Varied Duties Just the Ticket for This Crew

In the world of law enforcement, these officers do a job that people love to hate.

Angry residents are quick to shout obscenities at them. Others take it upon themselves to dole out career advice by telling them to “get a real job.”

But for the city’s more than 400 traffic officers, taking abuse from the public is just part of a day’s work.

“They feel it,” said Mike Inouye, the city’s parking administrator, who heads the Office of Parking Management. “We’ve had training programs designed to relieve some of their frustration and anger.”

Constantly trying to figure out ways to improve morale within his department, Inouye wondered aloud during a recent interview if the public might be less abusive toward his officers if people realized that his employees do much more than simply hunt down parking violators.

Although traffic officers may be best known for the cream-colored tickets they leave on your front windshield, they perform a laundry list of other tasks that you almost certainly take for granted.

Who do you think handles traffic when the Academy Awards come to town, or whenever a parade or marathon is held? And when an emergency such as a drive-by shooting or a brush fire occurs in a San Fernando Valley neighborhood, who rushes to aid police and firefighters by guarding their perimeter?

“Without parking enforcement, it’s a jungle out there,” Inouye said. “We provide the valuable referee service to make sure things run smoothly.”

A key aspect of the job that is not widely known, Inouye said, is that often his officers are out issuing tickets or towing vehicles at the request of other members of the public.

“Equal to the number of complaints about us is enough citizens who request our services,” Inouye said.

Officers assigned to the abandoned vehicle abatement unit, for example, respond to complaints by residents about cars that appear to have been abandoned on the street. In such a case, Inouye said, his officers will give notice that the owner has 72 hours to remove the car or it will be towed away.

Inouye said his department also receives a lot of complaints about cars that have not been abandoned, but are instead being stored on the street. Often, the owners park the cars until they can sell them. Violators are fined on an escalating scale until the problem is resolved.

Members of the department’s residential task force, meanwhile, respond to citizens’ complaints in the far reaches of the city, including the San Fernando Valley. Task force members are now testing a program that entails videotaping parking violators in school zones and ticketing them by mail.

They also work with communities in which parking situations are affected by bars, restaurants and clubs. “They attract a lot of people, and as a result they can cause a lot of havoc in the immediate community,” Inouye said.

If a car is parked in front of a fire hydrant, for example, it is a safety hazard and is immediately towed away. Officers will also ticket cars parked without permits or those blocking driveways.

There are other officers whose job it is to hunt and crack down on hard-core scofflaws. Just last week, Inouye said, officers busted a hot dog vendor who had collected more than $10,000 in unpaid tickets.

“People need to realize that they are victims of their own practices,” Inouye said.