And to think, Stras was saying there's no laugh out loud comedy on unfogged.

If it's out of state, just don't pay it.

Always worth a shot - if you have the time/inclination. Contesting parking tickets can be very random. I would write a short and sweet letter that states your case evenly.

Sorta related: when I was in college my car got towed - like those of many other people. I got my 2500 in tickets reduced to 1500.

Then it happened again. Same Judge. Not so sympathetic this time.

It's Richmond, right? Just remind them what happened last time they proked Northern Aggression. That couldn't possibly go wrong.

*provoked

Looking at the pictures, I wouldn't even try. While the signage could be better, you're parked inbetween two No Parking signs on the same block, with no intervening "Yes, you can park here" sign. This looks to me like a no-hoper.

what LB said

Yeah, I think you're out of luck.

First, the No Parking sign is very far away. Second, I took that to mean "no parking out here where there isn't a nice cutaway for your car, like the place we parked".

I don't know, in my idiolect a No Parking sign applies to the entire block unless otherwise specified. If it only applied to one or the other side of the sign, there would be an arrow telling you in which direction it applies.

Also, that cutaway could have been designed to be a bus stop. There are a couple bus stops like that on the Carnegie Mellon campus.

Don't listen to them, Becks. You're so right, baby. Let's go to the courts. Leave all these trouble-squashers behind and come away with me to our Planet Unicorn.

But the cutaway was full of cars! It SO LOOKED like a place one should park! And the "No Parking" signs were apart from the cutaway and by a fire hydrant. Obviously, I wasn't going to park there. But the rest of the block looked like fair game! And there were tons of cars parked there, which made it look OK! (Of course, we all got ticketed.)

Ned is exactly right.

The biggest annoyance out of all of this is that it turns out the museum had a parking garage with plenty of sweet, sweet non-ticketed parking and we just didn't know about it.

Wait, the cutaway had other cars in it? And they all got ticketed? Well, that's stupid. I wonder if that happens every day.

I do usually trust that other cars know whether they're supposed to be parked somewhere or not.

And there were tons of cars parked there, which made it look OK!

But *everybody* at that Dead show was taking acid! Good luck with that approach.

(which is not to say I don't sympathize)

Fight it! Fight it! Ignore these haters!

Where my mother lives, there's only parking on one side of her street; the other side is no parking ever, for no obviously good reason. There are always cars parked there, and they only ticket about once a month. I park there on the occasions that I drive to her place, but I do know it's a crapshoot -- I feel bad for strangers who just see all the cars, and miss the signs saying don't do it.

14 - YES! The cutaway was full of cars when we got there, just not in my picture. In fact, we had to do some serious parallel-parking-fu to squeeze in there. I suspect that they know this block is poorly marked and just like to rake in the $500 or so they get each day from people who don't realize they're parking in a tow away zone.

I would give you advice, but you didnt include Stanley or me in your little Unfogged Richmond meet.

We probably passed each other in Carytown. You went to the Thrift store next to the Byrd? I was at Plan 9 and the running store right down the street.

20: You don't want to hang out with Becks, will. She flagrantly breaks the law, as evidenced by this post. Nothing but trouble, that one.

You are entitled to fight this ticket. Nay, obligated. Fight! Catfight!

Doesn't look poorly marked to me. Pay the ticket.

As an aside, let me just say how excited I am that LB and Apo both agree with me on this issue. Ultra-mega-mega-COMITY!!!

20 - Noooo! I didn't realize! I'm so bad about knowing where commenters are. I thought Stanley was in Charlottesville? Shit. He moved to Richmond, right? And I blanked that you lived there, will. So sorry! If it's any consolation, I did really like Richmond and will probably do another day trip down there! There's a lot to see!

They're all just trying to keep all the fights for themselves, Becks. They're selfish like that. They don't want you to fight the ticket because that's one less fight they get to have. Don't let them boss you around like that.

Appealing the ticket will at least delay the moment when you actually have to pay it, and will give you some slight chance of either (a) getting it dismissed or (b) them losing it in the bureaucracy. Option (b) appears to be what happened to the $500 worth of tickets that I got within the first couple months of moving to Chicago. (In one of my letters, I claimed to be a poor seminarian trying to follow my call.)

