Her car was 'courtesy' towed to an illegal spot then ticketed by PPA. The city wants $300 in fines

[TheBlackAdder]

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The following is bullshit that happens all the time in Philly. You will park in a legal spot, pay the meter, and come out to find your car and the street completely cleared of cars, with orange notices on the light posts stating there is an emergency order to clear the street. They will tow your car to the shittiest sections of the city, where they drop it off on the street, and then you have to spend 20 minutes trying to find out where they towed your vehicle. Then you have to get there to pick it up. If you are lucky, nobody fucked with it, because people see these cars getting dumped and know the owner is nowhere to be found. Granted this person left for a few days, but there are a lot of parking places that do not have restrictions on free parking.

It began last September, when Sclarsky, a 29-year-old veterinarian, flew to Atlanta to watch the Eagles play the Falcons. She left her car in a legal spot on 15th Street between Kater and Bainbridge Streets. The Eagles lost. She flew home.

When Sclarsky went to retrieve her car, it was gone. It had been the beneficiary of a “courtesy tow,” a local euphemism for when the Philadelphia Police Department, the Parking Authority, or a towing company hired by the city is allowed to move a legally parked vehicle to another location to make room for a special event or construction.

Sometimes the city keeps a record of where it deposits the vehicles. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes the drop-off location is nearby. Sometimes it’s in a different neighborhood. Other cities, such as Chicago, post license plate numbers and new locations online. Philadelphia does not.

In Sclarsky’s case, her car had apparently been moved to make way for a jazz festival. When she couldn’t find her Elantra, she flagged down a police officer. He did some research and informed her that her car was at 15th and Washington Avenue.

“Not in my wildest dreams did I think it was parked illegally,” Sclarsky said.

Oh, but it was. In the middle of Washington Avenue. In the turning lane. With four tickets tucked under the wipers totaling more than $100.

Sclarsky figured that the city would dismiss them once she explained what had happened. That the city dumped her car there when she was actually more than 600 miles away in Atlanta.
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UPDATE: After this story ran Thursday, the city threw out the tickets, ending the 10-month ordeal. Rachel Sclarsky said Friday that when she called the number on the notice she’d received in the mail, a woman told her her balance was now $0. “Oh, I read about you yesterday. It was dismissed yesterday,” Schlarsky said the woman told her.

More at the jump:
https://www.inquirer.com/news/ppa-courtesy-tow-philadelphia-parking-authority-ticket-20200723.html

The people above were lucky that they had their story run to get justice, else, they'd be like the rest of us, eating it.

I used to work in Philly, but I would take the train into the city. I would see how the PPA operates. They walk a certain route, and if your car is a couple of minutes before expiring, and their route take 15 minutes, they'll write a violation anyway, even if you run out to your car and refill the meter. They say, "Sorry, the ticket is already being written. If you want to contest it you'll have to go to the court and contest it." The PPA people are incentivized to write as many tickets as possible. This means taking a day off of work, getting the runaround, and probably losing. Philly changed from coin meters to kiosks with printed receipts you place on your dashboard, but even if you save the receipts, it still means you have to go to traffic court to save a $25 or $35 ticket. Many people just eat the cost--and the city knows this.


Additional commentary:

I forgot that this happened to my sister a few times too, where her car was broomed to disheveled sections at a whim.

Also, there was a COPS-like TV show about the PPA. If you have ever watched it, it gave the impression that these were noble people who are just doing a tough job and getting harassed. While there are many violators, and conflicts run high--in reality almost anyone who lives in the city and the people who drive into it loathe this department, because of the shifty tricks the PPA officers pull to generate revenue for the city and for themselves.

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[dalton99a]

1. It is fucking bullshit.

[Under The Radar]

2. An ATV was stolen from my house, recovered in a week by police

... then In order to get it back I had to pay storage fees of $185.

[TheBlackAdder]

4. Probably a politically-connected auto yard, or one that provides kickbacks to the township.

[PTWB]

16. Who should pay the storage yard?

[kcr]

20. Seriously?

[PTWB]

21. Yes.

Who should pay for the tow and storage?

[Under The Radar]

22. Why not the thief and the city?

The court will ask for 10 times that amount for bail, so who collects and keeps the bail money?
The storage fee isn’t enough for insurance deductible to be reached, so why penalize the victim?

[PTWB]

23. There are some problems with that.

In many (most?) vehicle theft cases the thief is never identified, apprehended and convicted. In those cases there isn't anyone to go after at all. In the cases where the thief is identified and arrested, part of their restitution should be reimbursing the owner or the insurance company for any fees incurred when the vehicle was recovered. The thief cannot be made to pay the fees prior to conviction, which is a lengthy process, because what if the person arrested wasn't guilty and doesn't ultimately get convicted?

The fees should be paid upfront by insurance (or the owner, and then reimbursed by insurance).

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. What they need to do is post signs a week ahead of special events

letting people know about them.

And keep track of the cars they tow for those things.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. These tow-truck drivers just dump the cars in whatever open space they find.

