$11,598 in Parking Tickets Lands Car in Hands of Law

Department of Transportation officers have captured the car at the top of their “Most Wanted” list--a 1983 Mazda 626 which in the last three years has accumulated a record 201 unpaid parking citations worth $11,598.

The maverick white sedan was rounded up Monday afternoon without incident, when an officer spotted it sitting unobtrusively in the 300 block of South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles.

To the surprise of the officer, the car was parked legally. But since city law allows impounding of cars belonging to flagrant scofflaws, the officer quickly brought out a wheel lock, one of those fancy handcuffs for automobiles which attach to the wheel to immobilize it.

The car’s owner showed up and pleaded with the officer not to take his car, but it was towed to an impound lot, where it is being held in lieu of payment of the thousands of dollars worth of fines, officials said Wednesday.

“We haven’t heard again from the owner and we have a feeling we won’t” said Kaye Beechum, the department’s parking enforcement manager.

Owner Unidentified

Officials refused to release the name of the owner of the vehicle, on advice of the city attorney. But according to state records, a Carson resident sold the car in 1985 to a Mark Bowen, who listed his address as a Westwood Boulevard private mail service. The car was never registered by Bowen, 36, who could not be reached for comment.

The owner could possibly purchase another 1983 Mazda for around $2,000, or almost $9,000 less than the cost of the parking tickets. In fact, one local automobile dealer said that certain brand new Mazdas can be purchased for about $3,000 less than the fines owed on the car.

If the owner doesn’t pay the tickets and claim the car, which sports a USC decal, the tow company can then sell it to retrieve towing costs, Beechum said. Any excess money goes to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which takes out its registration fees. Any money left after that can then go toward payment to the city for the tickets.

The Mazda’s offenses ranged from meter violations, to parking in “no-parking zones” and “no-stopping” zones, Beechum said. The rap sheet was by far the longest on the transportation department’s wanted list.

The next closest scofflaw car, a black 1974 Chevrolet, has $6,506 worth of tickets written on it. Other runners-up include a white 1975 Audi, $6,024; a blue 1986 Toyota, $5,946, and a black 1987 Nissan, $5,844.

Under law, only the car which accumulated the parking tickets can be “arrested,” officers said, not the owner.

“We’ve been looking for him a long time,” Beechum said. He had not registered the car since 1985, probably because he didn’t want to pay the tickets. The car was ticketed at numerous locations throughout the city, but mainly downtown, in West Los Angeles and in the mid-Wilshire area.

The city has a special wheel lock unit, which scours the city daily for cars which have more than five tickets. But the officers had looked for this particular car for years to no avail. In the meantime, regular duty officers, unaware of the long rap sheet, continued to write up the car when it was parked illegally.

However, on Monday an officer not from the special unit, recalled seeing the car on a computerized wanted list, and impounded it.

Last year, the transportation department’s 454 officers wrote 3.2 million citations and collected $58 million in ticket revenues for the city.