Ticketed

Last weekend my brother came to visit and when he went outside to leave, found two $25 parking tickets on his windshield written within one minute of each other by the same cop. The first reason was he was parked with the left wheel to the curb instead of the right, and the second reason was because he was too far from the curb.

We felt responsible since he had asked us earlier in the day if he should move his car and we told him not to bother. I thought the way he was facing wasn’t correct, but I didn’t say anything because I second-guessed myself and thought maybe it was just me being overly anal and not necessarily against the law. My brother didn’t think much of it either since he lives on a one-way street where it doesn’t matter if the right wheel isn’t against the curb.

We originally went down to the police station just to pay both tickets but as we were walking to the building I started getting mad thinking about it and asked how to contest them instead. I realize they are two separate infractions, but they are listed together as one reason next to the check box so I think the cop was being a bit of a jerk about it. To add insult to injury, there’s an out of state car that’s been parked on the street overnight for going on two weeks now who hasn’t been ticketed at all. The rules are no street parking between 2am – 6am for vehicles that don’t have a city parking sticker, so I included that as one of the reasons I felt they should waive one ticket.

Today I got a response in the mail and at first got mad because the piece of paper stated that my request was denied. But then I noticed that there were two papers, one for each ticket, and one of them was approved, so that means we only have to pay one of the tickets! Hooray! Joe was surprised they agreed to waive anything, so that goes to show you it pays to at least ask. Also, we’ve learned a $25 lesson for the next time my brother comes over.