That's Not the Ticket, Parkers Argue

At the Department of Motor Vehicle's 65 K Street NE headquarters, examiner Mark Harris questions a person challenging a ticket. The department has a staff of 18 examiners, each with a law degree. (Photos Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)

On a recent morning, John Harris, 59, an unemployed cook, went before Owens to contest a ticket he got for leaving his Chevy longer than two hours on a Northeast Washington street without the car having the proper residential parking sticker.

He and his wife, he said, reading from a handwritten statement, had parked for a short time, maybe an hour, to visit her mother, then drove to pick up food before returning to the same street. He insisted that they hadn't left their car in the same spot for more than two hours.

Owens showed no sympathy, upholding the ticket and sending Harris off with a perfunctory, "This is your paperwork, sir." Outside, Harris fumed while his wife, Royce, 44, an unemployed bus driver, considered an appeal. "Right now, $30 is a lot of money," Harris said.

Those who were successful often brought evidence, such as the photos that Rufus Rosser, a Silver Spring gynecologist, displayed to prove that the meter he parked at was jammed with a quarter and wrapped in masking tape, making it impossible to deposit change. "It wasn't so much the money; it was the principle," Rosser said later, explaining why he took the morning off to contest a $25 ticket. "It's life in the big city."

Afzaak Hussain, 38, a Pakistani-born limousine driver, did not fare so well. During a January snow storm, he left his car on Pennsylvania Avenue for a few minutes to use a bathroom and said that he hadn't noticed a sign banning parking during a snow emergency. He returned to find a $250 ticket.

"You should read every sign, sir," Owens instructed, upholding the ticket but showing mercy by cutting the penalty in half.

Parking regulations have been a fact of urban life at least since the 1950s, when New York adopted a sheaf of rules to clear streets for mechanized cleaning machines. The practice eventually spread to other cities and prompted complaints that cash-hungry local governments use ticketing to raise revenue.

"It's a big joke, and nobody buys it," said Bolofsky, who began challenging parking enforcers in the early 1980s after finding a ticket on his car in Queens moments before he was supposed to move it.

In the District, parking enforcement agents once were concentrated downtown. In more recent years, the city increased its army of agents nearly threefold, from 70 in 1999 to more than 200, and sent many to patrol residential neighborhoods. Last year, the District issued about $99 million worth of tickets, including the late fees. In 1999, they handed out $45 million worth.

"We expanded the program as the direct result of what constituents were saying to members of the D.C. Council," said Mary Myers, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works.

DPW, among 22 agencies in the District authorized to write parking tickets, issued 1.3 million citations last year, about nine percent of which were contested, according to DMV. Of those, about 36 percent were dismissed.

In 2002, nearly 30 percent of contested tickets written by traffic enforcement agents were overturned. That is roughly the same as in New York, but it offers less reason for hope than in Chicago, where officers wrote 3.5 million tickets in 2003. Of those that were challenged, slightly more than 50 percent were dismissed.

In many cases, District DMV officials said, the overturned tickets are those that are handwritten by police officers, although they were not able to provide precise data.

"On a handwritten ticket, you always get more problems," said Anne Witt, DMV's director. "If something is unreadable or if there's any kind of error, you've won your case."

DMV has a staff of 18 examiners, each with a law degree, who handle parking and moving violations. Their role, examiners said, is to interpret the law, plain and simple. "I am not a social worker," Owens said.

That does not put them above granting a bit of leniency.

Zeynep Alkas, 21, of Arlington, contested a $100 ticket she got for parking illegally on M Street after 4 p.m., the time when the street is cleared for rush hour. Alkas insisted that she got to her car at 3:57 p.m., only to find the agent writing a ticket.

"My watch was three minutes until four," she insisted in halting English, her knees jiggling beneath the table as she implored the hearing examiner, Tonia Dansby, to cut her a break.

After mulling her decision, Dansby changed the ticket to a warning because Alkas did not have any outstanding citations. "If it happens again, you would be responsible," she said. "Make sure your watch is correct."

Alkas grabbed her purse and headed for the exit. "I feel lucky," she said softly, grinning and not looking back.