So many banners that fit this appalling story, so little room.
Ironic, isn’t it, that in our nation’s capital, that bastion of freedom, democracy and due process that we find this. Sounds pretty unconstitutional to me, so now’s the time for all good conservatives to finally admit we are falling into totalitarianism and rebel!
Cities Eliminate Right to Contest Parking Tickets
In an attempt to stem the loss of revenue from motorists contesting parking tickets, cities are effectively eliminating the traditional due process rights of motorists to defend themselves at an impartial hearing. By the end of next year, Washington, DC’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will not allow anyone who believes he unfairly received a citation to have his day in an administrative hearing.
[…]
The move is intended to allow automated street sweeper parking ticket machines to boost the number of infractions cited well beyond the 1.6 million currently handed out by meter maids. As one-third of those who contest citations in the city are successful, the hearings cut significantly into the $100 million in revenue tickets generate each year.Under the DMV’s plan, motorists will only be able to object to a ticket by email or letter where city employees can ignore or reject letters in bulk without affected motorists having any realistic recourse. […] Maryland’s Inspector General has uncovered 10,000 bogus parking tickets issued to innocent motorists. In Boston and other cities in Massachusetts, motorists cannot challenge a $100 parking ticket in court without first paying a $275 court fee. If found innocent, the motorist does not receive a refund of the $275.
Sit on your couches and watch American Idol some more…
This is YOUR government people. Get involved or shut the hell up when it comes time to bitch.
Just great I left a police state for another one!!
#1, you forgot: GO SHOPPING!
Oh by the way, Al Qaida is going to blow up your mall.
Ha Ha Ha Ha! It must be getting near the ‘Holiday Season!’
How about some landlords throwing out families in the snow stories?
(on Christmas Eve of course!)
Democrats run city governments, John.
I’d like to read Mental Midget Mike and Philleep defend this.
When trying to contest a ticket in Chicago you are greeted by a “guy” with an Italian accent that will ask you… “You don’t really want to do this. Do you?”
“The move is intended to allow automated street sweeper parking ticket machines to boost the number of infractions cited well beyond the 1.6 million currently handed out by meter maids. ”
What the hell are these? Robot meter maids? At 30 bucks a ticket, it’s probably more in DC that 48 million. Sorry fleecing you people for 50 million wasn’t enough. I personally don’t believe in street sweepers. The street doesn’t look any cleaner when they pass. They pretty much just push the dirt around. It’s a big scam.
I got an LA parking ticket a couple of years ago that was bogus; I was not in LA on the date cited, and the car cited has NEVER been in LA in the 10 years we’ve owned it. So I fought and (eventually) won. The skids are already greased to have you just pay up and make the problem go away. I had to file first for an administrative hearing, which is just an employee of the Parking Violations Bureau looking over the citation to make sure it’s OK. These employees are NOT paid to find you not guilty, so of course, they don’t. The next step is to request a hearing in person or by mail. You have to pay the ticket amount to get this hearing. I ended up going to this stage and won this time.
The statement of the hearing officer was pretty interesting, because the car cited was my Toyota Camry. The original citation (which I never saw, by the way) was issued to a white pontiac (my Camry is gold). So the people in the office who claimed the citation was “substantially valid” were blind and could not read, apparently.
So this development is a travesty. I hope that someone will take the city to court over this practice before it spreads…
Eh, Fusion, what makes you think I would support this or think it’s a good idea?
Time to bring back tar and feathering of politicians.
I don’t think this is really a republican or democrat issue. This is wrong, plain and simple, someone should take this one on, and get this bad law struck down.
By the way, isn’t the city of Washington DC pretty much run by liberals?
They should automatically issue a weekly parking ticket to any ahole that owns a Hummer or Expedition for taking up too much parking space in the first place.
