I agree that a good portion of the motivation is likely revenue generation.

On the other hand, you might consider yourself lucky. I work on a metered street in downtown and there is no parking at the meters from 4 p.m.-6 p.m. (to ease rush hour traffic heading out of downtown). They simply tow any car there at 4 p.m. (and there is probably a ticket involved there, too). In that case, the restriction does serve a purpose.

In your case, maybe they really do not care if the street is clean. They just want the money.
-Jut

Generating parking enforcement revenue is the *only* thing that the DC government does well. And yes, I mean the single sole solitary activity out of the entire spectrum of governmental activity as undertaken by the mayor and city council in Washington DC.

Ah, but when your state legislators (or city councilmembers) do this (inflate fees for minor traffic or parking violations, or elsewhere), they get to raise revenue without OFFICIALLY raising taxes. So they get to brag to their constituents about how they've balanced _____ budget without raising taxes.

I visited the San Francisco area on business a few months back. I was on my way to a vendor's offices when a co-worker called me. Silly me, I forgot I wasn't still in Missouri, and answered. CHP pulled me over, and wrote me a ticket for not using a hands-free device. Okay, fine, I did the crime, I'll pay the fine. Except, the stinkin' fine was $160!!!!!! No warning, no nothing. I really think he wrote me the ticket because I don't think he understood how Kansas City could be in both Missouri and Kansas (he must have asked me about my Missouri driver's license and me living in KC three times). I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

Sociopaths have a hard time adjusting to rules and regulations.

Sorry, BOTU, so do free a free mpeople.

I got a red light camera story for you. Saturday night, I was walking home from the bar, and I crossed at a red light camera intersection.

The light turned green and I got halfway across, and then had to wait for turning cars to get thru before I could safely continue. The light turned yellow and I continued as I could see no traffic coming. But then the camera lights flashed. I assume they detected motion in the intersection on a red, and took my picture.

Fortunately, I'm not wearing a license plate...I didn't think to moon them.

Except, the stinkin' fine was $160!!!!!!

Oh, is that all? It's $200 here in CT. The justification for it is supposedly to get people to stop yakking on their cells while driving, but I think it's because the state knows everyone who's on their cells while driving is convinced they're not going to get caught; in fact, I think they're counting on it. So many people do it! And it's people like me, who just answer the phone and say "I'm on the road, I'll call you back" and hang up who are more prone to get caught than the businessman in his Mercedes who's been yakking the whole 40 minute f'in' drive from New Haven to Hartford.

Generating parking enforcement revenue is the *only* thing that the DC government does well.

Yes, and they are remarkably efficient! The trick is to park your car in places they don't care about. I used to live in Northeast DC, parked my car with Maryland tags illegally for 6 months and got not one single warning or ticket. However, the time I parked for about 10 minutes in Capitol Hill, I paid dearly.

As I said in a previous thread, traffic enforcement does not choose which regulations to emphasize based on what would improve safety. They choose based on what brings the most revenue.

Flynne - it gets worse. They carved out an exemption for the cops and themselves. Apparently cops are better drivers than the rest of us plebes.

So now we're up to $200 for a cell phone, $150 for a seat belt, and speeding tickets can go as high as what, 700-800 bucks if you're in a designated "construction zone" or "school zone" or "safety zone" now?

And apparently they want you to show three forms of ID to renew your license now. So that TSA may not want to grope you as hard.

Can we turn the government off please?

Parking fines got so bad when I was living in San Francisco that I would let my car sit for weeks at a time and saved a fortune.

But just parking in my neighborhood I got ticketed four times in six months, and the infractions were bizarre. The last one, the edge of my bumper was lined up with the outside edge of the crosswalk line -- and I got a $120 fine for blocking the crosswalk.

Then I moved. Not one ticket since then. No bums peeing in my doorway. No cops harassing me for no reason. No freaked-out yuppies complaining about, well, everything that makes a city great. Big improvement!

My favorite was the time in Maryland when my husband received a ticket for running a red light. We looked at the time and date and realized that it was the state inspector who ran the light while taking the car out! In Md, they charge the owner regardless of who was driving, so we just made the dealership pay.

Oh, I know, brian, I know. I was driving in Milford center the other day, and a cop, who was on his cell phone, turned on his lights behind a girl using hers, pulled her over, gave her a ticket, got back in his car, and picked up his cell! Didn't miss a beat! It looked like he had just put his cell down on the seat, musta told who he was talking to, to wait a minute, issued the ticket and then continued his conversation! Poor girl was crying, but hey! she shouldn't have been on her cell, right??

My daughter got a $125 ticket for "following too close" when she got in a car accident a couple of weeks ago, but it was the idiots in front of her who stopped short because they missed a turn on the Post Road! She pleaded not guilty, but hasn't gotten a court date yet. I'm calling my lawyer as soon as she gets it.

They'll probably drop it. Even though I heard recently that it's come down from on high that there are to be no more nolles and no more deals.

Shit's about to get interesting up in this bitch. Could New England be the cutting edge of the revolution again?

Shit's about to get interesting up in this bitch. Could New England be the cutting edge of the revolution again?

Posted by: brian at June 20, 2011 1:11 PM

Maybe, but I think it all depends on the issue that sparks said revolution. Guns? The south/mountain west will resist the most. Crime/urban violence? South/Rustbelt most likely, maybe the eastern seaboard. Taxes? Almost anyone. :)

I once got a parking ticket on Confederate Memorial day, a state holiday. The parking meter had a notice that said you did not have to pay on holidays. I assumed the police and other authorities knew what the rules were. I don't assume that anymore.

Don't click this link unless you want to get really pissed off (especially if you live in California)...

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/government-22157-special-public.html

Just a sampling...

