‘Can Police Mail Tickets?’ Local Magazine Answers
Time Out Chicago, a weekly mag where local scenesters normally find the bleeding edge, painfully hip, bars, restaurants, clubs and other hot spots in the city, weighs in with some parking ticket wisdom this past issue.
In their weekly column, “Around Town–What’s up with that?” some dude named Matt wants to know if it’s legit when a parking violation is received by mail, but never received the original ticket on his car. “Can police just send tickets in the mail without warning?,” asks Matt.
Regular readers to The Expired Meter know the answer and that is…of course they can. That’s why the city sends out violation notices after the initial ticket.
The magazine, talks to police spokesperson Anne Dwyer, who explains that sometimes tickets will blow off in the wind, and that’ why the city also sends a violation notice in the mail.
Well, why that’s certainly true, they don’t touch on the idea that sometimes a driver will pull away before the ticket is issued. In some instances, completely and innocently oblivious a ticket is being written. Other times, pissed and or upset, some drivers pull away thinking they’re ducking a ticket. Sadly, in most cases, this “run away, run away” strategy almost never works and a few weeks later, the violation notice shows up. SURPRISE!
Then, every once in a florescent orange moon, drivers will get phantom violation notices for locations where they were never parked, or because the license plate was written incorrectly or, because of some hanky panky going on.
But, to its credit, TOC goes a little further and chats (anonymously, cough-cough) with a cop who says that they’ll write tickets off duty to ultra-asinine parking scofflaws because the driver really deserves it.
You can read their entire piece right here.
Graphic courtesy of Time Out Chicago.
I’d rather get the actual ticket in the mail than find out six months down the line I owe the late fee and can’t contest it. Just make sure the city has the right address to send it to. (They’ll get you when they figure out you don’t really live at 1060 W. Addison)
They missed one other thing that happens in this wonderful city…
Morons will steal tickets off of cars that were cited for real reasons, and then put them on their car when they scoff at some other violation location…like not pay a meter or park on a hydrant or park in a Residential Zone with no permit.
They attempt to scam the system and some other person gets screwed when they receive the Violation notice in the mail weeks later.
I see this at least 2 or 3 times a week around the city…
And its not just in the “Economically Depressed” areas of the city either..its done by people driving expensive cars as well as the beaters.
Oooh, that’s a good one DoR!
I totally forgot to mention this situation. Good input! Thanks!
I ran into one of them today Again on the South Side.
RP violation from Saturday for the local Zone….It was for a Ford I believe. The Car it was on was a Kia….
We are talking to supervisors about getting permission to Cite for Stolen Tickets…
I believe it is a 500$ fine.
How the hell are you gonna cite for stolen tickets?? What about the idiot kids who take tickets off cars and place em on another car to piss em off. Forgettaboutit!!! Ticketwriters would be lazy not to look at tickets on cars to see if there is anything wrong on the ticket or been there for months.
Vito…
Go back whence you came from.
HOESE – Can’t say to go back to your poorly run, overpaid, dysfunctional city dept. Working there is punishment enough. Forgettaboutit!!!!