Hey NCP, a little birdie tells me you were horrified at the notion of me sitting on a jury.

Stanley is a C-ville guy.

I live two minutes from Carytown (in the Museum District).

But, my dad breeds exotic animals and we have a really cute baby camel right now.

He moved to Richmond, right

Nope. Still in C-ville, though my parents live in Richmond, so I'm there with some frequency.

I think the woman in charge of hearing those tickets took my class. I think that she said that she dismisses virtually every ticket where someone shows up to contest it.

Where do the folks live?

Did you grow up in Richmond Stanley?

31: Midlo. I went to Midlo Middle & Midlo High. Before that, I lived in Chicago.

29 - OK, good. Then I don't feel so bad about not associating you with Richmond. Whew! Will, I have no excuse for. (Sorry, Will!)

Holy carp! Stanley and I were both trojans!

Try this:

The car it fit
You must acquit.

36: Wow. Isn't there some other high-school coincidence on unfogged? Tia, eb, and someone else maybe?

Tia and Jackm, I think?

I 'm with Adam on this one. Non-local parking tickets are best viewed as a warning system until you receive some demonstration that the parking ticket enforcement people both give a shit and have established a link to you personally.

Becks, are you really going to let the man keep you down like this? You have to fight for your right to party.

I'm afraid that if I don't pay it, they'll follow up with the rental car company and I'll get a fine from them on top of the ticket fee.

Maybe I'm just too law abiding.

Then again, I appear to have lost the ticket so...

becks, we'll write you letters in jail and take care of your cat for you. Fight it!

Why dont you call the ticket people and ask sweetly how you contest it? I'm not sure what the downside of writing a letter contesting it is, other than your time.

I believe Lizard, Esq. specializes in Parking Law (and works getting big tobacco companies out of their parking tickets.) You should listen to her.

The problem is it's a rental car. If it were your car, you could just ignore it. Virginia and DC don't have a reciprocity agreement. But the rental company will have to pay it when it gets to them with the penalty surcharges on top and then they'll charge your card.

when I was off road-tripping

I first read this as "off-road tripping," like you were doing acid in a Jeep Wrangler or something. A parking ticket would have been remarkably lenient in that case.

Your limited rights:
http://www.ci.richmond.va.us/departments/publicworks/parking/parkinginfo.aspx

in my idiolect a No Parking sign applies to the entire block unless otherwise specified.

I thought it only applied to the area behind the sign?

Sometimes I want to move to a country without traffic laws. A cpl weeks ago I got a speeding ticket in a school zone, under these conditions: a) I was driving slowly (32mph), under the regular speed limit (40mph), because it was just after 7am and I hadn't had any coffee, b) there were no other cars in my lane, so I wasn't passing anyone, c) it was the *first* day of school, which was a *friday* d) Later, I drove through that bit of road 3 more times before I saw the school zone sign. It wasn't particularly badly marked, I guess, just not where I'm used to them being. And no school is visible from the road.

36, 37: Tia and eb went to the same high school. Tia and JM grew up in the same town but went to different schools.

Just to be clear, I can neither confirm nor deny that Stanley was actually the Trojan Man mascot for our high school.

Nor can I confirm or deny that I represented young Stanley for an indiscretion involving streaking by the take-out line at Friendly's Ice Cream on three successive Friday nights.

I believe the rule is, if a parking space is easily found and convenient to where you are going, it is implicitly in a no parking zone.

36: Wow. Isn't there some other high-school coincidence on unfogged? Tia, eb, and someone else maybe?

There is another, but not one involving Tia and eb.

I'm pretty sure that I got whacked for like $100 for a parking ticket in Germany that was routed through the rental agent. I don't even really recall getting a ticket, but a month or two later I got this unexpected, whopping bill from the agency. What a drag.

