7 ms·

Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

103 points by jaredsohn 13y ago

rdp 13y ago
The first question that came to mind upon reading this was: "are lawyers involved in the contest letter filing process? If not, I wonder if they may have a problem re: unauthorized practice of law in CA.
- joeframbach 13y ago
  Do lawyers need to be involved? The rules are here: http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-citation http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-cita... All it takes is to submit a letter. Doesn't say who has to submit the letter.
  - rhino369 13y ago
    It wouldn't have to say anything like that. The determination of practicing law without a law license isn't based on what the government body requires, but generally on rules about what is and isn't legal practice. I assume they've looked at legal ethics decisions before they opened for business. But who knows, start ups sometimes cut legal corners.
    - joeframbach 13y ago
      Practicing law? This isn't a courthouse. Sure the SFMTA operates with the blessing of the government, but I do not believe "parking court" is in the same realm as the "courthouse" you're thing of.
      - rhino369 13y ago
        Practicing law is more than just appearing in a court. I'm not totally sure where the line is, but writing a defense letter is definitely near the line. They may just have supervising attorney's who double check all the work before it goes out the door. A lot of small firms have teams of paralegals who do paperwork and one attorney who signs off. In CA it's defined as: 'As the term is generally understood, the practice of the law is the doing or performing services in a court of justice, in any matter depending therein, throughout its various stages, and in conformity to the adopted rules of procedure. But in a larger sense it includes legal advice and counsel, and the preparation of legal instruments and contracts by which legal rights are secured although such matter may or may not be depending in a court.'
  - russell_h 13y ago
    Have you done that successfully? My fiance got a ticket on Muni that was clearly in error (her Clipper Card record showed her tagging 9 minutes prior to the ticket being issued). We followed the instructions for submitting a protest, and never heard back. After some back and forth, it seemed like the protest process was just /dev/null-ed, so we paid up just to make the problem go away. My take-away was that if you wanted to actually fight a citation you'd have to take them to court. As I understand it, fare evasion was a criminal offense until a few years ago, when they decriminalized it in favor of the new citation system, in order to save money on court costs.
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      > As I understand it, fare evasion was a criminal offense until a few years ago, when they decriminalized it in favor of the new citation system, in order to save money on court costs. It also changes the requirement from "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" to "the preponderance of the evidence", a much lower standard.
Karunamon 13y ago
Don't you usually end up paying more in court costs + penalties if you fight a ticket in court and lose?
- wikwocket 13y ago
  I don't know about California, but here parking tickets (as opposed to speeding tickets) are civil matters. They don't go to court, they're handled at City Hall like any other type of fee or fine. There is an existing appeal process, and it's likely that they either say, "Okay, ticket dismissed" or "Sorry, ticket stands, send payment in."
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- dbbolton 13y ago
  >If Fixed gets your ticket dismissed, you pay it 25 percent of what the ticket would have cost. If it loses, you pay the ticket like normal but pay Fixed nothing. I assumed this meant that Fixed would be picking up the legal fees (likely with the revenue from winning cases). If not, then there's really no advantage to using it except you don't have to show up to the court date.
- schrodinger 13y ago
  When I've fought tickets in New York and Connecticut, the first step of fighting a ticket is coming in for your 'court date' and waiting in line to talk to a prosecutor where you get about 5 minutes or less of negotiation. They'll usually offer you a deal, which is less than the original ticket. But even if they don't offer you a deal, you don't have to pay any additional court costs - you're just stuck with the original ticket, or the right to request a trial. It's only when you request the trial that court costs and higher penalties come into play.
wikwocket 13y ago
Pretty cool idea. I think it could really take off and go nationwide. Helping people to deal with government labyrinths is always a good angle, especially when money is on the line. Here in Chicagoland there are dozens or hundreds of law firms that only exist to help residents appeal their property taxes. They do the research to find arguments for lower taxes, and do the legwork of appealing. I would imagine that local government may have a hissy fit if this started to happen in other arenas, like for parking tickets, but there is clearly already an appeal process for tickets, and so they are really just using the existing system.
wehadfun 13y ago
Beautiful. This is probably one of the better legal start ups.
- papasmrf 13y ago
  Nah, nothing is better than the lawdingo.com.
devinmontgomery 13y ago
But what are future YC applicants going to use as examples of non-computer systems they've hacked?
tostitos1979 13y ago
This isn't the same thing it seems but I recall a documentary/movie about the dotcom craze in the late 90s called startup.com. My recollection is that the company portrayed in that documentary (GovWorks?) got the lucrative contract of handling NYC parking ticket payments online. Ah ... memories.
- dnautics 13y ago
  startup dot com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
I hate parking tickets so much that I follow posted signs and obey traffic laws.
- dangrossman 13y ago
  So do lots of people that get ticketed anyway.
  - ogreyonder 13y ago
    Yup. I've gotten 1 parking ticket in my life: I parked fully within a clearly marked, paid parking spot in downtown Austin. A stop sign nailed to a wooden stand showed up while I was at dinner along with a $100 ticket for parking to close to said sign.
