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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."
Those sites and processes only work if you are willing to appeal the judges decision and go through the effort. Plan on the judge looking at you and saying "guilty" in court--they know it's a matter of numbers and most people will just pay the ticket and go about their business. The sites are more of a rip-off than just paying the darned things.
Trust me on this--I've tried.
Peace!
I've seen a lot of bad parking jobs.
I almost got a ticket once, because the parking meter I was parked at ran out. The parking enforcement officer came up, tapped on my window, and asked "Are you going to pay that, or do I have to write you a ticket?"
I pointed at the car that had double parked beside me. I hadn't stayed to be a scofflaw, I had stayed because there was a car blocking me in.
The officer was much more interested in writing the ticket for parking in the road, blocking traffic, etc, etc. When the lady noticed her car was getting ticketed, she ran over, jumped in, and took off. I hope she got the ticket in the mail.
But likewise, not all tickets are legitimate.
I got ticketed once, for parking in my own driveway. They believed my bumper was "too close" to the sidewalk. Since the other bumper was against the garage door, and the vehicle wasn't in any way blocking the sidewalk, they were just looking for anything to ticket. I lived there over a year, and always parked there, and only was ticketed once. They should have made more of an effort to ticket the people who parked across my driveway. Sometimes I couldn't leave because they were blocking me in.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
You're right, there is absolutely nothing about this that makes it iPhone specific. Any camera phone with a web browser (or any other combination of camera and web browser...) can do the very same thing.
Of course, adding "iPhone" to the title of anything suddenly makes it 100x more newsworthy in the eyes of fanboys :)
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Parking tickets should be backed up with photographs anyways, taken by the ticket-writer.
There's hundreds of years of jurisprudence based on the idea that an eyewitness account of an alleged act, delivered by a person bound by oath to be truthful, can be accepted by the court as evidence supporting the alleged act. Why would you want to reverse that?
Taken to a logical end, wouldn't this also mean that rapists, murderers, and kidnappers would walk free if none of the witnesses to their crimes happened to have a cameraphone handy at the right moment?
If you get ticketed, you're always free to take your own photographs of the scene and bring them to court with you when you contest the ticket.
There isn't a jurisdiction in the United States that will give you a jury trial for a parking 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.
I live in Washington state, where it's illegal to use a hand-held phone while driving. If I'm trying to immediately contest a ticket and get pulled over for using a phone while driving, will parkingticket.com automatically contest that one as well? Otherwise it's gonna be a vicious circle.
#DeleteChrome
Obligatory
Taken to a logical end, wouldn't this also mean that rapists, murderers, and kidnappers would walk free if none of the witnesses to their crimes happened to have a cameraphone handy at the right moment?
Aside from the case of staying in one place too long, the extra work of taking photographic evidence of a parking violation is trivial; thus the inability of the ticket writer to generate such a photograph is strong evidence that the parking violation did not actually occur.
This is not the case for rape, murder, and kidnapping.
If you get ticketed, you're always free to take your own photographs of the scene and bring them to court with you when you contest the ticket.
Anyone can produce a photograph of the car parked legally whether the violation occurred or not, so such a photograph indicates nothing.
I've contested a parking ticket in NYC (came back from walking 25 feet to the muni-meter to get my receipt to find the car being written up, at which point the ticket-writer said there wouldn't be any problem). Despite providing the receipt and an affadavit from my passenger, no fine reduction for me. Luckily it was in Queens so it was "only" $75.
Or you can not be an asshole, and not park in the handicapped spot in the first place. Those exist for a reason, and while there's usually more than needed, I've been in situations where I wasn't able to use the parking space I needed because some fuckwit in a BMW M3 parked in the handicapped spot.
Fortunately, there was a cop shop next door, and I went there instead. The officer who wrote the ticket said "unfortunately, being mentally handicapped doesn't count unless you've got a permit". I get a warmfuzzy when I remember that it was a $300 fine.
And for those wondering why I was using the space, it was shortly after the training accident that got me out of the military, when the doctors thought I wouldn't be able to walk again. Thankfully, I found a good surgeon and don't need the permit any more.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
People who want to park their cars for free are pathetic whiners. Cars cost our society an enormous amount. Why shouldn't the individual using the car pay for some of the car's costs?
That said, I did get in illegitimate parking ticket once (parked under a sign with restriction hours posted on it, outside the restriction hours). They dismissed it, eventually.
But I suspect that the overwhelming majority of parking tickets are perfectly legitimate and completely deserved.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
They should have made more of an effort to ticket the people who parked across my driveway. Sometimes I couldn't leave because they were blocking me in.
A buddy of mine had that problem. He spraypainted all over the car in "chalk paint" that washes off very easy, it's used by car lots.
HE WRITES : DONT PARK HERE ASSHOLE
He says he has to do it only once to a person and they wont park within a block of his driveway.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You're right. The website isn't even iPhone-optimized.
At what point in the story do we find out the Cities in question are all joint members of this site as a way to make some extra $$$?
Excuse me while I re-adjust my tinfoil hat.
WTF? Over?
Sure they're happy, if you pay for the tow yourself. Everywhere I've ever lived, the only way to get a car towed at the driver's expense is to go through the police, which is cumbersome and mostly pointless, unless you somehow live in a magic fantasy land where cops aren't lazy pricks.
In Texas not only can they tow you, but even if they tow you illegally, you still have to pay.
To actually get your money back you have to sue in small claims court.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Please, please, please pretty please stop trying to 'optimize' sites for the iPhone. It has a perfectly functional browser that deals with normal web pages just fine. Just build a normal standards compliant page that scales gracefully - which you should be doing anyway.
Culture is more than commerce
Seems like this could be abused pretty easily...
I live in downtown Denver, and get tickets all the freakin' time. They're not BS-parking-nazi-on-crack tickets, I just forget to pay my meter, and bam- $25 ticket.
So, if I read this correctly, if I use them to contest every ticket (even though I full-on deserved it):
1) Pay 50% deposit, so give them $12.50
2) Ticket gets upheld, because they look in the computer and see that I get tickets all the time (been booted several times). So, they refund my $12.50 + 10% ($2.50) = $15.00
3) I pay my $25 to the city, -$15.00 refunded, and bam I've reduced a $25.00 ticket to a $10.00 jusy by going online.
I guess the easier solution would just be to keep a roll of quarters in my car, but at that kind of discount, I can't afford NOT to get tickets!