This story today in the Washington Post is about ParkingTicket.com, "the first Internet company to help drivers contest parking tickets online." A quote:
On the ParkingTicket.com Web site, clients who get tickets in the District, New York or San Francisco are guided through 30 to 50 questions about the circumstances of their tickets -- whether the meter was broken, what the parking sign said, did they have a medical emergency, etc. They transfer details from the ticket to a look-alike online version. Then they key in their credit-card data to pay for the service -- if the ticket is dismissed. No dismissal, no charge.More from the story:ParkingTicket.com's computers analyze the data in search of grounds for dismissal. If there are none, clients get an e-mail recommending that they pay the ticket promptly. It's free advice. But if the computer finds a loophole, technicality or error, or a compelling reason to contest, the client is e-mailed a customized dismissal-request letter, with instructions on what proof to attach and where to mail it.
Because her car was disabled, Austin's ticket was dismissed. ParkingTicket.com charged her half of what the ticket would've cost her -- $25. Case closed.
Glen Bolofsky, founder and president of ParkingTicket.com, says drivers increasingly are turning to his Web site for help. When his site launched its toll-free phone service two weeks ago in New York, 1,000 calls came in the first day. Phone service for the District and San Francisco will be up soon, he says.Here is the ParkingTicket.com website.Determined to beat City Hall, practically obsessed, Bolofsky says people are fed up with unfair parking tickets and ever-increasing fines. "People here in New York City and in major cities throughout the country, like in Washington, D.C., have very limited places to park," says Bolofsky, whose corporate headquarters is in Paramus, N.J. "But instead of fixing the real problem , the cities found a whole new way to print money by issuing parking tickets." * * *
Bolofsky says ParkingTicket.com, whose brain trust includes a former judge, traffic agents and police officers, gets 75 percent of the tickets submitted dismissed or reduced. "The real reason why most tickets are dismissed is because the law allows it," says Bolofsky. "But people don't know the rules. They don't know technically if they are guilty or not."
Some observations:
Indianapolis' parking tickets are currently $12.00, rather than the $50.00 apparently charged by New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, where ParkingTicket.com operates.
The bottom of each page of the Washington Post story contains "google-generated" links to advertisers who pay Google to place their ads on topic-related Post stories, per a Google arrangement with the Post. These may be randomly-generated if Goggle has a number of ads related to the story (i.e. there may be different ads each time you reload the page). The ads that appeared with my hit included one for a lawyer in New York City who fights traffic tickets and represents taxi drivers and one that says "Why go to court? Fight your CA traffic ticket from home."
Posted by Marcia Oddi at February 17, 2004 08:07 AM