
Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You - jaredsohn
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/15/fight-parking-ticket-fixed/?utm_campaign=fb&ncid=fb
======
SeanLuke
> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes
> money from the community.

There's no _good_ argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as
a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social
ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption
specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results
in speed traps, permanent toll roads, and red light or speeding cameras.

~~~
stinkytaco
>Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop

I never buy an argument that is so simple. Tickets are a revenue source and
that keeps taxes lower on the backs of people who flaunt the law. If the
alternative is New York where parking is such a cluster it's an impediment to
business, I think I might take the corruption. It's a far more nuanced problem
than you're making it.

Political oversight of revenue sources is necessary, yes, but to say they are
an unmitigated bad is to be ignorant of most local budget processes.

~~~
scarmig
Political oversight is the issue: to supply revenue, a politician is given a
choice, between raising taxes and issuing more fines. Raising taxes is always
a difficult battle, while jaywalkers or people who speed on the highway make a
convenient target. So the latter happens more than it should.

These tickets disproportionately target the poor, who have the hardest time
paying them on short notice, leading to additional fines that accumulate and
build on each other. So officials are incentivized to either game the system
by doling out tickets more than is socially productive or by targeting people
who are most likely to pay back the most in fines.

The revenue has to go somewhere, but it absolutely should not go into the
pockets of the agency issuing the fines. Where should it go? Best case would
be to reimburse the people harmed by the social ill that's being fined: that
level of targeting is hard, leaning toward impossible. Next best is to give
everyone an equal share of the fines: this is also difficult, and overly
costly for what would amount to a couple bucks. Third best would be to have it
go into the government's general fund, _to the exclusion of the agency issuing
the fines_. Fourth best would be going straight to the general fund.

Second worst is giving it to the agency issuing the tickets, which is where
we're at now. Worst of all would be allowing the officers issuing the fine to
pocket it themselves, which leads to the lowest levels of ability to audit and
the most perverse and misaligned incentives.

~~~
stinkytaco
People keep saying this, but I really have nothing more than anecdotal
evidence to believe that it is true. But seriously, if you are concerned, that
is why we have a democratic process. Deal with it in the election.

>Fourth best would be going straight to the general fund.

I'm curious where you think it goes? I have worked at a number of
municipalities and _all_ revenue goes to the general fund. During the budget
process departments predict expected revenue. This is taken into account when
setting the city budget overall (which also takes into account tax revenue and
reserves). No money "goes into the department's pockets". They account for it
and turn it over to the city's auditor. Those fees go into providing city
services, it's not like they are lining someone's pocket.

My issue is the term "full stop". That is not a good way to deal with problem
solving in the real world. I have been to municipalities where there is little
to no parking enforcement or that have very lax parking laws (ahem, New York)
and I don't personally find it pleasant. No system is perfect, they all
require political oversight and constant vigilance, but most states have open
records laws that allow you (or local press) the audit these processes and the
revenue raised. All systems should have recourse in case of design flaw or
human flaw. All systems should have the final say rest with citizens through
their elected officials.

~~~
scarmig
Couple points:

1) I said nothing about whether parking enforcement should be lax or not:
that's an entirely separate question from how it's funded.

2) Municipalities do differ, but the fee associated with a ticket either often
ends up divvied up to agencies related to the ticket-issuing. See [1], for
instance. (I couldn't find one where that wasn't the case, but I suspect
that's probably because of people complaining loudly about this issue,
resulting in Google giving a bad sample)

3) The meta-political discussion seems odd to me: no one (here, at least) is
saying we should move to an authoritarian regime that institutes all these
regulations by fiat. Speaking for myself, I want the public to build
democratic governance structures that give officials the correct incentives to
maximize social good.

