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Contesting a Parking ticket in LA

S

Suspicious-Teach8788

Lifer
Update 01/16/2014: I got my DMV renewal notice today, and it includes the damn parking ticket for $85. Damn black hole. I knew this would happen.

So good thing I kept my ticket dismissal notice from the City of Duarte. I guess the issue is who the hell do I argue now with at the DMV? I clearly dread going in for a 2 hour wait. I have a little under 2 months to get this done before my registration is due.

Original story below:

Code: 
I received a parking ticket from the City of Duarte stating I was there in June, illegally parked.
[B]
Problems with that:[/B]

1) It's a weekday - I work and live in the Bay Area, not LA.

2) I haven't been down to LA in my car since early 2012.

3) I Googled the neighborhood that I supposedly at, but it's nowhere I've gone before. I don't even recognize the houses there.
[B]
Evidence I have right now:[/B]

1) A page full of sent e-mails at work with one email of me sending meeting minutes for a 11-12pm meeting. Unfortunately it doesn't really help my conference room is named "Beverly Hills." Why the damn Southern California conference rooms?

2) Foursquare check-in showing I was at my office at 8am.

3) Security badge logs from my workplace on June 10, 2013, indicating that I was 400 miles away from the alleged violation cite.

[B]What to do next?[/B]

Ask HR if they can provide proof that I was at work that day? Too bad my Google Latitude failed on my iPhone that day so I don't have more detailed location history.

[B]Edit:[/B] Security gave me a screenshot of my badge access to show me entering the office and accessing various doors throughout the day.

[B]Update 10/9/13:[/B] They dismissed my ticket. Hooray!
 
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You probably already looked this up, but if you haven't, I hope this helps ya.

How do I contest a parking citation?
Parking citations may be contested within 21 days of the date of issuance. You may contest the citation in person at the Public Safety office or by mailing your request to the Public Safety office at 1042 Huntington Drive., Duarte, CA 91010. Please attach a copy of your citation along with all pertinent information that would support your case.
Click to expand...


Source City of Duarte

Good luck.
 
It is very easy for a plate number to be entered incorrectly.

check the vehicle information on the citation.
 
When I get a parking ticket it is usually on my car, I dont think I have ever gotten a parking ticket sent to me at home.
 
Something similar happened to me.

The officer had terrible hand writing, and one of the ways the clerk entered the plate it came up my plate. The officer had written down the color of the original ticketed car, and it was red, mine was blue.

When the clerk re-entered the plate making a single change, they came up with a red version of the car, registered to an address within 10 miles of the ticketed place, not 300 miles away which is where mine was.

They stopped harassing me, and went after the correct colored car.
 
honestly, i'm not sure it's worth the aggravation. years back, my car was impounded due to suspected hit and run, and i was never reimbursed for the impound fees after having been cleared. gave up after three months of trying 🙁
 
Something like this happened to me too. A parking ticket in San Francisco, but I lived in SoCal at the time. I was no where near San Francisco based on the ticketing date. I didn't find out about it until I had to renew my registration on my car which was almost a year after the ticket. Couldn't renew without taking care of the ticket, and after several calls and sending them a letter, I gave up and paid the fine.
 
EagleKeeper said:
It is very easy for a plate number to be entered incorrectly.

check the vehicle information on the citation.
Click to expand...

The citation has 4 fields:

- License Plate
- Exp Date (registration?)
- Make
- Color

My license plate is there, but where did they get the expiration date from? Probably just from my license plate right? The make is there but not the color.

Edit: Color is not filled out but the other 3 fields are.
 
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Im about to fight a ticket tomorrow (first one in about 5 years). In our small town the DA only works like 2 or 3 days a month. And on those days she's busy as shit. I intend to go in very early, kiss her ass, and see if shouldnt like her docket lightened. Will have papers to show I corrected the safety inspection immediately after the cop let me go.
He even told me theres a good chance the judge will let it slide.
 
yup, just go to court, bring some papers with your address and copies of stuff. Probably don't need to overkill it.

On the citation, does it have any errors? Like, is the model/make/year different but license plate is same? Is color the same?
 
mizzou said:
yup, just go to court, bring some papers with your address and copies of stuff. Probably don't need to overkill it.