One of the things I love about Pittsburgh is the fairly casual parking enforcement - on Sundays and evenings, you can pretty much park anywhere but a fire hydrant or handicapped spot (or, you know, a driving lane). There's a side street in the Strip District (ethnic and wholesale foods, plus Steelers T-shirts) that is completely marked No Parking, yet is full (but not completely full) of cars every single Saturday. They ticket there maybe twice a year. I've actually gotten out of the habit, but I would say that I parked there probably 40+ times a year for 5+ years and got one ticket. The benefits of being a local.

52 gets it right.

Right in front of my building there are No Parking signs, but people always park there. I never have, though. That is to say, when I do, it's for less than an hour and I have my flashers on.

you can pretty much park anywhere but a fire hydrant or handicapped spot (or, you know, a driving lane).

This goes along with the fact that driving lanes sometimes are No Parking any time, no meters, nothing, except on Sunday when anything goes. This always results in one stupid car being parked there on Sunday, so that two lanes have to become one to go around it.

Not to mention all the one-lane streets in which the only lane suddenly becomes a left-turn-only lane when you get to an intersection, while a new lane appears on your right that you have to get into in order to go through the intersection.

A letter did the trick for me in Chicago. I had a better argument than "I'm a poor seminarian" but it wasn't actually that great an argument.

"I'm a poor seminarian, so if you want to get right with God, you'll know what to do"?

At school, there was a guy who got a parking ticket in a large lot. He went around and picked up all the tickets in the lot, then mailed them all in together without any payment. I don't know it was handled, though.

I'm a poor seminarian

Excellent seminarians never get out of tickets. The soft bigotry of low expectations strikes again.

"don't know how IT was handled"

52 is right, and having grown up with that set of expectations, I am getting slammed in ATL, where signage is poor and enforcement is merciless.

One of the things I love about Pittsburgh is the fairly casual parking enforcement - on Sundays and evenings, you can pretty much park anywhere but a fire hydrant or handicapped spot (or, you know, a driving lane).

Or, on West Liberty Avenue... see, sometimes it's a two-lane road, some times it's one lane each way with a lane for parking, and no one's ever clear about which way it is at the moment, so you drive in a sort of a jumble of a lane and count it as a win if you don't hit any moving or parked cars.

Cryptic Ned, do you live south of the city?

51: text and catherine.

I will say that during the period I lived in Shadyside and then Wilkinsburg I got a lot of tickets for being on the wrong side of the road on street cleanign days or trash days or whatever the point was.

Street cleaning, for sure.

You know whose parking conventions I fail to understand? Philadelphia. Specifically, South Philly, where there's a lot of seemingly sanctioned double parking. I'm unclear what the rules are and how one goes about not getting ticketed, towed, or double-parked-in.

64: South of Christian or so, you can basically just park anywhere unless there's street-cleaning or the police have put up a sign saying no parking on a specific date. I haven't noticed a whole lot of double parking, though.

Heebie is right: fight for the sake of it. If you do challenge the parking ticket, remember to include a federal constitutional claim. That way, you can petition for cert once you've been through the city and state courts.

Heebie's wrong, and altogether too tame. You think procedural Liberalism is going to save you? Stand up to the man by crawling through the storm sewer with a knife in your teeth.

Cryptic Ned, do you live south of the city?

I live in Shadyside. Right now I live on a street that is between two permit zones, one of which is a permit zone from 8AM to 9PM and the other one is a permit zone from 9AM to 6PM. My street is not only not a permit zone but it doesn't even have street-cleaning, whereas if I park on any other street I have to watch out for the 1st/3rd Monday/Tuesday street cleaning.

I think Squirrel Hill might have lobbied not to be included in the "permit" system, because it seems silly that the whole point of it is so that people can't come in and park in residential areas during the day, but people can still come into Squirrel Hill and park one block away from the Forbes Ave. bus stops where eight different buses pick up people going to Oakland and downtown.

I will say that during the period I lived in Shadyside and then Wilkinsburg I got a lot of tickets for being on the wrong side of the road on street cleanign days or trash days or whatever the point was.

Yep, there's 4 days a month, from April to November, where you have to worry about that.