[1] [https://exploreb2b.com/articles/where-does-your-traffic-
tick...](https://exploreb2b.com/articles/where-does-your-traffic-ticket-money-
go)

~~~
stinkytaco
The meta political discussion is more to address the point that the OP made
that parking tickets as a revenue source are a "social ill, full stop". It is
hard for me to believe that parking revenue should not be allowed to be used
to offer services to the citizens of a municipality if there is adequate
political oversight. If you feel the parking money is misappropriated or
downright being fraudulently collected to raise revenue, this is an issue that
local elected officials are designated to deal with. If you feel that is not
being done, that is what the political process is for. I am not saying that
this does not occur, I am saying that there is recourse and that its
occurrence does not rule out the use of parking fines as a revenue source
everywhere without exception.

As to point 2, I am sure there are municipalities that work like that, just
that I know of none and that the article is a bit flimsy. I don't disbelieve
that what you say occurs does, but I do believe that if there's an issue, it
should be uncovered by a careful audit.

------
Ricapar
I've seen this idea before, and it is common in the trucking/delivery
business. Cops/meter maids/etc take advantage over delivery trucks who park in
front of businesses to quickly load and unload merchandise, especially in
large cities.

I know a few people who work at such companies, and they all have some sort of
subscription service with a third party that handles all these parking tickets
for them. If they lose, they pay the ticket, nothing else. If the company
wins, they pay a percentage of what the ticket was.

To give you an idea of what type of advantage cops take over these drivers..
There are a few streets in NYC that a friend's company makes deliveries to.
The cops _know_ the delivery schedules, are make sure to be there on time,
dropping off the ticket pretty much as the vehicle parks. One of the drivers
confronted the ticketing cop once, only to be shrugged off with: "What do you
care? You're not the one paying for it."

I'm glad to see this come as a service to the general public. There's some
hope that with enough people fighting bogus tickets, someone will eventually
get the message and stop handing them out so casually.

~~~
rgbrenner
In fairness, are you sure they should be parking there if it's not a loading
zone? I once was stuck behind a truck that refused to move on a one-lane
street for 20 minutes while he insisted on unloading, backing up traffic 3
blocks down the street.

~~~
greenyoda
In midtown NYC, there are lots of narrow streets that have small businesses
lining both sides of the street and cars parked on both sides of the street.
The only way to deliver anything to these businesses would be to double park
the truck. Making double parking illegal there is essentially outlawing
commerce on these streets.

~~~
talmand
That sounds like something that the businesses of that street should be
addressing with the local government to get that obvious problem resolved.
Such as a loading zone that doesn't allow general parking during certain
hours. Yes, it's not optimal but it's better than the ticket and causing
traffic problems.

~~~
drak0n1c
In Tokyo, trucks are only allowed to unload during the nighttime. The Japanese
attitude toward government regulation (and staying up late for social
obligations, etc) is quite different, for better or for worse.

~~~
Zigurd
I observed the same thing in Beijing. Daytime deliveries are handled by motor-
trikes with a small flatbed on the back. Delivery trucks do not block streets
in the daytime and appear to be largely, maybe completely banned during
daytime.

------
dnautics
In arlington VA, I once got a parking ticket issued outside of the 9-5 parking
restriction hours; in the same place i got a ticket with an address that was
nowhere near where i was parking; and another that had a totally fictional
address altogether.

In retrospect, I should have contested these tickets by going to court,
grilling the parking attendant (under oath) on the details, getting them very
specifically, and then catching them in an act of perjury with evidence. Would
Fixed go the extra step to do this? Someone needs to hold these attendants
accountable.

~~~
dc_ploy
Arlington,Bethesda, and DC are some of the worst violators of this. Don't even
get me started on those machines they use to "enforce" the speeding law.

------
rmrfrmrf
I hate parking tickets so much that I follow posted signs and obey traffic
laws.

~~~
nostromo
That's a little naive.

Local jurisdictions are heavily incentivized to hand out infractions of any
kind -- deserved or not. Why? Because they keep the money.

What do they spend the money on? Things like public employees and their
benefits, including pensions. It's clearly a perverse incentive.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive)

I've always thought that government shouldn't benefit from fines or seized
property. I'm not sure what a good solution is. Perhaps they should take the
money from fines and just light it on fire.

There shouldn't be a financial incentive for governments to hand out tickets
and fines and seize property - the democratic incentive should be enough.

~~~
caprad
> That's a little naive.

Are you saying it is impossible to escape their devious plans, because I have
managed to avoid a parking or speeding fine for the last 20 years, simply by
following the rules.

