parking

Photo by PoPville flickr user Phil

“Dear PoPville,

A couple weeks ago, I parked my car in an ambiguously marked tow away rush hour lane. Sure enough, when I got back the car was gone and towed off by the city.

Yes, I made a mistake parking it there, but the District definitely made a pretty bad mistake towing my AWD car at least half a mile by its front wheels without a rear dolly or flatbedding my car – totally against standard practice for towing an AWD vehicle. Long story short, $4k+ in damages to the differential and driveshaft; fortunately, my insurer is stepping in and hopefully will pursue a claim against DC’s towing service that will cover the insurer’s costs and my deductible.

I’m not writing so much about the damages, which I am upset about – fortunately they’re a sliver short of totaling the car.

The real reason I’m writing is that I think I may have a technicality that gets me around the $200 in parking fines and/or towing fees and want your advice. (more…)

Photo by PoPville flickr user Josh Bassett

“Dear PoPville,

I just opened my mailbox and, to my delight, found TWO speeding tickets notifications. They are identical in many ways, both have $100 fines for speeding. They were also issued mere moments apart, the first at 9:53:42 am and the second at 9:54:53 am, for a time differential of 01:11. Given the shortness of the time period, I strongly feel that I have been double-fined for a single offense, and am interested in addressing this with city officials. However, I have had limited success in addressing traffic issues with the city, and I definitely want to avoid the additional fines that arise from non-payment (I would hate to pay $400 for this rather than the $200!).

I have unsuccessfully disputed parking tickets in the past, with photos and other evidence, and have always lost when sent in by mail, and had then the additional whammy of fines placed on those tickets. So, to make a long story short, I am looking for words of wisdom on this. How would you deal with a situation like this? Any advice? Does anyone know the legalities surrounding this? Do any of the city laws say anything about multiple tickets in neighborhoods where cameras are ubiquitous? Speaking of, questions like this might become more ubiquitous as the city moves towards blanketing the city with cameras.”

From DDOT:

“The District’s Visitor Parking Pass (VPP) Program allows guests of eligible District residents to park for more than two hours on residential parking permit zone blocks. Passes for 2015 expire December 31, 2015. Registration for 2016 Passes begins Tuesday, December 1, 2015. Passes are free, and one per household is available for residents on eligible Residential Permit Parking (RPP) zone blocks (more…)

Photo by PoPville flickr user Mike Maguire

One reader reports:

“Today 3 of my friends and I received tickets in Eckington at 2 am. All parking. I got a registration ticket and my friend got caught too close to the alleyway. They seem to be cracking down on the area.”

Another reader writes:

“I was parked around 4:50 on the 4000 block of Marlboro Pl, NW. As I am sure you know this is a one way, one block street with residents parking out front of their homes daily. 75% of the block has no parking signs from 7am-7pm for gas line work. According to multiple neighbors on the block there has been no workmen out to the property in almost a week. That being said an MPD officer from 4D showed up at 5pm to ticket all of those parked on the block. When I questioned why he was ticketing people this late in the day when there were no Washington Gas trucks to be found he responded, “Well the sign is there, right?” This is just profiteering and absolutely unneccesary. There were only about four cars parked on the block and I am guessing neighbors just getting home from work.

This is as bad as ticketing at 11:25am when street cleaning ends at 11:30am and the street cleaner came through an hour earlier which happens weekly near Dupont Circle.

The tickets he was giving out were for EMERGENCY NO PARKING at $50/each. I know because I got one. I plan on fighting the ticket to just have someone hear me out.”