Not to mention all the one-lane streets in which the only lane suddenly becomes a left-turn-only lane when you get to an intersection, while a new lane appears on your right that you have to get into in order to go through the intersection.

There's a street like that near my office. Makes me glad I no longer drive to work.

I would strongly recommend against ignoring tickets gotten out-of-state unless you're certain you won't be tracked down. Some places let the fines accumulate, then send the bill to a collection agency; that's how I got to pay a hundred bucks for the privilege of parking for an extra five minutes on a street in Seattle.

Did you get the pricey insurance on your rental? That sometimes covers parking tickets.

I once got a hundred-dollar ticket for parking on one of those streets in Foggy Bottom where you can't park during rush hour.

one of those streets in Foggy Bottom where you can't park during rush hour

I don't think the State Department ever lets you park in their driveway.

In Los Angeles, the yellow Loading Zones are available to park in after 6 pm and on Sundays. The white zones are all ticketable, all the time. The green zones are mysterious, but many say they are similar to the yellow zones.

The white zone is for loading and unloading only. If you gotta load or unload, go to the white zone.

Ah, Philadelphia parking. Huge portions of the rules are unwritten and contradict the signs, in order to trap non-regular parkers. E.g. parking in the center strip on Broad Street is legal below South Street, but illegal above it.

Across the street from my office is a no parking zone, but on Sundays it's magically full of parked cars. So every new employee parks there the first time they have to come in on sunday. And they get ticketed, because although THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN WRITING ABOUT THIS ANYWHERE, EITHER ON SIGNS OF IN ANY CODE, you can avoid a ticket only if you have an "attending church" placard issued by the Episcopal Church on the street on your dashboard. That's right, you pay a fine for not attending Episcopal Church on Sunday. Most people pay the ticket, but those who fight it usually win at the first level, foiling a really fun "separation of church and state" class action. [Apparently other churches, and synagogues and mosques also have these privileges in other parts of the city on appropriate days.]

The "all parking rules are off" system that prevails on Sunday mornings here in NC is a time-honored pet peeve of mine. Entire traffic lanes of main streets get used for penalty-free parking. I don't care if you've got Jesus in your heart, you can use the parking deck and walk a couple blocks like everybody else.

I think the woman in charge of hearing those tickets took my class. I think that she said that she dismisses virtually every ticket where someone shows up to contest it.

I hate you fuckers who spread lies like this. I just went down to the courthouse to see if I could wheedle down a $365ticket for running a light. The actual violation, according to the ticket itself, is worth a hundred fucking bucks. But nooo, the guy tells me, there's "other stuff on top of that, fees and things" that add up to three hundred and sixty five fucking dollars. And if you want to arrange a "payment plan" there's an additional $35 fee tacked on (that's 10%).

Fucking fucks. I hate them.

Likewise the no alcohol sales before noon on Sunday. It used to be 1, but got moved back to accommodate the 1 pm start time once we got an NFL team, so it isn't like it's a principled religious stand or anything.

77: You have to pay $250 to a lawyer to make the $365 ticket go away. That's the way it works here, anyhow.

74: I love it. It's a way of life.

79: Yeah, what the fuck ever. Did I mention that a $365 ticket is a fucking rip off? Fuckers.

I hate you fuckers who spread lies like this.

I love you too.

Parking tickets are different from traffic tickets that involve the possibility of hurting people. People who run red lights are worse than people who want to know whether their friend sodomized his date.

For DUIs:

I listen to their description of the facts. Here is what I tell people:

If convicted of a first offense DUI, you will get the exact same punishment as every single other person, no matter who their lawyer is.

In the overwhelming number of cases, I tell them that they will almost certainly get convicted. If they want to pay me to hold their hand, they can.

Oh bah on the running a red light. It was a turn signal, I was zonedly falling the car *immediately in front of me*. Yes, I was being an idiot, but I wasn't posing a danger to anyone--it was one of those irritating traffic things where the last few cars just extend the light like assholes. It was bad, and I deserved the ticket, but $365 is outrageous.

*And* I got caught by one of those goddamn automatic picture taking things. Jesus I hate those.

Where's w-lfs-n? It's "following".

