City parking court lost my respect

I went to court again, this time as a defendant. A few months ago, I went to a local pre-school's annual open door with student displays, parent barbecues, games and fun for the whole family. This preschool is located in an upmarket neighborhood with clearly posted parking limits and restrictions for blocks. I parked about four blocks away and went to the fair, and when I returned to my car two hours later within the three-hour limit was most surprised to find a ticket on the windshield. Not for parking too long, but for parking within 8 feet of a driveway. This $125 fine was entirely bogus so I decided to contest it.

First, I looked up the city definition of a driveway. There wasn't one. I looked up the state definition and noted it.

However, I was parked near an alley and not a driveway so I looked up the city's definition of alley. Despite the term appearing perhaps more than a thousand times in the codes, it too is undefined. I looked up the state definition and it does not appear there either.

I looked up the city definition of a minor roadway, and the state's definition, and noted both.

As the key fact here was the distance, I needed to know the city's definition of a corner. Needless perhaps to say, the city does not define this. The state does : extend road A and extend road B to where they both meet.  Although paving and sight lines require rounding this off, the corner is defined in terms of the two straight curb extensions. so I noted this.

I should point out that I had taken photographs of the two blocks, the alley and my car. So armed with these, the definitions above and the ticket I went to traffic court.

When I was called, i approached the judge and showed my evidence. He could not have been less interested. I insisted that I was innocent as the photographs clearly showed I was perhaps 15 feet from the corner, both the straight line part and the rounded part. His response was that he did not accept my photographs as I could have moved my car for that purpose! He called me a liar and a fraud and a cheat in open court!

Although he did dismiss the ticket, he made the comment that the parking enforcement officer clearly hit the wrong button on his/her machine and so hit "driveway" when it should have been "alley".

It is hard to feel support for law enforcement and the judicial system when something as small and inconsequential as this leads to an experience such as this. My city is famous for traffic enforcement as a purely revenue-gathering exercise, and I am now reminded of my one and only speeding ticket - similarly bogus which I will explore at another time. When law enforcement at this low level can levy a fine so cavalierly and without even trying to make it look legitimate, and the court can connive in its enforcement, claims of both happening all the way up the scale can only look more credible. Both need the support of society in order to function, and it is easy to see how both can lose it.

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