Allow me paint you a picture. It’s the last day of August, a warm Los Angeles afternoon. I have an improv show and need a little fuel. On our way to the theatre, Anselm runs into our local coffee house, Chango, for my requisite iced coffee with soy milk. There’s no available parking, save a red zone, so I stay in the car with the engine running and my hazards flashing. As Anselm walks the 200 feet back toward the car, his arms filled with beverage, a LA parking violations Prius pulls up behind me. I assume she is waiting for my spot to ticket the cars parked in the loading zone, so after Anselm gets in the passenger seat, I pull away with a courteous wave. Two weeks later I get an $80 parking ticket in the mail. What?! The officer gave no indication that she intended to give me a ticket. In fact, when I looked in my rear-view as I drove away, she appeared to be texting.
Now, I’m all about respecting rules and laws, and I feel like if anything I generally error on the side of caution, but to issue a ticket to someone that is obviously trying to stay out of the way (I even kept the crosswalk clear) is mean-spirited and an abusive interpretation of the law. I was mailed a letter along with the citation, explaining that the officer had not been able to leave the ticket on my car. She could not ticket my car, because my car was not there, because I was not parked. A cryptic code at the bottom of the citation seems to indicate that I actively refused the citation, which may have increased the fine. Again, the officer didn’t even look at me, let alone approach me or give any other hint that she was writing me up. Shouldn’t these officers be required to deliver the tickets in person? After all, if they are issuing a parking ticket, all they have to do is put it on the windshield.
I submitted an appeal to the city’s online parking citation “contest a ticket” feature, although I had a 500-word limit and was timed out twice trying to complete the form. I’m staying optimistic, mainly because I assume this particular officer gives these passive tickets often and potentially has multiple contests on her record, but it is her word against mine. The one element in my favor is that I did not receive a physical copy of the ticket at the time she issued it, which supports my story. I encourage anyone else that receives one of these absentee tickets to contest and write about it publicly. Parking laws were created to help the city run more efficiently and safely, not to trap citizens into paying fines.