Readers have been shocked to learn that California has about 1 million citizens who are literally above the law. Members of this group, as a Register front-page article April 6 detailed, can drive their cars as fast as they choose. They can drink a six-pack of beer at a bar and then get behind the wheel and weave their way home. They can zoom in and out of traffic, run traffic lights, roll through stop signs and ignore school crossing zones. They can ride on toll roads for free, park in illegal spots and drive on High Occupancy Vehicle lanes even if they have no passengers in the car with them. Chances are they will never have to pay a fine or get a traffic citation.

They are a special class of people, basically exempt from the laws the rest of us must follow. This isn't a small number, either. Drivers of one of every 22 California cars and light trucks on the road have this special immunity, which should cause our government leaders and law enforcement authorities - always eager to protect us from any perceived problem - to demand a fix to this real public safety threat. Think about what this means: a million drivers who can endanger our lives with near impunity. I can hear it now: "There ought to be a law!"

But instead of pushing for a fix, most legislators are trying to expand the program so that even more people can have the special "we're above the law" license plates. What gives? The answer is sickeningly obvious. The Special People are those who work for law enforcement or other government agencies or are their family members.

Sucks, doesn't it? I warned you not to click that link.

"A $64 parking ticket for a mistake -- sleeping in, not noticing a sign, overstaying -- is just ridiculous."

Those are all "mistakes" that can be avoided - by using an alarm clock, looking for a sign to make sure you're not at risk of a ticket, and either parting with one more quarter or watching your time.

And where did you get the idea that you shouldn't have to pay just because it was inadvertent? No one gets tickets on purpose, just as no one has car accidents on purpose. But when you're at fault, if you're an adult, you stop whining, take responsibility, and pay up.

That isn't much different than the FOP medallions that are on many vehicles in other states.

A former coworker's F-I-L was a cop. He had the outright medallion on his car attached to the plate. Not just the simple FOP sticker. The F-I-L never drove the car.

Want to guess how many times he was pulled over?

In Indiana, you used to be able to just pay your ticket if you didn't go to court to contest it. No court costs were incurred unless you wanted to contest the ticket and lost in court. Now, it doesn't seem to matter. My boyfriend just got a ticket for running a red light because he was pulling a loaded trailer and couldn't safely stop in time. The ticket itself was only $35 which we were prepared to pay. He went into the courthouse to pay it, plead guilty and was told he would still have to pay court costs and the ticket cost rose to $150. I know this isn't as astronomical as some of the costs mentioned above, but it's the same principal. Indiana's budget is not busted, but I suspect it suffered some damage due to the cap placed on property taxes as fines and fees for other petty crimes and state services have risen. For instance, a friend of mine was just charged $850 for doing 5 miles over the speed limit in an unmanned construction zone.

Absolutely agree about parking tickets, of course, but in terms of avoiding them....c'mon, Amy, you parked in Santa Monica without getting out, looking for the nearest sign, and reading it carefully? You've lived on the west side long enough to know better than that!

I'm also of the opinion that L.A. and Santa Monica are a giant class action suit waiting to happen -- I have seen many a parking 'sign' (i.e., five signs on one pole detailing the many limitations, exclusions, and rules) that I had to spend some time decoding before deciding whether to park there, and I have a master's degree. Is it legal/constitutional/fair to have parking signs that require a greater command of language and literacy than is required to pass the drivers test?

And I'm not even going to get into the signs that require you to know not only what time it is and what day it is, but also how many Tuesdays there are this month and whether you're on the third or fourth. Argh!

I make it almost an article of religion (minus the God part)to contest parking tickets in writing each and every time. It's a jungle out there -- the city wants your money, and my firm belief is they are going to have to work damn hard for it. Amy, my success rate is about one in three. (And, for sure, I'd never set foot in a courtroom -- total waste of time.) I wish you luck.

"For instance, a friend of mine was just charged $850 for doing 5 miles over the speed limit in an unmanned construction zone."

In Alabama, for a while the state highway department had a racket going with county police in several counties where they'd post a "construction zone" on I-65 or I-20 in an area where no construction was actually taking place. Then they'd lower the speed limit to 45 and start hitting people with construction-zone fines. The state legislature responded with legislation that clarifies what speed limits are permitted in construction zones, and makes it clear that the double fines can only be assessed when there are actually construction workers in the immediate area.

I'm impressed that they allow you to write in contesting the ticket. The last ticket I got, you could only write in if you were pleading guilty.

Fun story about time wasters for tickets too, I got ticketed for expired tabs. Yep, they were expired, I did the crime, paid the fine, all that. It was $100, which apparently is reasonable, compared to what I'm seeing here. Only, the cop said his printer wasn't working, so he'd mail out the ticket with the citation #. I got it a week or so later, thought it was taken care of. Turns out, when he tried to print the ticket the first time, it registered in the database, and when he printed it out later, it registered as a new ticket, with a different citation #.

So a month after I've paid for my ticket, I get a notice that my license will be suspended if I don't pay the fine. I wrote the citation # on the check I sent, double check, it's different. Look up the citations online, it's the same except for a couple of hours time difference.

I call in to get the second one dismissed, the woman I spoke to said that even though it's the same officer, in the exact same location, she can't just dismiss it because it's legal for an officer to FOLLOW YOU DOWN THE ROAD ISSUING CITATIONS if you continue to drive the vehicle with expired tabs after being ticketed. My only recourse was to call the officer myself, and have him dismiss the ticket.

I got to spend a half day of my own time, using my own phone, tracking down the officer through the city police dept, and passing messages back and forth between him and the woman at the court who could dismiss the ticket, in order for it to be finally dismissed.

That has to be my favorite bit about the police essentially becoming money collectors. They no longer "protect and serve" the citizens, they merely serve the state's monetary fund.

Intersting piece, I been thinking about this for a few months now and have to say I agree.