~~~
dangrossman
It's easy to avoid being ticketed by an incompetent/corrupt parking authority
by simply not living in the city they're employed in. You can even keep that
up for _millennia_! That doesn't mean they never give out unjust tickets to
the people that do live there.

~~~
stinkytaco
It's also easy to chalk up thousands of perfectly legitimate parking tickets
to a few incompetent/corrupt parking authorities that you have no evidence
exist except anecdotal experiences.

I’ve now read a half a dozen comments in this thread that I can sum up as "I
once got a parking ticket that I shouldn't have, all parking authorities are
incompetent and corrupt." No one's telling you that you shouldn't be allowed
to challenge a ticket or to address the issue with your locally elected
official.

~~~
dangrossman
> No one's telling you that you shouldn't be allowed to challenge a ticket

I think that's exactly what the person I responded to was saying. If obeying
the law never results in being issued a ticket, there's no reason they should
allow tickets to be challenged.

~~~
stinkytaco
I'm not sure where you get that at all. I really see no one anywhere saying
anything like that.

The starter of this thread is clearly being tongue in cheek.

The next person was addressing that by arguing that corruption causes people
to get unnecessary parking tickets.

The next one was saying that he was overstating that because he himself had
managed to avoid that (side note: so have I).

I don't think: "you should not be allowed any redress on parking tickets" was
ever broached.

What I take out of this is that there are bad parking tickets and there is a
system for dealing with bad parking tickets. No system is perfect, all systems
have compromises, design flaws and humans who make real mistakes implementing
them.

Accepting this I _personally_ feel revenue from parking tickets is an
excellent way to keep taxes lower. I happen to see this process in action as
part of my employment, so perhaps I am biased. I have also seen places who
basically feel the way you do about parking enforcement and I do not like it
(I’m looking at New York here). I will take the tradeoffs and if I choose not
to, I will address the problems with my elected officials whose job it is to
oversee the budget process to avoid exactly the kinds of corruption we’re
speculating exists.

~~~
dangrossman
> corruption we’re speculating exists

We're not speculating. I live in a suburb of Philadelphia. Last summer our
traffic courts were permanently closed, their cases turned over to the
municipal court system. 9 of the traffic court judges, and 3 other city
officials, were indicted on criminal charges related to fraud and corruption.

~~~
stinkytaco
Good, I'm sure they should be indicted.

But that does not indict all parking tickets everywhere or the system of
issuing parking tickets. It indicts a suburb of Philadelphia.

It's like saying that when a sports official gets a call wrong (or even worse,
is corrupt), it indicts every team that's ever played that sport and the very
act of playing that sport.

~~~
dangrossman
If that's what I had tried to imply, you'd have a point. Instead, I'm arguing
with someone who says there's no evidence of corruption but a few anecdotes,
by providing an example proving otherwise. That was the city of Philadelphia
for the record, not just the suburb I live in. Big court, millions of
citizens, state legislature had to step in to stop the corruption. And it's
not the only ticketing authority in the nation with bonafide, verifiable
corruption. You're spreading misinformation by repeatedly making that
assertion that it's all speculation.

> It's not like they are walking into your driveway and giving you a ticket.

