Photo by PoPville Flickr user Erin
“Dear PoPville,
I’m wondering if anyone else has had this issue, and if so what they did about it. I rushed out to move my car for street sweeping yesterday and got there right before the buzzer at 9:28, but a parking enforcement officer was already writing me a ticket. I commented that it was before the 9:30 cutoff and flashed my phone to show the time at 9:28, and was told condescendingly that once the ticketing process starts it’s impossible to stop giving the ticket.
It seems completely wrong that – 1) parking enforcement can start writing a ticket before there’s an infraction and then 2) not void the ticket when the infraction didn’t actually occur. After this (albeit brief) back and forth, the officer printed the ticket which noted a ticketing time of exactly 9:30. My phone and GPS clock in the car showed 9:29 even after the conversation, and I took a picture of the ticket and the clock. Yes, I could have showered more quickly to get out there 10 minutes earlier and not cut it so close, but I still moved my car before the required time. I contested the ticket and emailed a complaint to DPW, but am concerned that they will just default to the time the ticket says it was printed, and keep giving other people close-call tickets using a machine that is at least a minute fast. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything else I can do?”