So my friend called me and asked me how to approach this ticket in appealing it. What had happened was that my two friends pulled a all nighter the night before. As they were driving to their destination, they felt the need to pull over and take a quick shut eye so they can drive with more focus. They went to a meter spot, fed the meter for an hour and dozed off. I guess they slept for an hour and 45 minutes, and when they woke up, they found a parking ticket. The parking attendant didn't even bother trying to wake them up. For all s/he knows, my two friends could have been dead in the car! But either way, does this justify for a ticket? If not, how should a letter be written to appeal this, as this isn't exactly how I appealed my previous tickets. Any comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Sure it is a valid ticket. It is not about the ocupants, or anything else INSIDE the car. It is only about where the actual car is parked at the time of the "parking" ticket being written.

As far as not knowing if they were alive or not, that is not very hard to notice... You see bellies moving when people breathe.

If they were drinking and driving, at least in the state of Arizona anyway, and they still had their keys in the ignition (Even while sleeping in the car), they would have been arested for drinking and driving... Good thing my MINI has the keyless entry/start system.

 

Valid ticket.

Edited to add, what would be the point of waking them up just to hear them beg and plead not to get a ticket they are going to get anyway? Why would the parking control officer want to subject themselves to that?

 

They could have easily pulled into a parking lot, or a gas station to snooze. Been there, done that.

 

How much is the ticket?

 

I don't think it's a valid ticket. I'm pretty sure the legal definition of parking is that you have to leave the vehicle. That's why at an airport you aren't "parked" when your still with your car. It doesn't really matter if they were asleep or not, you don't see cars ticketed for pulling to the curb and waiting for someone do you?

 

Then why did they feed the meter at all in the first place? By your definition, I should be able to sit in my car in a parking spot all day without so much as putting in a dime...

Info from NYC
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/faq...ic.shtml#signs

"An occupied illegally parked vehicle causes the same safety hazard and congestion as an unoccupied vehicle. Exercise responsibility, park legally"

I say it's a valid ticket and not worth contesting. Unless you want to get "creative" and stretch the truth with your appeal. Good luck!

 

If they do not live in that state they do not have to pay, I keep a collection of parking and moving violations from MD, NY, NJ, PA, WA, TX, FL, IL, OR, CO, my Nevada violations transfered to CA so I had to pay. PA does not even keep out of state violators in their system, they have that truck with the plate scanning device that sees if there is anybody deserving of the boot. I asked the PPA (parking authority lady) if you could get boot if you paid meter she said yes, if your unpaid previously. But the truck just drove right past my car no redflags, no boot, even though I have about 32 unpaid parking tickets. In your own state, they all show up when you gotta pay to renew your car registration.

 

ya you can....until a cop comes along and tells you to move. If they were awake they certainly would have moved the car. There is no legal difference between being asleep or awake when your just sitting in your car. And I can't think it's a hazard to safety to be parking in a parking space...that people are normally parked in.

And ticketing people for doing something responsible is just stupid on the face of it.

 

Fact: The car was occupying a metered spot with an expired meter.

Why would the cop tell you to move if it's fine for the car to be there with you in it? You are essentially admitting that you can stay at an expired meter as long as you don't get caught.
If your car is illegally parked, stopped, or standing, it won't matter if you are in the car or not...
Clearly it's not a hazard in that instance, but it is congestion. And not paying for the metered spot.

Pulling off the road to sleep is responsible, I agree, but they made the choice to park somewhere that required payment, and they neglected to do so.

 

I'd still like to know how much we're talking about here. $25? $50? $100? Unless it's a very large fine it's hardly worth the effort to fight it, especially split two ways. There are more important things to worry about in life.

 

"If they do not live in that state they do not have to pay..."
...
Not so.... you owe the fine regardless of whether you live in that jurisdiction or not....on the other hand, most jurisdictions won't do more than send a letter for one parking ticket.......but that doesn't mean you don't owe the fine. Big difference between not owing the fine, and just not paying it.

 

I never asked how much the fee is. But I'd assume it's 25 since a standard ticket for a empty meter is 25$. I just think it's funny how the ticket maid can't just knock on the window and ask them to throw in another 2 quarters.

 

Why?
She/he has a job to do, and a quota to meet each and every day. Again, why "Should" they wake these people up. I mean it is not the meter-maids' fault that these people decided to park in a place that required payment.

Now, if you were talking about "why" are the drinking and driving laws so severe, when they do nothing to actually prevent people from driving drunk, I would agree with you completely. This is because it would be very easy for the government to require that ALL vehicles sold in the USA had a breathalyzer machine installed in them (Cost added into the price of each car), so no one could ever actually drive a vehicle in the USA while under the influence. This would definitely save lives, prevent drinking and driving, and do what the so called laws "say" they are doing. In actuallity though, the drinking and driving laws are really no different than the parking meter laws, where all they do is make the governments money off of you if you do drink and drive, and get caught. Same thing with photo radar. Everything is a freakin scam these days!

/Rant Off!

 

Were these people drinking? Is that what you meant by "all nighter?" Looks to me like these drunk clowns are looking a gift horse in the mouth.

In most states an officer can check someone out who is passed out in a car, give field sobriety tests, and on flunking the test, be hauled off to jail and charged with drunk driving. The presumption is that if someone is drunk in a stopped car, he or she was driving drunk.

Those fools are lucky the parking control officer did not call the cops to check these idiots out.

If they were not drinking and simply studying for exams or something like that, then what others said, in most states a car gets cited if it is parked and the meter is expired. Does not matter if the car is occupied or not. The only reason many officers don't cite people who are sitting in a car is because most people simply move along when they see the meter maid approaching. But the officer is still within his or her right to issue a citation. Most simply cut some slack to people who on seeing the officer approaching move or put money in the meter.

There is no obligation for a traffic control officer to wake occupants. One never knows what someone might do, e.g., the occupant could go ballistic. Most traffic control officers avoid fights or controversies. Things are so bad that many states now make it an automatic felony to assault a traffic control officer. Officers prefer avoid confrontations by, for example, not waking "sleeping bears."

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/24/2485.asp

Other than think that something is inherently unfair in the officer not waking the occupants, they might want to look up the law in their State to determine under what circumstances they can get a parking ticket.

I suspect there is NOT a provision that says "If seeing occupants sleeping in the vehicle, you have to wake them up so they can put money in the meter."

 

...all this for $12.50 each? You have very thrifty friends.

 

They weren't drinking. They were coming back from camping and pretty much sat around the fire all night long.

Don't worry, I don't think their going to fight off the 25$ ticket, but it was just a thought.

 

You know I agree with MichaelSF, what is forgotten here is that thare are several very dangerous situations for any type of police officer (or in this case possibly a meter-maid). At the top of the list are domestic disputes and right up near there are automotive violations.

I agree that waking them up would have possibly caused some type of confrontation--they were probably going to get a ticket anyway so why wake them up to tell them? I would bet that the person's job is simply to ticket illegal cars and has no direction to warn people about the tickets.

Additionally, they may have passed the car one or more times in the interval before they gave the ticket or may have been moving up the line and observed the car for sometime before they actually ticketed it.

I am not law enforcement, but the overwhelming majority of LEOs that I have known were good people and take a lot of abuse (as well as danger) in their jobs. This LEO avoided any possible confrontation by just giving the ticket.

I'd tell my friends to either show up in court and contest the ticket or suck it up and pay it. Chalk it up as another funny story to tell everyone.