As always, these are real emails from readers.  Previous mailbag entries can be found here and here.

My problem has to do with a campus parking ticket issued by [city redacted].  I was visiting a local campus to retrieve an image from the library’s special collections, and I drove around looking for visitor’s parking for a good thirty minutes.  Finding none, I parked on a street where other cars had parked along one side.  (I looked for a sign indicating that the area was zoned for special parking permits and found none.)  When I returned from the library, I had a ticket on my car that was missing a piece of critical information: the amount of the fine.  (The ticket also described my car as a four-door when it was a two, but I suppose mistakes like that happen.)  What was most surprising to me, however, was the nature of the violation: NO PARKING along that street.  At all.  You can imagine my surprise, considering the abundance of other vehicles that were parked there…and the fact that none of them had tickets on their windshields.  I missed the small “no parking” sign because I was surrounded by other violators up and down the street.  I don’t know why my vehicle would have been targeted, but [state1/state2 redacted] politics certainly encourage the view that my out-of-state plate grabbed the officer’s attention.

When it comes to the motivation behind the ticket, I can only speculate.  However, do you see any irregularities in the situation that might allow me to petition for a dismissal?

I have good news and bad news.  To build suspense, I will discuss the bad news first.  Saying “I parked there because I saw other people doing it” is a very common defense that every parking ticket judge will have heard many times before.  Unfortunately, it never works; society cannot permit this sort of mob mentality behavior to go unchecked when the law is broken.  Additionally, “I received a ticket but other people didn’t” is an equally common, and equally ineffective, defense and will do you no good.  Inconsistent enforcement is never viewed as an acceptable defense to parking ticket liability.  There are a variety of reasons for this, but I won’t go into them here.

Here is the good news: most jurisdictions consider the fine amount to be a critical part of a valid ticket, and a prima facie dismissal of the parking ticket is usually the outcome in such instances where the fine amount or other critical information is missing.  There should be an entry somewhere within your state’s Vehicle Code (note that I say “should” because I am not certain) that outlines exactly what information is required for a valid ticket.  I would be very surprised to learn that the fine amount is not considered required information.  Thus, you should be able to get this ticket waived or dismissed because the issuing body (the local police or whatever) has failed to make its prima facie case against you.  Remember, though: this all assumes that [state redacted] views the fine amount as critical information necessary to create a valid parking ticket.  Best of luck.  (Note: I later found out that this state does NOT view the fine amount as critical.  Oops.)  Next question.

My car was parked right in front of my home. I forgot to move it this morning as it was street cleaning today so I got a ticket. The no parking time is from 8:30am to 10:00am.  I got the ticket at 8:40am.  I really do not want to pay for it. Is there anything I can do other than fleeting to another country???  The guy wrote the make of my car as BUIC which should be BUICK…..but….I guess…

First, traffic officers in many jurisdictions will write only the first four letters of a vehicle’s make, so ‘BUIC’ would be perfectly valid.  Even if the make was wrong (if it said ‘FORD’ or something), this would still not be enough to waive the ticket–no jurisdiction (to my knowledge) unconditionally requires that the vehicle make be on the ticket for the ticket to be valid.

Other than that, I’m not sure what else I can tell you.  You parked your car and forgot to move it for street cleaning, so you broke the law and deserved the ticket.  Additionally, it does not seem as though there were any procedural errors on the ticket, such as an incorrect license plate.  My opinion is that you should pay the fine and not waste anyone’s time with an appeal.

This same reader later sent another potential defense my way for vetting:

Maybe i should argue that im from [state 1] and was still using [state 1] time? There is 3 hours difference from [state 2, where the ticket was issued]

No.

That’s all for now.  Feel free to comment.

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