And we wonder why parking has such a bad reputation? Take Milwaukee, WI, for instance. In the past year the city voided over 32,000 tickets that were improperly written. Half of these were for parking without a permit displayed, but the cars actually had permits and the city’s computers knew it.
The city’s policy is to “write tickets and then sort it out later.” One PEO wrote over 2100 tickets last year that were voided. That’s almost 9 tickets a day. How was that to the benefit of anyone. Let’s see:
- The PEO wasted the time it took to write the ticket when she could have been writing tickets that were genuine and actually ended in revenue collected
- The City took an inordinate amount of time sorting out the problem and staff were pressed into action to void the citations.
- And then there the parker, who had to deal with the city bureaucracy and in the end was pissed off.
Tell me where the win was here?
The number of times drivers had to waste time proving they were innocent includes 7,991 tickets for an expired meter — where the meter was really paid. Parking enforcement insists this is not their fault, however. (Parking Chief) Thomas Sanders blames a flaw inherent to the new multi-space parking meters.
There is a one-minute delay between a parkers pays at a multi-space meter and when parking checkers’ computers update with that information.
In defense of multi-space manufacturers everywhere, flaw, what flaw? If the hand helds are updated within one minute of the person paying, I would suggest its a grand success.
So you are telling me that nearly 8000 tickets are written in the one minute between the time someone puts money in the meter and the PEO’s hand held computers are updated. Oh please. I wish they were that efficient.
Here’s how the local paper quoted one parker who fought a ‘bad’ ticket:
Which is one more case where the city writes a ticket and puts the burden is on you to prove yourself innocent. To Darrin McCambridge, this makes the city sound irresponsible.
He wonders if this “write ’em all” policy is just a way for the city to make more money. “It’s a win-win for them,” he said. “It’s a lose-lose for everybody else.”
Because at the end of the day, it can be easier to pay the ticket than fight it.
Where do we find these people, working for DMV?
JVH
