Last Updated on September 25, 2017 by Lawrence Berezin
Parking ticket excuses and children have a lot in common
How many of our children have tried a gazillion excuses for not doing their homework? “I was kidnapped by Martians,” “Someone stole my notebook,” The teacher forgot to hand out the homework assignment,” “It’s not due until Tisha B’Av.” Is your child guilty? Of course!
Well, if you try some of the parking ticket excuses I hear every week, the Judge will not blink an eye before finding you guilty.
1.”I wasn’t parked. I was sitting behind the wheel with the motor running. That’s standing not parking.”
If you learn one solitary thing from perusing this website, please learn stopping, standing and parking is the SAME THING. The only difference is you are not considered standing or parking when you are actively engaged in picking up or discharging a passenger (or property in a no parking zone, only). When you halt your vehicle for a New York minute, you are stopping, standing and parking; regardless of whether you are in the car, your motor is running, you only stopped for a second to answer your cell phone, or you had to run into the store to go to the bathroom, etc.
2.”I stopped my car temporarily to drop off my 110-year-old mother, and was simply watching her jog into the building.”
You can stop, drop and go. You can never stop, drop and watch!
3.”There was no yellow curb indicating the length of the bus stop.”
That’s because the parking laws do not require any notice of the length of a bus stop. You will never find a painted curb to help you with any parking rule; especially not the length of a bus stop. A bus stop begins at the sign with a bus in a circle on top of a pole. A bus stop extends from the bus stop sign in the direction of the arrow(s) until the next parking sign or the end of the block.
4.”There was plenty of room for the bus to fit”
Fugetaboutit!
5.”My car was only about one (1) inch into [fill in the blank]
And, I was only a little pregnant.
6.”The parking ticket warrior said I parked seven (7) feet from the fire hydrant and I know I parked ten (10) feet away. Can I get my parking ticket dismissed
You cannot park within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. The warrior is required to insert a distance from the fire hydrant to your car in your parking ticket. The judge doesn’t care if the distance inserted by the warrior is accurate. You win if you can prove you were more than 15 feet from the hydrant.
7.”I was the only car to get a parking ticket”
The warrior was picking on me. She singled me out from all the other bad cars. Unfortunately, everyone else being bad is not a defense to a parking ticket.
8.”I’ve never received a parking ticket before for double parking on the opposite side of the street during street cleaning time”
Sorry, Charley. Not permitted. Just because you walk past a big, old crocodile for 2 years, doesn’t mean she’s not going to bite you the next time you walk by. Crocodiles are very unpredictable.
9.”The parking ticket warrior never asked me to move my car”
Why would he? The Marquess of Queensberry rules does not apply to NYC parking tickets.
10.”I thought Martin Luther King’s Birthday was a Major Legal Holiday”
Me, too. But, we’re both wrong. It is only a “Legal Holiday.”You must obey all parking signs.
Commentary
Knowledge is power. You will save a lot of money and aggravation by learning some of the basic rules of the NYC parking ticket game. Remember, there is no crying in baseball or when you fight a parking ticket.
Do you have any good parking ticket excuses that work? Share…Please!
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