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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

#111

Post by liuhenry »

johnpowell wrote: post #44

I don't drive so I am totally clueless. But how much are parking tickets? Aren't they about 20 bucks? I don't think I would bother fighting over that. And I didn't read the article because I don't click on links to techcrunch.

In SF, the city this launched in, the parking ticket itself is typically $60-80 for something like running out of time on the meter. If you get towed because the time expired right before rush hour or someone thinks you're blocking their driveway, there's an additional towing fee of ~$500 on top of the ticket.

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

#112

Post by dunham »

derwiki wrote: post #22
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #11

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

A few years ago, I parked my car on the street in Nob Hill. Thursday night I verified that it was legally parked. I got a phone call from my roommate the next day saying they were about to tow my car. I rushed home from work. While I was at work, they put up a temporary 'no parking' sign and were prepared to tow less than 24 hours later. That was the straw the convinced me 'I could get towed in SF even if I do every…

They're required to put up those signs at least 48hrs ahead, but good luck contesting it. My sister-in-law was hit with the same thing, done by "Precision Engineering".

She tells me that if you actually could prove they didn't give enough notice, there is a $1000 fine for the construction company.

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

#113

Post by triplesec »

josephlord wrote: post #105
stinkytaco wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

round here I hope you'd more like flaunt your kickass coding skills

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

#114

Post by splat »

evacuationdrill wrote: post #110
splat wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to do that. It gets old really fast. If you want to make a left-hand turn, you have to bike over to the crosswalk, press the button, wait thirty seconds for the light to change, walk across, (another thirty seconds on a wide street), press the crosswalk button again, wait another thirty seconds, walk across the street again (another thirty seconds). If you have a few red lights on your way home that can easily add ten minutes to your travel time. At a certain point common sense trumps obeying every technicality of the law.

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

#115

Post by triplesec »

dunham wrote: post #112
derwiki wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, I parked my car on the street in Nob Hill. Thursday night I verified that it was legally parked. I got a phone call from my roommate the next day saying they were about to tow my car. I rushed home from work. While I was at work, they put up a temporary 'no parking' sign and were prepared to tow less than 24 hours later. That was the straw the convinced me 'I could get towed in SF even if I do every…

They're required to put up those signs at least 48hrs ahead, but good luck contesting it. My sister-in-law was hit with the same thing, done by "Precision Engineering". She tells me that if you actually could prove they didn't give enough notice, there is a $1000 fine for the construction company.

I regularly video my car, meter and the surroundings with my cameraphone for this very kind of reason. This practice will increase.

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

#116

Post by FireBeyond »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #109

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.

My favorite is when they do this next to high curbs (often in historic districts) - "if I parked closer to the curb it'd be impossible to get out because the bottom of my door would hit the curb".

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

#118

Post by eli »

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.

I'm skeptical that there are very many lights that would take more than a few minutes to change even without a car.

Maybe cyclists should just be allowed to proceed through a red light since they are unlikely to hurt anyone besides themselves... But the rule does kinda make sense. If there are lights that rely on car sensors then obviously fixing that would be the right thing to do regardless of the law.

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

#119

Post by eigenvector »

DanBC wrote: post #92
eigenvector wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opposition to speed-limit cameras exposes the absurdity of most speed-limit laws: it's a law so bad many (most?) people are opposed to having it strictly enforced. If that's not a bad law, then I don't know what is.

I'm not sure how you can claim that most people are opposed to speed limits being enforced. Especially in the UK.

I think most people would like speed limits enforced with some sensible discretion. To give an extreme example, you shouldn't receive a $150 fine for going 1 km/h over the limit. Before photo radar, there were a limited number of police officers to enforce speed limits, so most limits weren't enforced most of the time. Police focused on catching the worst offenders, so going, say, 60 km/h in 50 km/h zone or 110 km/h in a 100 km/h zone was unlikely to be prosecuted. With photo radar thresholds set in many places as low as 3 km/h over the limit, the dynamic is totally different, especially since many speed limits are set comically low, and often times photo radar is placed in locations where the limit decreases for a short distance, or at the bottom of a big hill.

To my mind, the goal of speed limits is to promote road safety by encouraging drivers to proceed at a safe speed that is suitable for road conditions. This is undermined when authorities build an expressway-style road that you'd find rated for 80+ km/h in a traffic engineering handbook and then set a much lower limit and have it enforced with radar traps. This is about collecting revenue, not promoting safety.

I visited Norway, which has photo radar, but also warns you that you're approaching it. The intention seems to be to get you to slow down rather than to stick you with a ticket. It works and I agree with photo radar when it is used this way.

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

#120

Post by grkvlt »

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.

How would the red-light camera affect you as a cyclist, anyway? Bicycles don't have license details affixed to them, and also shouldn't trigger the camera for exactly the same reason they won't trigger the light-change cycle.
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