Yeah, they actually do that too [Google: 19,600 results for ticket "parked in
my own driveway", and personal experience]. You're either overtly biased by
your employment where you're taking part in this revenue, or you're wholly
ignorant of what it's like to park regularly in some of the largest cities in
this nation. Either way, your commentary is uninformed.

~~~
stinkytaco
I believe there's corruption. I believe there's corruption surrounding parking
tickets. I would also point out that you are the first person I've read to
produce an example of actual corruption surrounding parking tickets that
wasn't the equivalent of 19,600 Google results of people complaining about
parking enforcement. I don't doubt for a second that all this occurs.

I do however, question this statement, which you seem to be tacitly
supporting, though perhaps I'm wrong and we're pursuing semantics down a
gopher hole:

"I've always thought that government shouldn't benefit from fines or seized
property. I'm not sure what a good solution is. Perhaps they should take the
money from fines and just light it on fire.

There shouldn't be a financial incentive for governments to hand out tickets
and fines and seize property - the democratic incentive should be enough."

To me that seems flat out ridiculous. Corruption does not make a form of
revenue invalid, it means the people who benefited from it should go to jail.
With political oversight and transparency, there's no reason that the revenue
from fines shouldn't go back into the community in the form of improved
services and lower taxes. Government should be transparent and responsive to
the political direction of the community, but it shouldn't throw money away.

------
wikwocket
Pretty cool idea. I think it could really take off and go nationwide.

Helping people to deal with government labyrinths is always a good angle,
especially when money is on the line. Here in Chicagoland there are dozens or
hundreds of law firms that only exist to help residents appeal their property
taxes. They do the research to find arguments for lower taxes, and do the
legwork of appealing.

I would imagine that local government may have a hissy fit if this started to
happen in other arenas, like for parking tickets, but there is clearly already
an appeal process for tickets, and so they are really just using the existing
system.

------
virtualwhys
Snow emergency tickets are perhaps an order of magnitude worse that your
standard parking ticket because not only do you have to pay a hefty fine
(AFAIK, not possible to contest), but also have to deal with the fact that you
have no car until you pay through the nose to the mobster tow yard as well.

True story: it was the first night of the so called snow emergency (that never
came). I was awoken to the sound of a tow truck at 3AM. Running outside (in my
underwear) I yelled at the driver, WTF are you doing? There's no snow! He
laughed and drove off with my car.

Went to the tow yard the next day and paid the ridiculous fine to get my car
back. Pissed off, but whatever, move on.

The next night, same deal, no snow, but the car is towed again! This time,
enraged, I walked down to the tow yard (30 minutes away); waited for the right
moment (when one of the tow trucks was pulling out to go tow another car),
jumped in my car, gunned the engine, and hauled ass out of the yard...and back
to my place in the same dry parking spot -- total coup d'etat.

Nothing happened, tow yard probably didn't even know they had my car in the
first place.

Moral of the story: ignore reality (i.e. the weather), if the state declares a
snow emergency, find off street parking.

------
ChuckMcM
Nice, I wonder if the second order effect of having a lot of tickets contested
will feedback into the people writing them. Since it costs the system more to
process a contested ticket, it is a loss for them to write them if they know
they won't hold up.

~~~
bagels
This is why I challenge every ticket.

They're often time just more taxes for things like parking 19 vs 18 inches
from the curb, even in cases where no traffic (including cyclists) are impeded
or endangered.

------
Glyptodon
There needs to be a service just like this to fight towing companies.

At least where I live they tow people by the truckload from lots that aren't
even marked as required by law, and then hold the vehicles hostage for ransom,
though so far as I'm aware no law authorizes the theft.

~~~
LukeShu
I was once in an accident, and my car needed to be towed. The tow guy was
supposed to take my car to where I specified; I gave him the address of a
mechanic, and watched him write it down. Instead, he takes it to his company's
lot, and doesn't tell anyone (including the police, who thought my car was
delivered to the mechanic). Fought it, and didn't have to pay their ransom,
but it was troubling having no idea where my car was for a few days until we
figured it out.

------
brady747
Now if only there was a service that would auomatically ticket all the police,
fire, government, etc. officials that park illegally.

------
rdp
The first question that came to mind upon reading this was: "are lawyers
involved in the contest letter filing process? If not, I wonder if they may
have a problem re: unauthorized practice of law in CA.

~~~
joeframbach
Do lawyers need to be involved? The rules are here:
[http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-
cita...](http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-citation)

All it takes is to submit a letter. Doesn't say _who_ has to submit the
letter.

~~~
russell_h
Have you done that successfully?

My fiance got a ticket on Muni that was clearly in error (her Clipper Card
record showed her tagging 9 minutes prior to the ticket being issued). We
followed the instructions for submitting a protest, and never heard back.
After some back and forth, it seemed like the protest process was just
/dev/null-ed, so we paid up just to make the problem go away.

My take-away was that if you wanted to actually fight a citation you'd have to
take them to court. As I understand it, fare evasion was a criminal offense
until a few years ago, when they decriminalized it in favor of the new
citation system, in order to save money on court costs.

~~~
ceejayoz
> As I understand it, fare evasion was a criminal offense until a few years
> ago, when they decriminalized it in favor of the new citation system, in
> order to save money on court costs.

It also changes the requirement from "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" to "the
preponderance of the evidence", a much lower standard.

------
devinmontgomery
But what are future YC applicants going to use as examples of non-computer
systems they've hacked?

