The ubiquitous NYC no standing parking ticket

New York City and a no standing parking ticket, Tony Bennett and “I Left my heart in San Francisco,”  Swallows and Capistrano, and “The Donald” and ________ (I’ll leave this one up to you).

The No Standing parking ticket is a major fundraiser for New York City. If you regularly drive in NYC, you are destined to get one. When you do, what steps should you take to maximize your chance of beating this $115 parking ticket?

-Calm down, take a deep breath, and sit quietly for a few minutes in your car

Don’t forget, you own your parking space for one hour after the time the parking ticket was issued. Use this time wisely to formulate a strategy to assassinate this costly foe.

There are three steps to planning your defense.

-The substantive defense to a No Standing parking ticket

Did you stop temporarily to drop off or pick up a passenger, and plan to skedaddle? If not, skip the rest of this paragraph.

If so, you’ve got a winnable defense. The tipping point is to make sure you have the proper proof you may need from the crime scene to present to a parking ticket judge.

Take a photograph of your car with some non-movable landmarks in the picture. For example, if your car was parked directly in front of a building that displayed the street number, take a few pictures with your cell camera. Timestamp these photographs, if possible. But, if you can’t time stamp them,  don’t worry that a judge may say, “you moved your car.”  These photographs will not be used for that purpose. Take a photograph of the No Standing parking sign. Again, if possible include a non-movable landmark in the background of your images.

Next, make sure your passenger understands that she needs to secure some proof of where’s she is going. In other words, why did you drop him off at that specific location?

• Was it to go shopping? Great, get shopping receipts
• Was it to go home? Great, there’s a bunch of ways to prove the location
• Was it to go to the doctor? Great, get a note from the doctor’s office confirming the time of the appointment
• And so on

Required elements are parking ticket gold

Have you calmed down yet? How much time is left in the hour? (some judges will extend one hour to three hours and dismiss a second parking violation for the same crime in the same space…but, let’s be safe. One hour is our self-imposed limit).

It’s time to carefully look at the front of your parking ticket for omitted, misdescribed required elements. Here’s a diagram to help you.

If you find some parking ticket gold, you really don’t need photographs or other additional proof from the crime scene.

That’s it from the scene of the parking crime. You can vacate your parking space and skedaddle.

Commentary

Securing evidence from the parking ticket crime scene is critical to a successful defense if you’re from Utah. Otherwise, if you live in NYC, or nearby, you can get the proper evidence by re-visiting the crime scene at a later date (leaving sufficient time to submit your defense by mail or in-person…30 days after the date the ticket was issued).

Go through the three steps outlined in this blog post to analyze whether you can beat this nasty, costly, No Standing parking ticket.
Park safely.