I got caught at a red right with one of those pictures takers earlier this summer. Fucking sucks, as you get totally blindsided by the ticket in the mail. It not only ruined that day, but retroactively the day of the violation in my memory. And it the picture there was a pedestrian starting through the intersection as I west through it. I swear to god they photoshopped him in; I am not in the habit of accelerating towards joggers during yellow lights.

Write a letter, but make sure you get and understand the response from the court so that when they issue a bench warrant for failure to appear in court regarding unpaid tickets that you thought had been dismissed, as per the letter, and you didn't get the notice that they weren't because the court clerk miswrote your last name and street name on that letter, you don't get a call from the city police, have to pay a fine, and still have to miss a morning of work go to traffic court.

Not that that would happen in North Dakota or anything.

Not that that would happen in North Dakota or anything

Parking tickets here are like $10. It isn't even worth fighting them.

If you contest a moving violation, they sometimes charge you more for contesting it. This happened to my grandma. Admittedly, "but I was barely over the speed limit & all those other cars were going faster than me" was not a very good reason to contest a ticket.

No mercy for car drivers that run red lights, whether or not "nothing happened". You're in control of a murder machine, you better make sure you do not endanger others.

Why yes, as a pedestrian it is my constitutional right to jaywalk right in front of your car.

Admittedly, "but I was barely over the speed limit & all those other cars were going faster than me" was not a very good reason to contest a ticket.

Yes it is! Maybe not a good reason legally, but it's a damn good reason. Fucking pigs.

There's something in the constitution about a right to jaywalk? In front of moving cars?

92: I don't think that's a federal right, but it's definitely protected in the Massachusetts State constitution. I don't know where Wisse lives but his state probably has something similar.

I've gotten three parking tickets, two for $18 for parking on the street-cleaning side of the street, and one for $9 for an expired meter.

I also got my car towed once for leaving my car in its usual parking spot at a time when there were signs up saying "NO PARKING: SOME STUPID RACE IS GOING TO GO BY HERE." It took about $280 and an entire day to get the car back.

I dunno re. right to jaywalk, but in a lot of states, the law is (properly) that a pedestrian has the right of way at *any* intersection. And I'm pretty sure that in most states, a car is required to yield to a pedestrian regardless of who has the right of way, for obvious reasons.

Of course, invoking that "right" and doing it just to prove a point is kind of stupid.

Heh.

It is the law in Boston that pedestrians always have right-of-way, but I dunno about "constitutional right."

Wrong, pwned, old, and lonely.

So when's somebody going to talk about double-parking in Boston? Talk about constitutional rights!

"No mercy for car drivers that run red lights, whether or not "nothing happened". You're in control of a murder machine, you better make sure you do not endanger others."

Does "creeping out into the middle of the intersection, then making a left turn after the light changes" count as "running a red light"? Because it's pretty much the only way to make a left turn in a lot of places.

I did it during my driver's test, and passed, so I'm thinking it's not actually illegal--it's legal to creep up when you have the light, & once you do that it's not safe to try to fight against oncoming cars running the yellow or to block the intersection. But I'm not actually 100% certain.

"the law is (properly) that a pedestrian has the right of way at *any* intersection"

Really? Even if you're crossing against the light & when it's a solid Don't Walk sign?

Of course, even if you're doing that, no driver is entitled to hit you if it is humanly possible to avoid doing so. But I don't think that's the same thing as having the right of way, let alone a constitutional right.

B, I'm fairly certain that the Kentucky constitution explicitly grants drivers the right to intentionally run over any pedestrians who cross streets other than at crosswalks and with the appropriate signals. In fact I think drivers can then sue the pedestrians for any damage to their automobiles. Arkansas I think is a no-fault state: the pedestrians and the drivers are each just responsible for their own damages.

Really? Even if you're crossing against the light & when it's a solid Don't Walk sign?

In Massachusetts, yes.

it's legal to creep up when you have the light, & once you do that it's not safe to try to fight against oncoming cars running the yellow or to block the intersection.

I'm pretty sure that's right.

