F—— Parking Tickets

Parking tickets sure trigger emotional responses.

Here are some real-time reactions from real people all over the United States *

• “First parking ticket, I literally lit it on fire”  Connecticut
• “First a parking ticket and then my car gets backed into. F— this day”  South Carolina
• “I got a $120 ticket for parking on campus frequently. No f—— s—. I’m a student hence my f—— parking pass. I hate this school”  North Carolina
• “I am fighting City Hall. I just got a reminder to pay a parking ticket I never received. Maybe because I wasn’t parked you M————” California 

Why do people react this way? It’s just a piece of paper. Pay the $2, and forget about it.  Here are some thoughts:

• It’s a lot more than $2
• The size of the fine doesn’t fit the crime
• The parking ticket warrior’s mission is to issue as many parking tickets as humanly possible
• I wasn’t parking illegally and still received a parking ticket
• I was only 1 minute late
• There’s no consistency in the way parking tickets are issued
• The meter was broken

What can I do about this? What action should I take when I’m issued a parking ticket?

• Make sure the information on the face of the ticket is entered correctly. If the information is defective, in NYC, you win
• Find out if you have a defense to the parking ticket. In NYC, you win if you are issued a parking ticket for double parking; but you were stopped while discharging a passenger
• Do not ignore the ticket. Here’s a quote from a guy in Chicago:

“Remember when you could shove a parking ticket in your glove box and forget it? No longer, the City wants it’s money”

Commentary

Great advice. In NYC, if you ignore a parking ticket for more than 100 days, a judgment will be entered against you. Your car can be impounded. Remember, even if you get rid of the car, the judgment is against YOU.

Have you had a similar reaction to receiving a parking ticket? Why? Do you have any thoughts about why people react so emotionally to a parking ticket? Let us know what you’re thinking.

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