Talking to my sister today about living in China and the US – she lives in Denver and I live in China…
The US is either moving more to China or China is moving more to the US…hard to tell which one it is now. đ
Cheers
#12…Liberals and Moderate Democrats….all the cities elected officals are Dems. and the city is administered by Congress which happens to be Dems. at the moment. Most of the large cities in this country are run by Democrats……so I don’t Mr. Cornfusion’s reference to Phillip and Mike. Be careful Cornfusion, they will take your putor privledges away again at the home. đ
And as someone above said…it’s really not a party issue….just a screw the people issue.
Ah, the good old days. I went to college in CA before they passed a similar we-just-want-your-money law. Prior to that, you could fight any parking ticket and of course mandate that the meter maid show in court. As you can imagine, they never did. Being a college student, I of course had plenty of time on my hands so I parked wherever I pleased: handicap spots, professor spots, the chancellor’s spot once (that was especially sweet). During the first year or so, parking enforcement would dutifully issue a ticket. I would then fight the ticket, win because of a no-show by the meter maid and go on my merry way. In any given month, I had a dozen or more arraignments or court appearances to attend (The court room was a great place to study). After about a year or so, they stopped ticketing my car no matter where I parked on campus. I once double parked in a handicap spot and watch a parking enforcement car drive right, look at my plate and keep on driving.
A couple of years after I graduated, I saw that they changed the law so that you could not mandate that the meter maid show up in court. It was the end of an era.
Lame, Thomas. That’s just lame.
Unfortunately, Unca Dave, there’s nothing to be done at the court level.
“Sounds pretty unconstitutional to me…”
Nope. Y’see, it’s merely a violation of a municipal regulation – IOW, it is not a crime, and since it’s not, Constitutional rights do not apply. Sorree.
DC is my birthplace, and I’m here to tell you that the rampant corruption and incompetence in District government is a textbook example of the social cancer which is affirmative action. The city govt as well as the bulk of Federal employees got their jobs through race and gender “minority” setasides – merit – particularly the actual ability to do the job – is literally 100% irrelevant to the hiring and promotion process. Next time you bitch about the incompetence and waste of the Federal govt, remember that…
#15, Joshua,
And as someone above saidâŚitâs really not a party issueâŚ.just a screw the people issue.
Which is why I wanted to see Mental Midget Mike and Philleep defend it. In fact, even your defense is funny. Conservatives have a great propensity to screw âthe peopleâ.
… all the cities elected officals are Dems. and the city is administered by Congress which happens to be Dems.
As far as I know, ALL cities in the US elect their own representatives. Any citizen may run for office, regardless of their party affiliation.
I am unaware of officals. Is that something like a Council Member or Alderman? Every city is answerable to their State, except for the District of Columbia which is answerable to Congress. Congress does not âadministerâ any city in the US.
Don’t they teach Civics in Home School?
Sad. What happens if the mass transit commies get their way and the number of cars goes down, then who do they screw next?
Well, Fusion, that pretty much defines your world. “Who” is much more important than “what”. Any position taken by your tribe will always be right, anyone taking a position that does not conform is a retard, villain, or both.
DC is apparently the worst place to own a car. The cops have special kickbacks with towing companies, and you can get your car towed even if parked legally. They won’t even tell you it’s been towed when you go to the police to file a stolen car report. After a week or so, you might owe more in towing and storage charges than the car is worth.
They also have speed and red-light cameras where a private company makes hundreds of dollars per ticket, and good luck getting a hearing for those. Now they’ve expanded it to parking tickets it seems. Way back when, Bob Barr (remember him) tried to put a stop to this, since Congress can dictate to the DC government, but nothing happened.
#12 – By the way, isnât the city of Washington DC pretty much run by liberals?
No…
In fact, you can probably count all the liberals in American politics without taking off your shoes.
It’s mostly right wing ass-hats and pussy centrists. The voting public has been allergic to the intellectually superior liberal candidates for a while now.
LOL, to agree with OFTLO. Sort of.
No, they are not actual Liberals. Yes, that is what they call themselves and what the people who vote for them think they are.
How does a Warlord recruit new followers? By promising them a share of the loot.