- derwiki 13y ago
  A few years ago, I parked my car on the street in Nob Hill. Thursday night I verified that it was legally parked. I got a phone call from my roommate the next day saying they were about to tow my car. I rushed home from work. While I was at work, they put up a temporary 'no parking' sign and were prepared to tow less than 24 hours later. That was the straw the convinced me 'I could get towed in SF even if I do every thing right.' This prompted me to sell my car within a month and switch to ZipCar.
  - dunham 13y ago
    They're required to put up those signs at least 48hrs ahead, but good luck contesting it. My sister-in-law was hit with the same thing, done by "Precision Engineering". She tells me that if you actually could prove they didn't give enough notice, there is a $1000 fine for the construction company.
    - triplesec 13y ago
      I regularly video my car, meter and the surroundings with my cameraphone for this very kind of reason. This practice will increase.
dnautics 13y ago
In arlington VA, I once got a parking ticket issued outside of the 9-5 parking restriction hours; in the same place i got a ticket with an address that was nowhere near where i was parking; and another that had a totally fictional address altogether. In retrospect, I should have contested these tickets by going to court, grilling the parking attendant (under oath) on the details, getting them very specifically, and then catching them in an act of perjury with evidence. Would Fixed go the extra step to do this? Someone needs to hold these attendants accountable.
- dc_ploy 13y ago
  Arlington,Bethesda, and DC are some of the worst violators of this. Don't even get me started on those machines they use to "enforce" the speeding law.
papasmrf 13y ago
Do they do the administrative hearing as well, or just submit your protest? Cause if they think they are going to have non-lawyers attend hearings on behalf of others, I think the CA Bar might have something to say about it.
Ricapar 13y ago
I've seen this idea before, and it is common in the trucking/delivery business. Cops/meter maids/etc take advantage over delivery trucks who park in front of businesses to quickly load and unload merchandise, especially in large cities. I know a few people who work at such companies, and they all have some sort of subscription service with a third party that handles all these parking tickets for them. If they lose, they pay the ticket, nothing else. If the company wins, they pay a percentage of what the ticket was. To give you an idea of what type of advantage cops take over these drivers.. There are a few streets in NYC that a friend's company makes deliveries to. The cops know the delivery schedules, are make sure to be there on time, dropping off the ticket pretty much as the vehicle parks. One of the drivers confronted the ticketing cop once, only to be shrugged off with: "What do you care? You're not the one paying for it." I'm glad to see this come as a service to the general public. There's some hope that with enough people fighting bogus tickets, someone will eventually get the message and stop handing them out so casually.
- rgbrenner 13y ago
  In fairness, are you sure they should be parking there if it's not a loading zone? I once was stuck behind a truck that refused to move on a one-lane street for 20 minutes while he insisted on unloading, backing up traffic 3 blocks down the street.
  - to3m 13y ago
    I rather agree. When my daily commute involved driving through the city centre, it certainly seemed like the general public would be best served by not having things left parked where they shouldn't be! It was a rare day that didn't involve sitting in traffic for 5-10 minutes waiting for a rudely-parked van or lorry to be unloaded.
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    In midtown NYC, there are lots of narrow streets that have small businesses lining both sides of the street and cars parked on both sides of the street. The only way to deliver anything to these businesses would be to double park the truck. Making double parking illegal there is essentially outlawing commerce on these streets.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Nice, I wonder if the second order effect of having a lot of tickets contested will feedback into the people writing them. Since it costs the system more to process a contested ticket, it is a loss for them to write them if they know they won't hold up.
- bagels 13y ago
  This is why I challenge every ticket. They're often time just more taxes for things like parking 19 vs 18 inches from the curb, even in cases where no traffic (including cyclists) are impeded or endangered.
mindslight 13y ago
I'd be excited about this if instead of just sticking you with a reduced fine, they actually went after the city for the costs of defending against the errant ticket.
brady747 13y ago
Now if only there was a service that would auomatically ticket all the police, fire, government, etc. officials that park illegally.
Glyptodon 13y ago
There needs to be a service just like this to fight towing companies. At least where I live they tow people by the truckload from lots that aren't even marked as required by law, and then hold the vehicles hostage for ransom, though so far as I'm aware no law authorizes the theft.
- LukeShu 13y ago
  I was once in an accident, and my car needed to be towed. The tow guy was supposed to take my car to where I specified; I gave him the address of a mechanic, and watched him write it down. Instead, he takes it to his company's lot, and doesn't tell anyone (including the police, who thought my car was delivered to the mechanic). Fought it, and didn't have to pay their ransom, but it was troubling having no idea where my car was for a few days until we figured it out.
triplesec 13y ago
This piece is somewhat of a lazy PR-scripted journalism from TC (no surprise). Especially since the wording implies that Fixed will pay your ticket if they lose, which they won't: they'll just not charge you. You still have to pay the ticket. Which if it's erroneously issued you can fight yourself quite easily. Will Fixed go to second round arbitration, or challenege later in court if necessary? Because then it might be worth it for your time. Else, you're paying money (25%) for nothing.
