Should my wife contest a parking ticket in court?
I did this exact same thing. I parked in an unfamilar stripmall on a dark and rainy night. It wasn’t even the closest spots or row to the door. There was no post designating it as a handicapped space, or on the stalls on either side. I spent not even ten minutes in the store and came back to an envelope on my windshield. I was absolutely flabbergasted it was a ticket. I backed my car out of the stall and reparked, walked over the stall and could not see a wheelchair logo or any sign otherwise it was a handicapped spot. The sheriff’s deputy was still parked down the row from me, so I started walking toward her. She looked right at me, knew exactly what I was going to say to her and drove away. It turned out her husband worked at that store and she knew that spot was a handicapped spot, I’m guessing it was kind of the “speed trap” of parking.
She should pay the fine and move on. I was erroneously ticked a couple of years ago for parking in a handicapped spot and the fine was over $500. Took pictures, got a witness, went to court and won. I was parked completely legally in the spot adjacent to the handicapped spot, but Officer Friendly, perhaps motivated by the “Question Authority” bumper sticker on our CR-V, ticketed me anyway. Fighting the ticket took three months and two trips to the courthouse. First time officer didn’t show up, which is typical, but the judge wanted “to talk to the officer” and scheduled another date a month later. At second date officer said he recalled ticketing a CR-V parked in a handicapped spot, blah blah blah. Judge dismissed us both without deciding, then cleared me by mail so that she wouldn’t embarrass the officer in front of a packed courthouse. The whole thing was incredibly annoying and cost me hours of my time.
You won’t save money on a $77 parking ticket. Only go to court if you either think the law sucks, your insurance is going ruin you, or you didn’t do it (or the fine is high enough it isn’t going to affect you much). I took my last parking ticket to court because IMHO the traffic cop was trying to ticket people to make the city money, NOT to enforce the spirit of the law. Along with the fact the text of law I broke isn’t available to citizens at all (I’d go through the long sordid tale of how I got a copy of it, but that’s no fun). They might hit you with a bigger fine (difficult, but not impossible) or make you pay court costs (VERY VERY VERY likely). I never had to because court costs are included in fines here (except for an extra $3 for witness fees). However, the opportunity to argue with the system cost me a lot of time. As I run my own business, that time cost me no money at all.
I would have your wife go to court. That costs you nothing. Your wife does the time. The judge will not raise the fine. I was ticketed for “disobeying a street sign.” It happened to be the spped limit sign. The officer had done me a favor by giving me that instead of the speeding ticket I deserved. I happened to be able to go to the court on the day of my hearing. I went in thinking I would plead guilty and pay the fine. After watching for about 20 minutes, it was clear that if I was polite and articulate I could catch a break. I got in front of the judge and said that the sign was hard to read at the speed I was going. He smiled and declared me guilty and reduced the fine from $85 to $10 court costs. You never know what the judge will do, but raising the fine is so unlikely that it is worth going down for a look.
