Here’s the deal — The City of Los Angeles has $164 million in uncollected parking ticket revenue. Read about it here. The past due tickets go back three years.
The contractor hired to collect the tickets thinks it can collect $50 million over the next five years but the rest is probably gone — $100 million dollars.
Why? Here’s what I think — The city hasn’t been that concerned about enforcing the law. Period. How did they let 50% of the parking ticket revenue go uncollected. If any of you ran your businesses that way, you would be out of business.
Oh, the problem now is that many of the vehicles didn’t have DMV registrations, or of course three years later, the cars were sold to someone else and the original owner couldn’t be found.
So lets see, an enforcement officer comes across a car that has no valid registration. What does he do? He writes a ticket,. puts it on the window, and forgets it. My solution. Tow it. The person, if they want their car back, can come down, pay the fees, have it properly registered, and then get it back. If not, the towing company can sell it, pay the fees, and keep the rest. What’s wrong with that? Hell, I’ve had my perfectly registered, up to date, car towed for being in a parking space 15 minutes past the time when I should have moved it. Seems to me that unregistered cars is a bigger problem.
What about those that just ignore the tickets? This won’t be the first time. People who ignore tickets are habitual scofflaws. The second tickets, tow or boot them. No problem. If they want their car back, they simply pay all the fines, fees and etc.
Sold cars, no problem. simply tell the DMV that the City of LA has a problem with the car and will release it for sale when the parking fines and fees are paid. If not, it can’t be sold.
But you have to do this from day one. Not three years after the fact. The City of LA is going to lose $100 million in revenue because it isn’t serious about parking enforcement. Of course it writes tickets, but if there’s not teeth in the tickets, why bother.
My guess is that if they began to enforce the parking regulations, the number of tickets written would go down, revenue would be up, parking would be better in the city, and everyone would be happy. Wait, is this LA or Neverland…
JVH