- skyebook 13y ago
  It sounds like they go to court on your behalf.. If that's the case, then it makes financial sense for most to stay at work for the 1-2 hours and have someone else fight it. I'm not sure this would ever make sense if you're in a less populated jurisdiction where the courthouse is 5 minutes away and never has more than a few people inside, but for cities this seems like a legitimate convenience.
johnpowell 13y ago
I don't drive so I am totally clueless. But how much are parking tickets? Aren't they about 20 bucks? I don't think I would bother fighting over that. And I didn't read the article because I don't click on links to techcrunch.
- splat 13y ago
  It depends. In my city (a mid-sized city in the Midwest), being over the meter is a $25 ticket and that's the cheapest I've seen. Parking for too long in a 3-hr spot is $75. And if your car is towed it will be at least $125 to get it back (in addition to the parking ticket).
- liuhenry 13y ago
  In SF, the city this launched in, the parking ticket itself is typically $60-80 for something like running out of time on the meter. If you get towed because the time expired right before rush hour or someone thinks you're blocking their driveway, there's an additional towing fee of ~$500 on top of the ticket.
SeanLuke 13y ago
> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes money from the community. There's no good argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results in speed traps, permanent toll roads, and red light or speeding cameras.
- DanBC 13y ago
  I have never quite understood the problem with speed traffic cameras. There's a problem if they're set too close to the speed limit for that road, but other than that they only catch people committing a criminal offence. The problem there is not the speed camera, it is either an inappropriate limit on a particular stretch of road or the speed limit law in total. In England speed cameras have gone through a few weird changes. The first is that they must only be put up in accident blackspots. The second, following from the first, is that the cameras must be highly visible. So now instead of grey cameras installed on many roads helping keep all drivers under the speed limit we have a few very visible cameras in known locations that many drivers can slow down for, but driving fast at all other times. Frankly, anyone getting caught by a UK camera deserves the fine.
  - eigenvector 13y ago
    Opposition to speed-limit cameras exposes the absurdity of most speed-limit laws: it's a law so bad many (most?) people are opposed to having it strictly enforced. If that's not a bad law, then I don't know what is.
    - velis_vel 13y ago
      > Opposition to speed-limit cameras exposes the absurdity of most speed-limit laws: it's a law so bad many (most?) people are opposed to having it strictly enforced. If that's not a bad law, then I don't know what is. Not all laws that are heavily disliked are bad laws, and not all laws that most people like are good ones.
tyoma 13y ago
A cool idea, but cash-strapped local governments will find ways to get around this if it ever becomes popular. There are already jurisdictions where you have to pay your ticket before you can appeal it, and others where appeals cost money.
virtualwhys 13y ago
Snow emergency tickets are perhaps an order of magnitude worse that your standard parking ticket because not only do you have to pay a hefty fine (AFAIK, not possible to contest), but also have to deal with the fact that you have no car until you pay through the nose to the mobster tow yard as well. True story: it was the first night of the so called snow emergency (that never came). I was awoken to the sound of a tow truck at 3AM. Running outside (in my underwear) I yelled at the driver, WTF are you doing? There's no snow! He laughed and drove off with my car. Went to the tow yard the next day and paid the ridiculous fine to get my car back. Pissed off, but whatever, move on. The next night, same deal, no snow, but the car is towed again! This time, enraged, I walked down to the tow yard (30 minutes away); waited for the right moment (when one of the tow trucks was pulling out to go tow another car), jumped in my car, gunned the engine, and hauled ass out of the yard...and back to my place in the same dry parking spot -- total coup d'etat. Nothing happened, tow yard probably didn't even know they had my car in the first place. Moral of the story: ignore reality (i.e. the weather), if the state declares a snow emergency, find off street parking.
mathattack 13y ago
If cities complain about Uber and AirBnB, I can't imagine them not raising hell about this. Even if it's perfectly legal, cities will fight like rabid wolverines to protect their revenue sources, especially ones that they don't have to refer to as a dreaded "tax".
joelrunyon 13y ago
On a completely unrelated note - did anyone else notice this: > Here’s some more startups that can make your life easier: Wash.io – On-Demand, Door-To-Door Laundry And Dry Cleaning | Homejoy – On-Demand House Cleaning Two plugs for startups that have nothing to do with parking?
blisterpeanuts 13y ago
I wish this app had existed 3 years ago, when my sushi lunch in Arlington, Mass., cost me an extra $50 because my car was parked "in excess of 6 inches from the curb". My wife has gotten several citations in that town, as well, for slightly exceeding the 2 hour (non-metered) limit on free parallel parking in the commercial district. You'd almost think they're trying to drive away business.
- FireBeyond 13y ago
  My favorite is when they do this next to high curbs (often in historic districts) - "if I parked closer to the curb it'd be impossible to get out because the bottom of my door would hit the curb".
moovmoov 13y ago
Great service to the public . Kudos to the designer
Zigurd 13y ago
Regarding the argument over whether parking ticket revenues are fairly obtained, stinkytaco and others claiming they are fair and legitimate should address the fact that everyone reading this understands what it means to get a ticket "fixed." There would not be a word for it if that form of corruption wasn't endemic.

