Cities Eliminate Right to Contest Parking Tickets - Maybe

This sucks: Cities Eliminate Right to Contest Parking Tickets.

"By the end of next year, Washington, DC's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will not allow anyone who believes he unfairly received a citation to have his day in an administrative hearing." Instead they must use mail-in and email means to protest. "As one-third of those who contest citations in the city are successful, the hearings cut significantly into the $100 million in revenue tickets generate each year." How disgusting is that. Let's rephrase this in the worst way possible; the City is trying to steal $30 million a year from innocent residents. I wonder what the overturn rate is for mail-in and email protests?

"Motorists in many cities besides DC complain about unfair citations. So far, Baltimore, Maryland's Inspector General has uncovered 10,000 bogus parking tickets issued to innocent motorists. In Boston and other cities in Massachusetts, motorists cannot challenge a $100 parking ticket in court without first paying a $275 court fee. If found innocent, the motorist does not receive a refund of the $275."

Rather than just assume the worst possible, I tried to find out if this was true. I couldn't verify this via Boston web sites after a half hour of looking and all the other articles on the web I found about this point back to the article cited above. So I called the Office of the Parking Clerk of the City of Boston. After circumnavigating the voice menu system I got to a person. It then took a little bit to establish that I was asking a hypothetical question. First off, a $100 parking ticket sounded high to me; I got one in Boston this year and it was only $40. I was told there are $75 and $120 tickets depending on the infraction. There are procedures to dispute a ticket via the Parking Clerk and those are easy to find on the web site. You can visit in person, send postal mail or use a web form, so that's pretty simple. If the clerk finds against you, you can appeal in court. That would be the Suffolk Superior Court and they do have fees that come to $275.

I called them to find out if the fees were refundable. First off they did say they were the right court to dispute the finding of the Parking Clerk and the fee was $275. I asked if they were refunded if it was decided in my favor and was told no, not automatically but I could file a motion to recover the fees. I asked how to do that and was told via the normal procedures and that I do not need a lawyer. The best I can find to describe these procedures is Rule 9A which don't really clarify it for me. I was told that I can't do it at the time of the hearing and another visit to the court would be required but that there are no fees for filing a motion.

So the information on the web is an exaggeration. Shocker. Disputing a parking ticket with the Parking Clerk is relatively simple and is free. Note the original article referred to challenging "in court" which is unnecessary for a dispute. While it does have a fee that is not automatically refunded for a finding in your favor, you can apply for one though that involves a separate visit. I can't attest for other cities, but in Boston it's not so bad.