------
triplesec
This piece is somewhat of a lazy PR-scripted journalism from TC (no surprise).
Especially since the wording implies that Fixed will pay your ticket if they
lose, which they won't: they'll just not charge you. You still have to pay the
ticket. Which if it's erroneously issued you can fight yourself quite easily.
Will Fixed go to second round arbitration, or challenege later in court if
necessary? Because then it might be worth it for your time. Else, you're
paying money (25%) for nothing.

~~~
skyebook
It sounds like they go to court on your behalf.. If that's the case, then it
makes financial sense for _most_ to stay at work for the 1-2 hours and have
someone else fight it. I'm not sure this would ever make sense if you're in a
less populated jurisdiction where the courthouse is 5 minutes away and never
has more than a few people inside, but for cities this seems like a legitimate
convenience.

------
mindslight
I'd be excited about this if instead of just sticking you with a reduced fine,
they actually went after the city for the costs of defending against the
errant ticket.

------
blisterpeanuts
I wish this app had existed 3 years ago, when my sushi lunch in Arlington,
Mass., cost me an extra $50 because my car was parked "in excess of 6 inches
from the curb". My wife has gotten several citations in that town, as well,
for slightly exceeding the 2 hour (non-metered) limit on free parallel parking
in the commercial district. You'd almost think they're trying to drive away
business.

~~~
FireBeyond
My favorite is when they do this next to high curbs (often in historic
districts) - "if I parked closer to the curb it'd be impossible to get out
because the bottom of my door would hit the curb".

------
Zigurd
Regarding the argument over whether parking ticket revenues are fairly
obtained, stinkytaco and others claiming they are fair and legitimate should
address the fact that everyone reading this understands what it means to get a
ticket "fixed."

There would not be a word for it if that form of corruption wasn't endemic.

------
tostitos1979
This isn't the same thing it seems but I recall a documentary/movie about the
dotcom craze in the late 90s called startup.com. My recollection is that the
company portrayed in that documentary (GovWorks?) got the lucrative contract
of handling NYC parking ticket payments online. Ah ... memories.

~~~
dnautics
startup dot com

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/)

------
mathattack
If cities complain about Uber and AirBnB, I can't imagine them not raising
hell about this. Even if it's perfectly legal, cities will fight like rabid
wolverines to protect their revenue sources, especially ones that they don't
have to refer to as a dreaded "tax".

------
joelrunyon
On a completely unrelated note - did anyone else notice this:

> Here’s some more startups that can make your life easier: Wash.io – On-
> Demand, Door-To-Door Laundry And Dry Cleaning | Homejoy – On-Demand House
> Cleaning

Two plugs for startups that have nothing to do with parking?

------
tyoma
A cool idea, but cash-strapped local governments will find ways to get around
this if it ever becomes popular. There are already jurisdictions where you
have to pay your ticket before you can appeal it, and others where appeals
cost money.

------
johnpowell
I don't drive so I am totally clueless. But how much are parking tickets?
Aren't they about 20 bucks? I don't think I would bother fighting over that.

And I didn't read the article because I don't click on links to techcrunch.

~~~
liuhenry
In SF, the city this launched in, the parking ticket itself is typically
$60-80 for something like running out of time on the meter. If you get towed
because the time expired right before rush hour or someone thinks you're
blocking their driveway, there's an additional towing fee of ~$500 on top of
the ticket.

------
papasmrf
Do they do the administrative hearing as well, or just submit your protest?
Cause if they think they are going to have non-lawyers attend hearings on
behalf of others, I think the CA Bar might have something to say about it.

------
Karunamon
Don't you usually end up paying more in court costs + penalties if you fight a
ticket in court and lose?

~~~
wikwocket
I don't know about California, but here parking tickets (as opposed to
speeding tickets) are civil matters. They don't go to court, they're handled
at City Hall like any other type of fee or fine.

There is an existing appeal process, and it's likely that they either say,
"Okay, ticket dismissed" or "Sorry, ticket stands, send payment in."

------
moovmoov
Great service to the public . Kudos to the designer

------
wehadfun
Beautiful.

This is probably one of the better legal start ups.

~~~
papasmrf
Nah, nothing is better than the lawdingo.com.