103 points by jaredsohn 13y ago

rdp 13y ago

The first question that came to mind upon reading this was: "are lawyers involved in the contest letter filing process? If not, I wonder if they may have a problem re: unauthorized practice of law in CA.

joeframbach 13y ago
Do lawyers need to be involved? The rules are here: http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-citation http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-cita... All it takes is to submit a letter. Doesn't say who has to submit the letter.
- rhino369 13y ago
  It wouldn't have to say anything like that. The determination of practicing law without a law license isn't based on what the government body requires, but generally on rules about what is and isn't legal practice. I assume they've looked at legal ethics decisions before they opened for business. But who knows, start ups sometimes cut legal corners.
  - joeframbach 13y ago
    Practicing law? This isn't a courthouse. Sure the SFMTA operates with the blessing of the government, but I do not believe "parking court" is in the same realm as the "courthouse" you're thing of.
    - rhino369 13y ago
      Practicing law is more than just appearing in a court. I'm not totally sure where the line is, but writing a defense letter is definitely near the line. They may just have supervising attorney's who double check all the work before it goes out the door. A lot of small firms have teams of paralegals who do paperwork and one attorney who signs off. In CA it's defined as: 'As the term is generally understood, the practice of the law is the doing or performing services in a court of justice, in any matter depending therein, throughout its various stages, and in conformity to the adopted rules of procedure. But in a larger sense it includes legal advice and counsel, and the preparation of legal instruments and contracts by which legal rights are secured although such matter may or may not be depending in a court.'
- russell_h 13y ago
  Have you done that successfully? My fiance got a ticket on Muni that was clearly in error (her Clipper Card record showed her tagging 9 minutes prior to the ticket being issued). We followed the instructions for submitting a protest, and never heard back. After some back and forth, it seemed like the protest process was just /dev/null-ed, so we paid up just to make the problem go away. My take-away was that if you wanted to actually fight a citation you'd have to take them to court. As I understand it, fare evasion was a criminal offense until a few years ago, when they decriminalized it in favor of the new citation system, in order to save money on court costs.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    > As I understand it, fare evasion was a criminal offense until a few years ago, when they decriminalized it in favor of the new citation system, in order to save money on court costs. It also changes the requirement from "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" to "the preponderance of the evidence", a much lower standard.