How does a “Liberal” politician recruit voters? By promising them a share of the loot.
#19 Mr. Cornfusion….wtf are you rambling about? Of course ALL cities elect their own goverments, and in many of the larger ones the Democrats are the majority. Not nessesarily Liberal, but Democratic in outlook.
There might be some state laws that supercede local law on *parking* ticket’s but I’m not aware of them……this is usually a local(county, or municipality) area of concern. And in this case we are dealing with Washington D.C., which has a unigue system of goverment(not counting that the corruption level exceeds critical mass). While OFFICALS may be elected or appointed(if appointed, they usually reflect the party in power), they still remain OFFICALS. These are the people who set traffic law for their city. Even D.C. council has the power to set city parking and traffic laws or ordinences.
As to Conservative’s screwing the people……well maybe neo-con’s do that, but a conservative usually believes in LESS goverment intrusion into our lives not more(as opposed to Liberals)….which leads to LESS screwing of the general public than the nanny state(your preferred form of goverment, or is that tyannany?).
So what you are saying is that… if I was a cop in DC I could give out a ticket to every parked car I saw and the owners of those vehicles ability to fight those tickets would effectively become nill?
Shouldn’t someone realize that the problem here isn’t that money is being lost because of people are actually fighting and wining against these parking tickets, but rather that too many faulty/invalid parking tickets are being pushed into the system?
How much does it cost to prosecute a ticket for the city? Officer who filed it, paper pushers who move it, and everyone else who is involved with the fight… how much time is that per person? who much money is that per ticket? Wouldn’t a more logical solution be to simply do some research into what is the most commonly fought (and/or won) ticket appeal and change the laws regarding those situations or the procedures involved with issuing tickets for those situations? That should in theory cut down on the # of faulty/invalid tickets being issued and thus reduce the # of people/time/money dealing with issued tickets?
I don’t know how many people who are issued tickets actually decide to fight it (especially when there are a lot of people who don’t have the time, or money to fight it with) but with roughly 1/3 of those who do wining one can assume that there are a hell of a lot of faulty tickets being issued…
#25, Joshua,
While OFFICALS may be elected or appointed(if appointed, they usually reflect the party in power), they still remain OFFICALS.
You still don’t get it. Check out FreeDictionary.com. Here is what they had to say about OFFICALS.
offical
Word not found in the Dictionary and Encyclopedia.
You might have meant Official
Aahh, but fool that you are, you earlier posted this gem:
all the cities elected officals are Dems.
Then turn around and post this one.
Of course ALL cities elect their own goverments, and in many of the larger ones the Democrats are the majority.
So, which is it? Do all the cities elect Dems only or just many?
Usually spelling and grammar do not count. It is only because you have brayed about the superiority of being home schooled and then attending Oxford to studying law that I am taking you to task. Anyone who has any post elementary civics education would understand that municipalities may only enact laws in accordance with guidelines set by their State.
BTW, for your civics education, âOfficialsâ are appointed to their position. âRepresentativesâ, in Washington DC are called âCouncil Membersâ plus the âMayorâ, are elected. So the Head of the Parking Authority is an Official while the Mayor and the Council Members are representatives. Officials always answer to Representatives while the Representatives answer to the people at election time.
#24 – How does a âLiberalâ politician recruit voters? By promising them a share of the loot.
How is that different from a conservative politician? The greatest trick the Republican Party ever pulled was to convince poor and middle-class voters that the Republican Party was concerned about them.
WAKE UP AMERICA, You voyed these idiots in. Doesn’t anybody realize you can vote their asses out?
Stop Voting for All the Fools at the next election, and VOTE FOR YOUR SELF!!!
You’ll wake them up real fast!!! At the Next Primary! Vot for YOU!
I was charged with a ticket for a city I never even set foot in!
Apparently my Toyota is a Saturn! Heck with copying skills such as though, no wonder the person who was originally in violation never paid up at all and now I get framed for it!