception.

As to point 2, I am sure there are municipalities that work like that, just that I know of none and that the article is a bit flimsy. I don't disbelieve that what you say occurs does, but I do believe that if there's an issue, it should be uncovered by a careful audit.

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

#108

Post by stinkytaco »

dangrossman wrote: post #99
stinkytaco wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, I'm sure they should be indicted. But that does not indict all parking tickets everywhere or the system of issuing parking tickets. It indicts a suburb of Philadelphia. It's like saying that when a sports official gets a call wrong (or even worse, is corrupt), it indicts every team that's ever played that sport and the very act of playing that sport.

If that's what I had tried to imply, you'd have a point. Instead, I'm arguing with someone who says there's no evidence of corruption but a few anecdotes, by providing an example proving otherwise. That was the city of Philadelphia for the record, not just the suburb I live in. Big court, millions of citizens, state legislature had to step in to stop the corruption. And it's not the only ticketing authority in the na…

I believe there's corruption. I believe there's corruption surrounding parking tickets. I would also point out that you are the first person I've read to produce an example of actual corruption surrounding parking tickets that wasn't the equivalent of 19,600 Google results of people complaining about parking enforcement. I don't doubt for a second that all this occurs.

I do however, question this statement, which you seem to be tacitly supporting, though perhaps I'm wrong and we're pursuing semantics down a gopher hole:

"I've always thought that government shouldn't benefit from fines or seized property. I'm not sure what a good solution is. Perhaps they should take the money from fines and just light it on fire.

There shouldn't be a financial incentive for governments to hand out tickets and fines and seize property - the democratic incentive should be enough."

To me that seems flat out ridiculous. Corruption does not make a form of revenue invalid, it means the people who benefited from it should go to jail. With political oversight and transparency, there's no reason that the revenue from fines shouldn't go back into the community in the form of improved services and lower taxes. Government should be transparent and responsive to the political direction of the community, but it shouldn't throw money away.

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

#109

Post by blisterpeanuts »

I wish this app had existed 3 years ago, when my sushi lunch in Arlington, Mass., cost me an extra $50 because my car was parked "in excess of 6 inches from the curb". My wife has gotten several citations in that town, as well, for slightly exceeding the 2 hour (non-metered) limit on free parallel parking in the commercial district. You'd almost think they're trying to drive away business.

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

#110

Post by evacuationdrill »

splat wrote: post #100
eli wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sorry, I still don't think that's OK. There may be reasons for running a red light, but "it's late and I'm impatient" isn't one of them.

As a cyclist, though, sometimes the light will never turn. Most states treat bicycles identically to cars as far as red lights go. So, sorry, but I'm not going to wait at a red light for 45 minutes when it's freezing out for a car to show up and switch the light for me.

The perfectly legal way to handle that is to get off your bike and walk the crosswalk with it.
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