Karunamon 13y ago

Don't you usually end up paying more in court costs + penalties if you fight a ticket in court and lose?

wikwocket 13y ago
I don't know about California, but here parking tickets (as opposed to speeding tickets) are civil matters. They don't go to court, they're handled at City Hall like any other type of fee or fine. There is an existing appeal process, and it's likely that they either say, "Okay, ticket dismissed" or "Sorry, ticket stands, send payment in."
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
dbbolton 13y ago
>If Fixed gets your ticket dismissed, you pay it 25 percent of what the ticket would have cost. If it loses, you pay the ticket like normal but pay Fixed nothing. I assumed this meant that Fixed would be picking up the legal fees (likely with the revenue from winning cases). If not, then there's really no advantage to using it except you don't have to show up to the court date.
schrodinger 13y ago
When I've fought tickets in New York and Connecticut, the first step of fighting a ticket is coming in for your 'court date' and waiting in line to talk to a prosecutor where you get about 5 minutes or less of negotiation. They'll usually offer you a deal, which is less than the original ticket. But even if they don't offer you a deal, you don't have to pay any additional court costs - you're just stuck with the original ticket, or the right to request a trial. It's only when you request the trial that court costs and higher penalties come into play.

wikwocket 13y ago

Pretty cool idea. I think it could really take off and go nationwide. Helping people to deal with government labyrinths is always a good angle, especially when money is on the line. Here in Chicagoland there are dozens or hundreds of law firms that only exist to help residents appeal their property taxes. They do the research to find arguments for lower taxes, and do the legwork of appealing. I would imagine that local government may have a hissy fit if this started to happen in other arenas, like for parking tickets, but there is clearly already an appeal process for tickets, and so they are really just using the existing system.

wehadfun 13y ago

Beautiful. This is probably one of the better legal start ups.

papasmrf 13y ago
Nah, nothing is better than the lawdingo.com.

devinmontgomery 13y ago

But what are future YC applicants going to use as examples of non-computer systems they've hacked?

tostitos1979 13y ago

This isn't the same thing it seems but I recall a documentary/movie about the dotcom craze in the late 90s called startup.com. My recollection is that the company portrayed in that documentary (GovWorks?) got the lucrative contract of handling NYC parking ticket payments online. Ah ... memories.

dnautics 13y ago
startup dot com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

I hate parking tickets so much that I follow posted signs and obey traffic laws.

dangrossman 13y ago
So do lots of people that get ticketed anyway.
- ogreyonder 13y ago
  Yup. I've gotten 1 parking ticket in my life: I parked fully within a clearly marked, paid parking spot in downtown Austin. A stop sign nailed to a wooden stand showed up while I was at dinner along with a $100 ticket for parking to close to said sign.
derwiki 13y ago
A few years ago, I parked my car on the street in Nob Hill. Thursday night I verified that it was legally parked. I got a phone call from my roommate the next day saying they were about to tow my car. I rushed home from work. While I was at work, they put up a temporary 'no parking' sign and were prepared to tow less than 24 hours later. That was the straw the convinced me 'I could get towed in SF even if I do every thing right.' This prompted me to sell my car within a month and switch to ZipCar.
- dunham 13y ago
  They're required to put up those signs at least 48hrs ahead, but good luck contesting it. My sister-in-law was hit with the same thing, done by "Precision Engineering". She tells me that if you actually could prove they didn't give enough notice, there is a $1000 fine for the construction company.
  - triplesec 13y ago
    I regularly video my car, meter and the surroundings with my cameraphone for this very kind of reason. This practice will increase.

dnautics 13y ago

In arlington VA, I once got a parking ticket issued outside of the 9-5 parking restriction hours; in the same place i got a ticket with an address that was nowhere near where i was parking; and another that had a totally fictional address altogether. In retrospect, I should have contested these tickets by going to court, grilling the parking attendant (under oath) on the details, getting them very specifically, and then catching them in an act of perjury with evidence. Would Fixed go the extra step to do this? Someone needs to hold these attendants accountable.

dc_ploy 13y ago
Arlington,Bethesda, and DC are some of the worst violators of this. Don't even get me started on those machines they use to "enforce" the speeding law.

papasmrf 13y ago

Do they do the administrative hearing as well, or just submit your protest? Cause if they think they are going to have non-lawyers attend hearings on behalf of others, I think the CA Bar might have something to say about it.

