I Fought the Law and I Sorta Won!
Well, I decided to fight those phantom tickets.
Headed down to 301 C Street at about 3:15, walked into the hearing registration room, waited about 10 minutes, was sent to a hearing room, waited another 15 minutes for a half-dozen other folks, then got my hearing, which took all of about five minutes.
The skinny: Within an hour, I got all my late fees knocked off! And one of the duplicate tickets was dismissed!
Instead of $365, I now owe a mere $190. Only bad parts: The credit-card system was down, so I couldn’t actually pay the bill, and the examiner wouldn’t waive the $50 boot fee, seeing as I still had two boot-eligible tickets—even though those were tickets I would have paid promptly had I known about them.
Here’s to you, Hearing Examiner Stephen Reichert: You are the very picture of judicial wisdom and reasoned insight.
8 Responses to “I Fought the Law and I Sorta Won!”
Leave a Reply
Recent Posts
- Final Lottery Contract Vote Set for Dec. 16 (0
)
High noon will come after all. Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans sent a letter today to Council Chairm… - Our Morning Roundup: Winter BBQ Edition (0)
Renew Shaw has the scoop on where to get a decent Christmas Tree. D.C. Foodies writes an exhaustive… - Jeffrey Wright: Washington Native Dominates a Theater Near You (0)
The District-born, St. Albans-educated Jeffrey Wright may have chosen to be more character actor tha… - D.C. Police vs. Mentally Ill Residents, Part 2 (2)
In the wake of the police shooting death of David Kerstetter, I was told by the D.C. police departm… - Postcards From Home: Film and Paper Archive (0)
Taxi and Pedestrian, 1994…
- Final Lottery Contract Vote Set for Dec. 16 (0
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
As a former booting expert, I can tell you the policy is not to boot until the car have three outstanding tickets, even though the law is two. But I guess they won’t unboot at fewer than three, even though they wouldn’t have booted in the first place.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Good grief. Don’t you City Paper writers have to do anything? I would love to have time to go and fight parking tickets in person.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Hey Jamie, I got two blog posts out of the ordeal! As far as I’m concerned, I was on the job!
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Hey, he’s a writer! He wrote about it!
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Fair enough. And I suppose half of DC is getting paid to down vodka tonics, anyway.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Too bad Mike you weren’t as lucky down there as I am. Maybe you would have won it all if you were Italian?
January 4th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Mike: Think you could have beaten the tickets without a live, face-to-face hearing? You won’t get one next year — all appeals will be by mail or email. Not only that, tickets will be issued by and street-sweepers and other city vehicles.
See http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/parking-pictures/
January 4th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Well, Mike, I’m not sure. I’ve appealed a ticket via mail before and had it dismissed, so I’m not totally skeptical of the mayor’s idea. In fact, when I first heard about it, it didn’t strike me as wholly unreasonable. But now I realize circumstances like mine, where there’s a boot on my car that I want to get off post-haste, make it nice that you can go see a real live person without an appointment. (The boot was off my 8:15 a.m. today, BTW.)
Oh, and, Jonathan, I am Italian. Half, anyway.