Beverly Hills Parking Tickets

Jack Jones’ article (Jan. 29) about Beverly Hills “phantom” parking tickets was particularly interesting to me because in September of 1985 I received one of these citations. Fortunately, in my case, a letter of explanation to the Municipal Court of Beverly Hills was sufficient to bring dismissal of the charges.

At the times my car was cited, I wondered if it was just a random error. The article provides some insight, however, in spite of the casual revelation of a 4% minimum error rate in processing traffic tickets by Stan Seidler, the Beverly Hills court administrator, I don’t feel comfortable with the explanation. I keep asking myself two questions:

1--Is this 4% minimum error common in all municipalities, and if so why haven’t there been more reports from other cities about similar unwarranted inconveniences to citizens?

2--Is there really an incentive for the City of Beverly Hills to reduce the error rate since it’s likely that many people with “phantom” tickets pay the fine and thus produce revenue for the City of Beverly Hills.

It seems to me the City of Beverly Hills should get its act together and significantly reduce the errors in processing parking tickets.

DAN WINTER

Los Angeles