parking tickets

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Recently there was an article in the Boston Globe, which also got posted in this community, about how the city was overzealous in handing out 48-hour-parking tickets after the snowstorm back in March. And it said that they expected a fair number of people to protest the tickets.

I'm wondering whether anyone here actually received such a ticket and protested it successfully? Or knows someone who did?

I had a car parked on the street that weekend (actually my mom's car which I was borrowing, as she was out of town) and it did receive a ticket for parking over 48 hours. The notice that my mom received in the mail indicates that it actually got two tickets, but I only found one physically on the car. The dates of the tickets are 3/19 and 3/22 (the storm was 3/16, as I well remember since it was my birthday).

I should note additionally that a) the car was NOT parked on the wrong side of the street for during a snow emergency, and b) this is NOT a permit-only street. So, the car was parked legally. Also, cars very often park on our street for more than 48 hours -- in fact I have called police once or twice when large vans were parked there for many days at a time.

So...do I have a case? Is my argument (which boils down to: the car was otherwise parked legally and this is an example of selective, some might say opportunistic, enforcement) at all compelling? Is there any point in me taking time away from work to go to the parking office and protest this ticket, or should I just suck it up and pay it?

TIA!

Comments

20 Feet

[tut21.livejournal.com]

Somerville has a plethora of parking policies (http://www.ci.somerville.ma.us/CoS_Content/documents/ParkingPoliciesWeb.pdf), not all of which seem justified. I have received five different types of violations in the eleven months I've lived here. A friend of mine got socked with this obscure one two weeks ago:

20 Feet From Intersection & One Foot From Curb
These policies are designed to maintain sufficient passage space to accommodate emergency vehicles and insure the safe flow of traffic. Somerville’s narrow streets require strict enforcement of these rules.

Twenty feet seems excessive. And to add insult to injury, she never got the initial ticket and received a late notice charging an additional $15. Who knows if it blew away or was taken off her windshield.

Re: 20 Feet

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

A 20-foot clear zone at corners makes sense, but if it's a problem on certain blocks, they should really just post a No Parking sign instead of ticketing for a secret unposted rule.