Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Have you ever gotten a parking ticket and thought “why me?” It can seem like you’re the unlucky one, but there are actually nearly 5,300 parking tickets issued in Washington, D.C. every day.
A recent study released by AAA says D.C. parking enforcement officers are passing them out at a rate of 352 an hour. In fiscal year 2011, which ended in September, parking enforcement handed out a total of 1.6 million tickets. That's up from the last fiscal year, when 1.54 million tickets were written.
Despite the fact that it is getting easier to pay for parking on the street, with mobile phones, apps and credit cards, the city's revenue from parking tickets increased this year, according to AAA. It’s estimated that the city will top the $80.4 million it netted in 2010 from parking fines. In the past 14 months, almost two million tickets have been issued, the driver advocacy group says.
While everyone’s heard stories from their friends about getting out of paying their enormous parking ticket fines, that possibility is getting less and less likely. The new high-tech meters make parking tickets harder to contest. In addition, the process of contesting can be tiresome and time-consuming. In the D.C. you can contest a parking ticket by mail or by appearing at a walk-in hearing at the city’s traffic adjudication services, which is part of the DMV. AAA says most people assume the latter takes too long and is inconvenient, so they avoid the process altogether.
