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."
I think the iPhone just became a positive ROI for many people in these areas.
Will its wonders never cease!
With Steve Jobs' magic, of course!
With a caramel Frappucino in one hand, and an iPhone in the other, the elite of the major metropolitan areas can not be stopped!
In New York City, the government offers to settle a ticket for 50% if you just challenge the ticket. The company takes half of the value you save, so they probably make a killing telling everyone to challenge and pay the settlement.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
So, in effect, they're profiting off the crimes of others?
They charge a fee of half the ticket fine, which they reimburse if the ticket does not get dismissed.
Jean-Francois Im's blog
Gasp, you mean like lawyers do?
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
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!
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
What about this scenario?
$30.00 parking ticket.
deposit $15.00.
The ticket gets reduced to $25.00.
They refund $7.50, but you've still paid them $7.50.
You're out $32.50, more than the original ticket.
This happens in every case where the ticket is reduced less than 25%. They need to address this.
Still, I like the idea in general.
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.
The summary doesn't make this completely clear and the website only reveals this in a FAQ section, but this is ONLY available for tickets written in New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia or Washington, D.C.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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
Yes... it is exactly like that. Parkingticket.com has been operating for 7 years, is still in business, and releasing new products. And govworks.com was in existence for only 3 years, never really got off the ground and crashed and burned before parkingticket.com even existed. So, yes, they are very eerily similar.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
There isn't a jurisdiction in the United States that will give you a jury trial for a parking ticket.
I thought there is nothing free in this world especially the USA
There's plenty free. Air is free, and it's a lot cleaner air than when I was growing up (although cleaning up the mess industry made cost us taxpayers a bundle, and few corporations pay any US Federal Income Tax).
Rainwater waters your gardens for free.
Sunrises and sunsets are free.
You can often get condoms for free. The free ones are generally better than ones you buy from bars' rest rooms, the last one I bought at Farley's was out of date.
Heat is free in the summertime, and air conditioning is free in the winter.
The corporations all get free rides from the Federal Government.
You never heard "the best things in life are free?" It's true. You can't buy true friends.
Whoever said money doesn't grow on trees never owned an orchard!
Free Martian Whores!
Wouldn't it be easier to just obey parking laws?
So, basically, in the end, you pay 75% of the ticket price? Doesn't sound like that good a deal to me. Most tickets are in the $5 to $20 range. Maybe you'd be better off determining how to challenge local tickets for yourself.
I don't know where in NYC you've been driving but I've never seen a $5 ticket, or even $20 for that matter. Forget to renew your registration, around $65. Illegal parking below 96th Street: $105!
Most tickets are in the $5 to $20 range.
No, parking fines in Manhattan range from $65 to $115. See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/nyregion/02parking.html (multimedia sidebar popup).
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
In my old apartment in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC, there was a sign that said you could not park beyond that sign. If you assumed that you could park on the OTHER side of the sign, you would be wrong. The other side of the sign was a cross walk.
Half a block from that spot, there is another sign indicating where you can and cannot park. If you park where the sign indicates it is legal, you will get a ticket for parking too close to a fire hydrant. My friend took photos showing that the sign itself was 9 feet from the hydrant. He went to court in person. The judge said it doesn't matter where the sign is, the law says you have to be 10 feet from the hydrant.
The Washington Post has a column called Dr. Gridlock. I recall a few years back where they ran stories of tickets in DC. One person got a ticket for parking at an expired meter. He appealed by mail (which you can't even do anymore) and included a photograph showing that there were, in fact, no parking meters on the street where he was parked. His appeal was denied.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
So exactly how often do you get pulled over and issued a parking ticket?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Because the Jury would sentence the person who was trying to get out of a ticket to death for wasting their time.
You can't buy true friends.
My true friend is a RealDoll, you insensitive clod !
Squirrel!
Obligatory
I've never been to New York, so I wouldn't know. I was thinking of parking fines more in line with just about everywhere else I've been. Those fines are outrageous.
He is actually understating the fines. Or I should say, the total cost. I just had a car returned to me, with an expired inspection. I was literally driving it to the shop to have it inspected when I was pulled over for that.
I looked it up, saw it was a $25 fine (since it had just expired) and pleaded guilty. Big mistake.
2 week later I received a bill. $25 fine, as expected, and an $85 SURCHARGE. The total, for what was originally a $25 fine, became a $110 fine for an out of date inspection.
Thank god that I'm also literally moving out of this state today. 6 hr drive ahead of me, but good riddance.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
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 quite understanding the purpose behind this application. After all, the perpetrator who illegally parked their car is admitting quilt, just that they want to pay less to the government. This is what is wrong with this country in the first place. Folks are too selfish as it is, don't they realize the benefit that comes from transferring their money to the government? It is proven that that money spent by the government returns more value to society then any other type of potential spending. The sooner we all buck up and pay government it's fair share -- the sooner the economy will pick up, providing benefit to all folks in the most equitable manner possible.
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.
The clip is long, but worth it. Never seen the show before but I'm tempted to start watching. That was classic.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
I should note that after doing a little more research, I found that the company has been in business for much longer. The founder has been in the getting-out-of-parking-tickets business since 1982, designed a system called ALARM in the early nineties that performed the service for companies with fleets of vehicles, and in 2001 (when they started parkingticket.com) he estimated the company's revenue at $3MM.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
he lets them off easy. someone did that to a friend of mine, when he got home from work (construction) and there was a random Caddy parked in his driveway. he dragged their car into the middle of the street, left it in a lane of traffic, parked his truck legally in his driveway, and then called the cops. cracked a beer and watched the car get towed in 10 minutes.
That's just not slashdot's style. AFAIK there has only been one post removed from slashdot... ever. The only reason THAT one went is because the Scientologists brought out the lawyer guns.
I could be wrong, but that's what I remember of my slashdot history.