4 ms·

In LA, for example, most of the driving infractions are violations of the California vehicle code, not city-specific vehicle codes. And so it turns out that a v

In LA, for example, most of the driving infractions are violations of the California vehicle code, not city-specific vehicle codes. And so it turns out that a very substantial portion of ticket revenues go to the state, not the city. California even has a law preventing cities from creating these kinds of local vehicle code laws that could generate local revenue.

mikeash 10y ago
I imagine that jurisdictions which place a heavy emphasis on revenue from traffic enforcement are also careful to place a heavy emphasis on infractions which provide revenue to the local government.
woah 10y ago
It sounds like the law we are talking about here is very local.
xraystyle 10y ago
In Los Angeles the policy is just to parking-ticket the hell out of drivers at every opportunity. The 'unofficial' policy of parking enforcement here is to ticket everything you see, regardless of whether or not the car is actually in violation of something. They know it's far cheaper for drivers to just pay the fines than it is to fight the tickets. Arguing a parking ticket can literally take several entire days. Forget just contesting them in writing, the written appeals are automatically denied every single time. I don't even think anyone reads them, there's probably just some flunky at a desk who opens them and immediately sends them back with a pre-printed denial letter.
- HillaryBriss 10y ago
  Yes. And since those actually are city infractions, LA truly does rake in the cash on parking tickets.
- bpchaps 10y ago
  Somebody should really fight the LA ticket system in bulk. It's what I'm doing in Chicago, and it's actually not as much money as you'd think it is. Don't get me wrong, it's still a lot and is about as predatory as it gets, but it's not in the billions, compared to many other things. Of the parsable ones I have, the total since 2009 up until March of this year, there's been a total of $764,775,070 marked as "paid". Tickets marked with a bankruptcy flag has added up to 18,433,390.0. Wanted to finish up some code to get better output, but I have to run.
- kmonsen 10y ago
  I visited LA once, and parked for less than two hours. Managed to get a ticket even though a studied the sign for a few min to try to establish it was a legal parking. It was really hard to figure out if it was legal or not. Of course I just paid it.
  - HillaryBriss 10y ago
    yeah. i've had the same problems in Santa Monica and LA. i've heard about a couple of apps for this sort of thing, e.g. http://www.parksafela.com http://www.parksafela.com
Spooky23 10y ago
In New York, the hack around this is to plead down small speeding tickets to stiff zero-point parking tickets "in the interest of justice". The town gets the cash, and the speeder dodges the insurance impact.
- HillaryBriss 10y ago
  seems a tad corrupt. also seems totally awesome. new yorkers are just smarter than us. sigh.

mikeash 10y ago

I imagine that jurisdictions which place a heavy emphasis on revenue from traffic enforcement are also careful to place a heavy emphasis on infractions which provide revenue to the local government.

woah 10y ago

It sounds like the law we are talking about here is very local.

xraystyle 10y ago

In Los Angeles the policy is just to parking-ticket the hell out of drivers at every opportunity. The 'unofficial' policy of parking enforcement here is to ticket everything you see, regardless of whether or not the car is actually in violation of something. They know it's far cheaper for drivers to just pay the fines than it is to fight the tickets. Arguing a parking ticket can literally take several entire days. Forget just contesting them in writing, the written appeals are automatically denied every single time. I don't even think anyone reads them, there's probably just some flunky at a desk who opens them and immediately sends them back with a pre-printed denial letter.

HillaryBriss 10y ago
Yes. And since those actually are city infractions, LA truly does rake in the cash on parking tickets.
bpchaps 10y ago
Somebody should really fight the LA ticket system in bulk. It's what I'm doing in Chicago, and it's actually not as much money as you'd think it is. Don't get me wrong, it's still a lot and is about as predatory as it gets, but it's not in the billions, compared to many other things. Of the parsable ones I have, the total since 2009 up until March of this year, there's been a total of $764,775,070 marked as "paid". Tickets marked with a bankruptcy flag has added up to 18,433,390.0. Wanted to finish up some code to get better output, but I have to run.
kmonsen 10y ago
I visited LA once, and parked for less than two hours. Managed to get a ticket even though a studied the sign for a few min to try to establish it was a legal parking. It was really hard to figure out if it was legal or not. Of course I just paid it.
- HillaryBriss 10y ago
  yeah. i've had the same problems in Santa Monica and LA. i've heard about a couple of apps for this sort of thing, e.g. http://www.parksafela.com http://www.parksafela.com

Spooky23 10y ago

In New York, the hack around this is to plead down small speeding tickets to stiff zero-point parking tickets "in the interest of justice". The town gets the cash, and the speeder dodges the insurance impact.

HillaryBriss 10y ago
seems a tad corrupt. also seems totally awesome. new yorkers are just smarter than us. sigh.