FOX 5 Investigates: DC parking ticket fight

have you ever gotten a parking ticket in the district I'll tell you what it's frustrating even if you do deserve it yeah but what if you didn't deserve it while our chief investigative reporter Emily Miller took on the DMV and has lessons for all of us that's right Tony you know those meter maids they're like vultures they just swarm around the cars determined to find something wrong to give you one of these pink slips well I always fight my tickets when I know I haven't done anything wrong let's take a look at this back to his car first the parking lady gives him a ticket at 3:47 for not displaying his parking pass then at 403 he gets another ticket from the same lady for being in the 4 to 6:30 no parking zone it's a bad day now most people don't fight tickets even when they're innocent so why not just the idea of going to traffic now of course the DC government loves it when you just pay your tickets the City Council expects to pocket 61 million dollars next year from parking fines that's $100 a year for every man woman and child in this city but when they try to get their hands on my money here's what happen at the mall just one of you could just tell me what they're for so I parked my car on the other side of the street I came over here and I got the coat off that meter and I put it in the park mobile app but I got back to my car and found that awful pink slip a $25 ticket for not displaying a pay per meter receipt did a screen grab of my Park mobile app showing I still had 23 minutes on it I took the ticket to traffic court so the Hearing Examiner wouldn't actually look at my cell phone to accept the evidence he made me print out the screen capture and bring it back on paper so that's what I'm here to do a couple weeks later I got a card in the mail my ticket was dismissed DC lost 25 bucks on that one but how many other people got a ticket even though they paid with the app DMV director Lucinda favors refused to be interviewed and our spokeswoman told me they don't track cases by payment method so a few weeks later I was at my same Saturday morning exercise class I had paid for the parking at the park mobile app but I get back to my car and I thought a $50 parking ticket this time is because my registration sticker they become partially unglued in the hour I was in the class the exact crime failed to properly a fixed sticker I took this photo right when I got back to the car you can clearly see all the information on my registration sticker I thought this was an open-and-shut case back to traffic court the Hearing Examiner offered a deal half off so the DC countries not buying these 25 extra dollars she claimed that the meter maids photos show the sticker was originally put below the black defrost line which is totally absurd I will reduce the fine I will not dismiss it I'm gonna kill that specimen you do have the option to appeal is not very appealing you have to pay the fine Plaza $10 appeal fee I did it anyway just as a matter of principle okay but get this last year I got a ticket for the exact same thing my registration sticker unpeeling whiles parked and i appealed that one by mail and one faith bradley also did mail adjudication the parking enforcement will write in me the ticket for 15 minutes and it's not expired so i walked outside and I said he's not expired I still have time and he said well I'm sorry I just thought it so what did you do we write I write over the ticket and I send it they dismiss it but it's haddock but we know that this is collecting a lot of money from parking tickets but others say you have a better chance of winning by going down to see street person that's what Jim did I just go down there because I they don't make that whole mailing thing seem like it's gonna work out or or like it's easy I'd rather be there so I can at least be like hey no this is the picture this is how you're wrong and this is why I'm not paying for this ticket but keep in mind if you don't pay your tickets it's going to affect your credit I work at a bank and because of a DC parking ticket that never got sent to their house they they can't get a loan they can't get a mortgage everything's in trouble why do you think you see is doing that I get some millions and millions of dollars every year they attack the people the cars and they get the money well few things get people more frustrated DC than these parking tickets well on those registration stickers peeling off like this one we wanted to find out if the city knows that it's buying cheap stickers and then penalizing us when they fall off well I sent a FOIA as to Freedom of Information Act to the DMV and just today I got this response under FOIA the DMV is not required to answer questions I don't even know what that means well about the debate or whether you're more likely to win in traffic court or mail dude occasion well it does seem the mail works better for my little experiment on the appealing parking stickers John Tony Wow I guess that frustrating thing is if you clearly put your sticker in and it was falling off and they could see it why they would still write you a ticket exactly and that's I got it exactly for the same one last year I mean this thing just the top little portion was falling off the window and so I got last year I'm a other Dan and I got off and then this year it came off slightly yeah it's the whole system is rigged and this is one of my pet peeves about Washington I'm sorry confusing parking signs the Niners that don't work you know supposedly you're not supposed to use them if they don't work we'll fix them yeah we need the parking spaces you know that little nitpicky things like this it's ridiculous are they come in looking for something to get you that's how they million dollars like 25 our ticket I know one of our staffers had an issue where they sent his ticket to the wrong house and he tried to fight it by saying hey you sent it to this address and they said well that's the one I have on file and I said well you send everything else to my correct address Wow so do I just need to send you guys a specific notice to let you know so it's kind of and then again it goes on your credit report and people can't get mortgages years later we have another staffer here who has that problem you know is that common for a city to if they're if they're not if you're not paying your tickets that it goes on your credit report I didn't know that I don't know if it's everywhere but I don't know if it's around the country because it does seem to be the people who were talking about in the bank so like this is a DC thing I don't think it happens in Maryland Virginia okay now you've been warned and now in people should tweet and Facebook Fayette Fox 5 because we are on the ticket problems now let us know what you have your some scotch tape thanks Emily is is Emily said if you've had something like that happen to you that you've gotten a ticket you feel like you don't deserve email us Fox 5 tips at WTTG comm give us a call 202 eight nine five 3000 tweet us Facebook us all those things we want to hear from you

Channel: FOX 5 Washington DC

Views: 842,446

Keywords: WTTG, parking, ticket

Id: DtOFz5zMPPM

Length: 7min 25sec (445 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 24 2014