Slashdot Mirror
Use Your iPhone To Get Out of a Ticket
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Parkingticket.com just announced new compatibility with the Safari web browser on Apple's iPhone, giving you new tools to immediately contest a parking ticket. The site is so confident in their service that if all steps are followed and the ticket is still not dismissed they will pay $10 towards your ticket. "The process begins by navigating the iPhone's Safari browser to the Parkingticket.com website where you'll find a straightforward means to fight a parking ticket; whether the ticket was issued in New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia or Washington, D.C. Simply register for a free account and choose the city in which the ticket was issued. Enter your ticket and vehicle details then answer a few quick questions. The detailed process takes about ten minutes, from A-Z. To allow easy entry of your ticket, a look-a-like parking ticket is displayed — for your specific city — with interactive functionality."
How exactly will you fight a legit ticket?
Doesn't look like anything special.. just an automated ambulance-chasing service. They get 50% of the price of the ticket by filing some forms to contest it. There must be a low conviction rate for parking tickets (or people who fight them), and they're just taking advantage of that fact. To top it all off, they get all of your personal information, including the make, model, and plate numbers of your vehicle. I'm not sure whether an attorney-client relationship would exist in this scenario, but even if it did, they could probably resell anonymized information.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Wouldn't any phone with a camera and internet access do? Why does it have to be an iPhone? What about a laptop and digital camera?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
So basically, this site has nothing whatsoever to do with the iPhone except actually working on the browser. The screenshot shows that's it not even an iPhone-specific page.
-mkb
I thought /. had human editors. I guess I was mistaken.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Wouldn't it be easier to just obey parking laws?
Plus you get that warm glow which comes from knowing that you made one less space available to genuinely disabled people ! Epic win !
Squirrel!
I think the iPhone just became a positive ROI for many people in these areas.
Or any other phone that has a half-decent web browser. All this thing does is launch Safari to take you to their website. The only reason the press release mentions the iPhone is because that's a virtual guarantee that it will be spread all over creation via the news wires and sites that don't actually read the articles beyond a few keywords such as, say, Slashdot.
Under cursory review of the above terms, it still sounds like an excellent hedge when one gets a ticket. Sure, it's not a great deal if you're experienced with combating tickets, but for someone who otherwise would have just paid the ticket or thrown their arms up in the air when trying to figure out the dispute process, it sounds like a bargain.
Street parking time limits are meant to provide short-term parking for people to use for short visits to area businesses. The maximum time limit enforces churn.
-mkb
Doesn't matter. Parking tickets are "infractions" or "violations" and technically not crimes. So the bill of rights does not apply. Obviously there's no difference in real life, but in the legal fantasy land our courts occupy there is.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Not only any phone browser, but No phone neccessary. You could just log on with your computer.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
I really can't stand assholes like this either...I was in a chair for about a year but could walk with crutches for short amounts of time (like a few hours a day max), and even then I didn't use the handicapped spots. I figured someone with more need probably could use them (even if that meant I needed to walk a block further).
Sadly, it was generally overpriveledged yuppies or 18 year old punks that needed them more...
When parking your car becomes a central theme in your life, you need to consider living somewhere else.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Wouldn't that mean that they are charging for legal advice, and can then be prosecuted for practicing law (in every state) without being a member of the Bar?
I don't doubt you did. Criminal cops are a common breed. The question isn't usually IF the cop is dirty, the question generally is how dirty is the cop.
In my experience, those spots are almost universally occupied by an SUV with a legitimate tag hanging from the rear view mirror. Of course, then you see that 250 pound GOD BLESS AMERICAN waddling over to it. I guess when you're fat enough to develop late onset adult diabetes you get to walk less?
That just seems backwards. They should give all those fat asses a special tag and designated spots on the far side of the parking lot.
Culture is more than commerce
I don't like any form of hate speech... but I like censorship even less
take my view to be whatever you will
I do wonder if you would vote for a law that would punish a person for using said word on the street... I mean people by far and large are anonymous in large public places. just wondering, that's all.
then again, why stop at just that one word?
you can guess where this is going, and so I will stop here.
"It's the Law of the Universe, and I'm the sheriff." Slash-cott 2/10-2/17
Math.
You fail at it.
Because then the crime is "failure to appear" before a court when so ordered, and they take that seriously. It seems silly when they make such a big deal out of not showing up for your court date for a seatbelt violation, but I'm okay with it -- a blanket rule saying "Show up to court when lawfully ordered" seems fair to me, and if that means treating the same the dweeb who ran a stop sign and the important witness on a felony charge, so be it. When told to show up, you'd better to do it, and nevermind whether you think it's stupid.
That aside, the way they skirt around the jury trial in traffic violations is by calling them "violations", "infractions", or "administrative matters", and not "crimes". Personally I find that laughable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that you can get arrested, have to post bond, and go through all the other legal BS for this thing which is allegedly not a crime, just a "violation".
The reason they do this is twofold: First, there is no way in hell they'd ever get a panel of twelve average Joes to convict you for little bullshit non-moving violations, and the same is true for most moving violations since nobody really cares that you were doing 70 on the highway marked 55, especially since as jurors they're all locals and they all know that everyone does 70 on that highway. Second, there is rarely, if ever, any evidence in these matters -- the cop charges you and says you did something (ran a stop sign? parked too close to a hydrant? who knows?) and that's all they've got. Pointing out that the only "evidence" against you is an accusation would get most juries to let you go, and the state doesn't want that.
Hence, you're given a "bench trial" instead, where the judge will claim to be impartial but is on the state's payroll and has a vested interest in making sure matters turn out in the state's favor.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
You don't always want the same webpage when you visit a site on the iPhone as on a normal browser. For one, it's often nice to have pages wider than 320 px - if you limit yourself to that as a webdesigner then you're really going to be pressed.
You do realise that the Iphone isn't the only hand-held browsing device out there - and never was, by several years?
Sure, there is perhaps an argument for optimising for small browsers, but there's still no justification for optimising for the Iphone's browser.