Baltimore-Parking-Meters

Complaint Documents

2022/07/25 - Complaint to Mayor Scott, Representative Porter and Representative Costello ( view )

Problem

Baltimore City has automated street parking that is now controlled by Tag Number only. I just found out if you get a ticket you only have Two Options:

1) Pay the Ticket

2) Request a Court Date in front of a Judge.

Given we all know neither computers nor humans are perfect...

Where the HELL is the "reasonable" verbal and/or written dispute process to avoid overburdening an 'innocent" citizen or visitor to Baltimore with an excessive fine for a typo or worse yet, the court system?

And what if "their computers" have been fubarring regularly for a while now? Where's the Audit and Penalty process for them?

I have a situation in which I clearly paid my parking fees...

Maybe I typed in my tag wrong? Is that worthy of a $32 fine for imperfection without some reasonable relief if I can prove I paid it (or if the system itself can prove I paid it?)
Maybe I didn't type in my tag wrong. That would make this a LOT worse, as it would PROVE computer systems have "glitches" or "built in flaws for profit" AND it would show how citizens and courts are being over burdened for someone else's no good reasons at all...

I'll bet right about now they're hoping I typed in my tag wrong.

But even if I did, that doesn't excuse the missing system for reasonable dispute resolution which still results in excessive profits for a group of "someones" yet to be formally identified.

The Story

Intro

At approximately 2:05pm on Monday, 7/25/2022 I parked in the 1100 block of Light Street.

I was going to Maria D’s for two slices of Cheese Pizza, Fries and a glass of water for a late lunch.

I took a photo of my tag and I walked to the machine on the east side of the 1100 block to pay for parking. (across street from Maria D’s)

I started the process on the payment machine.

When it asked for payment, I put a quarter into the machine and it did not register.
I put my credit card into the machine and it registered.
The default time allocated was for a $1.00 purchase which was about 50 minutes. I assume that’s because that is typically the minimum permissible charge for a credit card.
I confirmed that $1.00 selection
It indicated my parking was paid.
It asked me if I wanted a receipt. The three options presented were “Email, Print , No Receipt”. I opted for “No Receipt” as I’ve never had a parking meter malfunction experience before.

I exited Maria D’s around 2:40pm with only the water glass in my hand.

When I got to my van, there was a Parking Ticket on the Van with a time stamp of 2:20pm.

About 3:20pm, I called that number and it routed me to the Director of Finance / Baltimore City Collections.

The person who answered seemed familiar tihe parking permit process.
I asked her what options I had for disputing the ticket other than physical presence in court given that’s all the back of the ticket presented.
She said NONE. She confirmed my only two options were to pay the ticket or show up in court.
I asked if the ticketing system was perfect. She said “No”.
I asked if she frequently heard of complaints like this. She said, not frequently but she had certainly heard similar complaints before.
She then reiterated the fact that my only two options were to pay for the ticket or request a court date and go to court.

Something seems extremely wrong with this system. Where is the logical and reasonable written dispute portion of this process to weed out system errors or even provable human errors without overburdening an innocent person?

I wonder if an audit would reveal the computer system makes a higher percentage of mistakes when a user selects “no receipt” as opposed to one of the other receipt options? Or is the system really just perfect and this is just yet another case of "user error"?

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