Ricapar 13y ago

I've seen this idea before, and it is common in the trucking/delivery business. Cops/meter maids/etc take advantage over delivery trucks who park in front of businesses to quickly load and unload merchandise, especially in large cities. I know a few people who work at such companies, and they all have some sort of subscription service with a third party that handles all these parking tickets for them. If they lose, they pay the ticket, nothing else. If the company wins, they pay a percentage of what the ticket was. To give you an idea of what type of advantage cops take over these drivers.. There are a few streets in NYC that a friend's company makes deliveries to. The cops know the delivery schedules, are make sure to be there on time, dropping off the ticket pretty much as the vehicle parks. One of the drivers confronted the ticketing cop once, only to be shrugged off with: "What do you care? You're not the one paying for it." I'm glad to see this come as a service to the general public. There's some hope that with enough people fighting bogus tickets, someone will eventually get the message and stop handing them out so casually.

rgbrenner 13y ago
In fairness, are you sure they should be parking there if it's not a loading zone? I once was stuck behind a truck that refused to move on a one-lane street for 20 minutes while he insisted on unloading, backing up traffic 3 blocks down the street.
- to3m 13y ago
  I rather agree. When my daily commute involved driving through the city centre, it certainly seemed like the general public would be best served by not having things left parked where they shouldn't be! It was a rare day that didn't involve sitting in traffic for 5-10 minutes waiting for a rudely-parked van or lorry to be unloaded.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  In midtown NYC, there are lots of narrow streets that have small businesses lining both sides of the street and cars parked on both sides of the street. The only way to deliver anything to these businesses would be to double park the truck. Making double parking illegal there is essentially outlawing commerce on these streets.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Nice, I wonder if the second order effect of having a lot of tickets contested will feedback into the people writing them. Since it costs the system more to process a contested ticket, it is a loss for them to write them if they know they won't hold up.

bagels 13y ago
This is why I challenge every ticket. They're often time just more taxes for things like parking 19 vs 18 inches from the curb, even in cases where no traffic (including cyclists) are impeded or endangered.

mindslight 13y ago

I'd be excited about this if instead of just sticking you with a reduced fine, they actually went after the city for the costs of defending against the errant ticket.

brady747 13y ago

Now if only there was a service that would auomatically ticket all the police, fire, government, etc. officials that park illegally.

Glyptodon 13y ago

There needs to be a service just like this to fight towing companies. At least where I live they tow people by the truckload from lots that aren't even marked as required by law, and then hold the vehicles hostage for ransom, though so far as I'm aware no law authorizes the theft.

LukeShu 13y ago
I was once in an accident, and my car needed to be towed. The tow guy was supposed to take my car to where I specified; I gave him the address of a mechanic, and watched him write it down. Instead, he takes it to his company's lot, and doesn't tell anyone (including the police, who thought my car was delivered to the mechanic). Fought it, and didn't have to pay their ransom, but it was troubling having no idea where my car was for a few days until we figured it out.

triplesec 13y ago

This piece is somewhat of a lazy PR-scripted journalism from TC (no surprise). Especially since the wording implies that Fixed will pay your ticket if they lose, which they won't: they'll just not charge you. You still have to pay the ticket. Which if it's erroneously issued you can fight yourself quite easily. Will Fixed go to second round arbitration, or challenege later in court if necessary? Because then it might be worth it for your time. Else, you're paying money (25%) for nothing.

skyebook 13y ago
It sounds like they go to court on your behalf.. If that's the case, then it makes financial sense for most to stay at work for the 1-2 hours and have someone else fight it. I'm not sure this would ever make sense if you're in a less populated jurisdiction where the courthouse is 5 minutes away and never has more than a few people inside, but for cities this seems like a legitimate convenience.

johnpowell 13y ago

I don't drive so I am totally clueless. But how much are parking tickets? Aren't they about 20 bucks? I don't think I would bother fighting over that. And I didn't read the article because I don't click on links to techcrunch.

splat 13y ago
It depends. In my city (a mid-sized city in the Midwest), being over the meter is a $25 ticket and that's the cheapest I've seen. Parking for too long in a 3-hr spot is $75. And if your car is towed it will be at least $125 to get it back (in addition to the parking ticket).
liuhenry 13y ago
In SF, the city this launched in, the parking ticket itself is typically $60-80 for something like running out of time on the meter. If you get towed because the time expired right before rush hour or someone thinks you're blocking their driveway, there's an additional towing fee of ~$500 on top of the ticket.

