Knowing the Parking Rules Pays Off for Drivers

Everyone knows there’s a large municipal force in Los Angeles devoted to writing parking tickets. Each officer averages about six citations an hour, and 80% of those who receive tickets pay their fines, averaging about $37. Gross collections ran to $125 million in 2001, and $93 million of that was net, going into the city’s general fund.

But there are aspects of the parking laws and their enforcement that remain obscure.

For example, it is against the law to leave a vehicle parked on the street, even in front of one’s home, for more than 72 hours without moving it at least a mile. It is also illegal to park a car on the front lawn, even for the transitory purpose of washing it.

Many are aware that the city no longer tickets cars parked beside broken meters. But how many know that a car parked beside a broken meter may still be ticketed if it remains beyond the posted time for parking?

In other words, if the sign says the parking limit is one hour, a motorist cannot legally stay more than an hour, even if the meter is not functioning.

As Jimmy L. Price, chief of parking enforcement, explains, assuring there is adequate “parking turnover” is one of the main purposes of meters; even feeding a meter every hour takes a driver out of compliance with a posted one-hour limit.

The city has contracted with the firm of Affiliated Computer Services to process citations. The Atlanta-based firm receives $2.78 for every parking ticket routinely collected, and 18% of the fine for collecting delinquent tickets. When tickets are delinquent, the fines are doubled, so these collections net Affiliated an average of more than $13, and it may reap $126 on a delinquent ticket for parking without the proper placard in a zone reserved for the handicapped. The basic fine for that is $350; the doubling for delinquency brings that to $700.

Robert Andalon, chief management analyst for the city’s Parking Operations Support Bureau, says nearly 30% of cited motorists do not pay their tickets on time and must be pursued as delinquent. About one-third of those eventually do pay up.

The law sets the statute of limitations for parking citations at five years, but those who don’t pay usually don’t make it that far. To register their cars or renew their licenses, they must pay outstanding tickets.

If a vehicle has changed hands, it’s the owner at the moment that a ticket is issued who is liable, Andalon said. Just when a car was sold is often an issue during adjudication of the ticket.

So is the question of whether the car has been properly described on the citation. For example, if it’s a Ford and it has been described as a Chevrolet, the ticket is invalid.

Judges do not hear parking cases, and haven’t for a decade, when the Legislature moved the cases out of the municipal courts to parking adjudication hearing officers.

Los Angeles has 20 of them working out of offices downtown, in Van Nuys and on the Westside. Together, they hear more than 20,000 parking ticket appeals annually, along with nearly 4,000 requests to release impounded vehicles.

Those who appeal must pay the fine before the appeal is heard. About 40% of the appeals are successful and result in refunds. If an appeal is rejected, the car owner can take the case to the municipal courts, although few do.

Andalon said his office employs two ombudsmen to review the processing of parking citations by Affiliated, and about half the reviews result in orders to the contractor to make accommodations.

Affiliated has similar contracts with 15 other cities, including Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.

Issuing Los Angeles’ more than 3 million citations a year are the 569 officers of the city Department of Transportation’s Office of Parking Management, Parking Enforcement and Intersection Control.

Managing 115 off-street municipal parking lots and actually installing and maintaining the meters is another work force, including 23 parking meter technicians, under Alan Willis, the city’s principal transportation engineer.

Those who give out the parking tickets, according to Price, must be at least 18 years old, have a good driving record “and a reasonable background, without serious felonies, forgeries and so on.”

They get six weeks of training before hitting the streets.

Within Price’s Office of Parking Management are special task forces, such as the 31-member abandoned car detail, which cites and may ultimately impound vehicles parked in one place more than 72 hours.

In November, for example, there were 9,766 complaints of cars overstaying the limit. Of those, about 2,300 were no longer there when officers responded; another 3,500 were moved after being marked with a warning. Only 831 ultimately were impounded.

If a car is truly abandoned and the owner never shows up to reclaim the vehicle, the city will eventually auction it.

Price has worked for the city for 30 years. His two top deputies, Raymond Lampkin and Rudy Carrasco, have worked for 32 and 25 years, respectively.

The city has about 40,000 parking meters in operation and about half of them must be repaired each year, although about a third of those simply need new batteries. Another third are rendered inoperable by people trying to put in coins in the devices that don’t fit.

It is a misdemeanor, transportation engineer Willis points out, to tamper with a meter.