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I guess it's easier to just put up Emergency Order signs. Sometimes they'll have them up the night before, but most times, it's after they've started towing the vehicles away.

When you call for assistance, the city has to track down which tow truck operator moved your car, and where they moved it. Some might be city drivers, other private contractors. And if your car just gets towed, you might not find out where it is for an hour or more.

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[ThoughtCriminal]

6. Don't get me started on university parking enforcement

Something I've noticed at every university I've had to deal with. You can have a current permit, displayed properly, parked legally in your designated lot, still get a ticket, get fined. No appeal, no recourse, no accountability. I don't where they find these Parking Atillas, but I bet some of them wish they were in Portland.

[Cirque du So-What]

7. I've heard of similar BS in Pittsburgh

Not so surprising to hear it's happening at the other end of the state.

[TheBlackAdder]

9. NJ had a saying, There are three crimes that have no expiration date: Murder, Rape & Parking Tickets

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Cities caught onto this and would randomly generate parking ticket violations that were over 5 years old and mail them out to unsuspecting people. Sometimes, the cars would not match the tag number, but that didn't matter because you would have to take a day off work and drive across the state to contest it in traffic court--only to find yourself losing.

The onus was on the driver to prove they were not in that town on a given day five years ago!

It was cheaper to pay the ticket and fines, generally around $100, than to take the day off and lose anyways.

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There was such an outcry about this that it was reduced to a maximum or either one or two years. Of course, it took over 10 years of these shenanigans before this was changed. Cities and towns were raking in hundreds of thousands to millions a year on this scheme.


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[jacksonian]

8. Same thing happened to me in Chicago

Our car got stolen. We reported it.

About 6 weeks later we got a call from the police that it had been found, parked on a street near where it had been taken from. It had been stripped of various parts and radio, but wasn't in too bad of shape.

But it was covered in parking tickets, almost $1,000 worth. Cops had just written daily tickets, sometimes several in a day, on a car listed as stolen. For weeks on end. We just assumed we wouldn't have to pay, but the city said we did.

We appealed, but ran into a judge who never, ever recinded parking tickets. Despite having proof of reporting the car stolen and the city's obvious negligence in not checking a license plate, we lost and had to pay.

Since the only recourse to this was hiring lawyers and spending much more than the fines to appeal the appeal, we paid. Nice racket.

[TheBlackAdder]

10. Oh man, that sucks! Sorry.

[AwakeAtLast]

24. My sister's car was crushed at the dump

They sent her a notice to move it by a certain date, went immediately to move it, it was already gone. Not a dime in payment back to her.

Being Chicago, she soon learned she really didn't need it.

[MichMan]

11. How is it that the elected officials that permit such actions aren't held accountable?

[TheBlackAdder]

12. No honor among thieves.

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As long as money flows into the city coffers, they are fine with it.

A lot of smaller towns have judges that are contracted to multiple towns and their contracts are based on the revenue they generate for the town. One judge might work traffic court for 4-5 townships. In the larger cities, with appointed judges, they work in concert with the parking authorities to bring revenue into the cities.

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[MichMan]

13. You would think that mayors would get so many complaints they would reign in the parking authority

The cities people mentioned here are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago. None are small cities

[TheBlackAdder]

15. I gues as long as the money flows, they'll take some heat.

[Demovictory9]

14. reading these type of stories gets by blood pressure up

[PCIntern]

17. I practice in Center City Philadelphia and

We had this one PPA woman “officer”who was a horrible human being. One day during a very cold winter I saw her sitting in our lobby resting, and I went over to the doorman and said get her out of here. She tickets people who don’t deserve them, she’s rude and disgusting, she has an incredibly Foul mouth, and she is vicious.

So where did this come from? I’ll tell you. One day I was sitting in my car in a perfectly legal spot for pick up in front of my office building, and she came over and before I could say a word she started banging on the roof of my car so hard that she actually dented it. I got out of the car flagged down a police officer, and explained to him exactly what it happened here, that I was a tenant in the building, that the spot was legal, that I had been sitting in the car with The engine running, that she had come over verbally assaulted me, dented the roof of my car, and use profanity in extremis. The cop stared at me, turned to her, and said “get the hell out of here leave this man and his vehicle alone. If I ever see you do that again I’m going to arrest you.” Undaunted, Although she left, it was not without a string of invectives involving the F word, the B word, and even the C-word of multi syllables.

That’s the PPA in a nutshell.

Onedit: I got the dent out with a toilet plunger.

[TheBlackAdder]

18. That sounds like the PPA lady who worked at Rittenhouse Square.

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My sister managed a now defunct health food store that was across the street from Urban Outfitters. The Dannon Truck would always pull up at 10AM on Tuesdays and he would park in the alley, but the back end would stick out a bit because that's as far as the truck cold go. This lady would stand waiting for the guy, with ticket in hand, and give it to the driver just as he parked. There were no places for the trucks to park there and even though he was there for 10 minutes, he would get a ticket every week.

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[PCIntern]

19. Bingo!!!