SeanLuke 13y ago

> There’s an argument to be made that fighting parking tickets just takes money from the community. There's no good argument along these lines. The social good of tickets is as a punitive measure to keep order. Tickets as a revenue mechanism is a social ill, full stop: it promotes the creation of bad law and corruption specifically designed to raise revenue. It's the same awfulness which results in speed traps, permanent toll roads, and red light or speeding cameras.

DanBC 13y ago
I have never quite understood the problem with speed traffic cameras. There's a problem if they're set too close to the speed limit for that road, but other than that they only catch people committing a criminal offence. The problem there is not the speed camera, it is either an inappropriate limit on a particular stretch of road or the speed limit law in total. In England speed cameras have gone through a few weird changes. The first is that they must only be put up in accident blackspots. The second, following from the first, is that the cameras must be highly visible. So now instead of grey cameras installed on many roads helping keep all drivers under the speed limit we have a few very visible cameras in known locations that many drivers can slow down for, but driving fast at all other times. Frankly, anyone getting caught by a UK camera deserves the fine.
- eigenvector 13y ago
  Opposition to speed-limit cameras exposes the absurdity of most speed-limit laws: it's a law so bad many (most?) people are opposed to having it strictly enforced. If that's not a bad law, then I don't know what is.
  - velis_vel 13y ago
    > Opposition to speed-limit cameras exposes the absurdity of most speed-limit laws: it's a law so bad many (most?) people are opposed to having it strictly enforced. If that's not a bad law, then I don't know what is. Not all laws that are heavily disliked are bad laws, and not all laws that most people like are good ones.

tyoma 13y ago

A cool idea, but cash-strapped local governments will find ways to get around this if it ever becomes popular. There are already jurisdictions where you have to pay your ticket before you can appeal it, and others where appeals cost money.

virtualwhys 13y ago

Snow emergency tickets are perhaps an order of magnitude worse that your standard parking ticket because not only do you have to pay a hefty fine (AFAIK, not possible to contest), but also have to deal with the fact that you have no car until you pay through the nose to the mobster tow yard as well. True story: it was the first night of the so called snow emergency (that never came). I was awoken to the sound of a tow truck at 3AM. Running outside (in my underwear) I yelled at the driver, WTF are you doing? There's no snow! He laughed and drove off with my car. Went to the tow yard the next day and paid the ridiculous fine to get my car back. Pissed off, but whatever, move on. The next night, same deal, no snow, but the car is towed again! This time, enraged, I walked down to the tow yard (30 minutes away); waited for the right moment (when one of the tow trucks was pulling out to go tow another car), jumped in my car, gunned the engine, and hauled ass out of the yard...and back to my place in the same dry parking spot -- total coup d'etat. Nothing happened, tow yard probably didn't even know they had my car in the first place. Moral of the story: ignore reality (i.e. the weather), if the state declares a snow emergency, find off street parking.

mathattack 13y ago

If cities complain about Uber and AirBnB, I can't imagine them not raising hell about this. Even if it's perfectly legal, cities will fight like rabid wolverines to protect their revenue sources, especially ones that they don't have to refer to as a dreaded "tax".

joelrunyon 13y ago

On a completely unrelated note - did anyone else notice this: > Here’s some more startups that can make your life easier: Wash.io – On-Demand, Door-To-Door Laundry And Dry Cleaning | Homejoy – On-Demand House Cleaning Two plugs for startups that have nothing to do with parking?

blisterpeanuts 13y ago

I wish this app had existed 3 years ago, when my sushi lunch in Arlington, Mass., cost me an extra $50 because my car was parked "in excess of 6 inches from the curb". My wife has gotten several citations in that town, as well, for slightly exceeding the 2 hour (non-metered) limit on free parallel parking in the commercial district. You'd almost think they're trying to drive away business.

FireBeyond 13y ago
My favorite is when they do this next to high curbs (often in historic districts) - "if I parked closer to the curb it'd be impossible to get out because the bottom of my door would hit the curb".

moovmoov 13y ago

Great service to the public . Kudos to the designer

Zigurd 13y ago

Regarding the argument over whether parking ticket revenues are fairly obtained, stinkytaco and others claiming they are fair and legitimate should address the fact that everyone reading this understands what it means to get a ticket "fixed." There would not be a word for it if that form of corruption wasn't endemic.