Does "creeping out into the middle of the intersection, then making a left turn after the light changes" count as "running a red light"?

As long as you breach the intersection before the light is red you are OK. That is the rule the sheriff used when I took a defensive driving course.

Does "creeping out into the middle of the intersection, then making a left turn after the light changes" count as "running a red light"?

In Illinois, that's perfectly legal. I read it in the driver's handbook thingy just a few weeks ago.

Good thing, too, otherwise it would be impossible to make a left turn in a whole lot of Chicago. Not that I have a car or anything.

I hate the left turners who refuse to breach the intersection.

And, a pedestrian has the right of way I get, based on matters of vulnerability. I get that such a position can be written into state constitutions for the purposes of legal actions against persons who run down pedestrians. But the invocation of a constitutional right is dumb. Do I have a constitutional right to stand in the middle of the beltway during rush hour then? (not an analogy, a related question)

No really, in Massachusetts it's a constitutional right. It must be, because there are statutes on the books saying you don't have the right to walk out into moving traffic directly in the face of a "Don't Walk" sign, but all available evidence indicates that those statutes were ruled void and wholly unlawful (probably affronts to public policy) by the Supreme Judicial Court. I don't have a citation for the case but you can trust me, I'm a lawyer.

Okay, now the earnesty of 105 is making me feel bad. It's not really a constitutional right anywhere, folks. Wisse was just being hyperbolic.

Well, you wimps with all that newfangled law have it easy. In states with contributory negligence, it's all about who has the Last Clear Chance.

Becks, of course, should invoke the constitutional right to honor heroes who stood up to Northern Scum. It wouldn't get you anywhere in a lot of places, but in Richmond, maybe it'll fly . . .

Charley, are you confusing Virginia's traffic court's with your state song?

Potomac calls to Chesapeake, Katherine.

Sic semper! 'tis the proud refrain that baffles minions back amain is a reference to the Virginia motto.

Have I mentioned that I'm related to the fellow that wrote the song The Eyes of Texas? That it's not the state song is evidence of some kind of Aggie plot.

I got caught at a red right with one of those pictures takers earlier this summer. Fucking sucks, as you get totally blindsided by the ticket in the mail.

I can confirm that this sucks. However. The person driving my car in the accompanying photo looked a lot like me, but with glasses and about two weeks' worth of facial hair. The photo on my driver's license is of a similar-looking person with no glasses and a little chin-beard. So instead of a check for the exorbitant fine, I sent a crappy Xerox of my driver's license along with a very obliquely worded question inquiring whether I had any legal responsibility to rat on a relative who might have been driving my car. Case dropped.

Incidentally, you can get transparent cover-thingies that supposedly make your plates illegible to the picture-takey deals. I have no ideal how well they work.

CharleyCarp:

Her ticket was near the Museum of the Confederacy, so maybe it would work.

Personally, I think Becks should write a letter explaining how the sign was confusing and seemed to indicate that she could park where she parked.

Dumb blonde works better than crazed confederist theorist in traffic court. However, a reference to Judah Benjamen couldnt hurt.

107 is a lie.

Will, you'd have Becks defile herself with a dumb blonde act? I'm shocked.

I don't know where Wisse lives

The Netherlands, IIRC.

Will, you'd have Becks defile herself with a dumb blonde act? I'm shocked.

Becks can decide for herself whether she wants to be entertaining or effective.

Will's way: Contrite and pleading ignorance or confusion?

or

Charley's way: Defiant and aggressively parsing the statute for constitutional violations?

Charley's hourly rate is probably triple mine so he is clearly three times as smart. Go with his way!

Incidentally, you can get transparent cover-thingies that supposedly make your plates illegible to the picture-takey deals. I have no ideal how well they work.

Poorly, if the most recent M/ythb/sters is to be believed. Which it often isn't, but y'know.

Wait, do we not believe Mythb/sters now, or something?

Also, Sifu, are you going to upload those photos from Tuesday night?

They have a reasonably good track record of messing things up, but I imagine they can mostly be believed.

I should post the pictures. I'm still a bit aghast at how drunk most of us look.

"look" s/b "were".