On the citation, does it have any errors? Like, is the model/make/year different but license plate is same? Is color the same?
Click to expand...

License plate matches for obvious reasons, and that's how they found me. The make matches, and the expiration sounds just about right.

However, does it make sense that they can gather the registration expiration from my car? I understand that they can get the month off my license plate, but the exact day? I'm guessing that information was pulled straight from the database AFTER they entered my license plate.

The make is correct, but the color is blank. Once again isn't this information tied to the license plate? I wouldn't know if they wrote this down with the citation or it was pulled just through my license plate.

My best guess of the situation is someone probably wrote down the license plate of the offending vehicle wrong or had terrible handwriting or punched it in wrong and it screwed me over.

BTW not sure if you were telling me to go to court or shortylickens, but if this contestation fails I'll just pay up. I can't afford to drive down to LA (6 hours) just to go to court. Heh. I've pretty much pooled all the evidence I have stating I was at work. The only other thing I could do is have my coworkers vouch for my presence.
 
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DLeRium said:
License plate matches for obvious reasons, and that's how they found me. The make matches, and the expiration sounds just about right.

However, does it make sense that they can gather the registration expiration from my car? I understand that they can get the month off my license plate, but the exact day? I'm guessing that information was pulled straight from the database AFTER they entered my license plate.

The make is correct, but the color is blank. Once again isn't this information tied to the license plate? I wouldn't know if they wrote this down with the citation or it was pulled just through my license plate.

My best guess of the situation is someone probably wrote down the license plate of the offending vehicle wrong or had terrible handwriting or punched it in wrong and it screwed me over.

BTW not sure if you were telling me to go to court or shortylickens, but if this contestation fails I'll just pay up. I can't afford to drive down to LA (6 hours) just to go to court. Heh. I've pretty much pooled all the evidence I have stating I was at work. The only other thing I could do is have my coworkers vouch for my presence.
Click to expand...

Have you tried calling the court?
 
One very important piece of information seems to be missing:

How much is the ticket? $10?, $12?, $50+?

Seems to me that even if it were $100, you have already wasted far more time in over thinking this than it would cost to just mail in a payment!
 
I agree, the amount of the fine needs to be weighed against the cost of time and travel costs to the court. And probably lost wages or the use of a vacation day. But if you can fight it by mail, then by all means, try it. You have evidence you were at your job many hours away. That should be enough to get you off. If you do anything by mail, send it Certified with Proof Of Delivery.
 
jupiter57 said:
One very important piece of information seems to be missing:

How much is the ticket? $10?, $12?, $50+?

Seems to me that even if it were $100, you have already wasted far more time in over thinking this than it would cost to just mail in a payment!
Click to expand...

It was $45, but I was already late by the time I got the mail. This letter was sent home, and my parents were out on international travel. I would routinely pick up the mail for them and sort through it for my mail. I unfortunately missed this piece it seems, and didn't get it til my parents returned and handed it to me. So it could've likely been $60 or more. Tack on those guaranteed "administrative fees" when you pay online with a credit card.

You're right, I could've paid, but this isn't one of those gray area parking tickets. I wasn't even there. I was 400 miles away.

Anyway, an update for today is that I called in to ask what's going on and they said that my ticket was dismissed and I'll get a notice in the mail shortly.
 
FML. Shit like this never goes away.

The $85 showed up on my vehicle renewal bill from the DMV. I've been trying to fight it, going to the DMV and getting the runaround about how the city needs to clear it from their system. The dismissal letter does no good in my hand. The City is absolutely incompetent too because they source the parking ticket processing to an outside agency.

I guess I just have to pay up.
 
DLeRium said:
FML. Shit like this never goes away.

The $85 showed up on my vehicle renewal bill from the DMV. I've been trying to fight it, going to the DMV and getting the runaround about how the city needs to clear it from their system. The dismissal letter does no good in my hand. The City is absolutely incompetent too because they source the parking ticket processing to an outside agency.

I guess I just have to pay up.
Click to expand...


File a small claims lawsuit, not joking. As soon as they get the notice they will do something.
 
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