If you live in Los Angeles, or have visited the city, there's a good chance you've gotten a parking ticket, but maybe you didn't actually deserve it.
Charlie Temple was recently ticketed for parking on the side of a street in Hollywood during street cleaning. The ticket warning is posted on a sign, but that sign - like every single street cleaning sign on the block - is faded.
"It looks like a blank sheet of paper," said an exasperated Temple as he described the washed-out, faded, barely readable sign.
Temple has a right to be irked about his $73 ticket. According to city code, tickets shouldn't be issued if a sign isn't "sufficiently legible" and "visible."
But it's not the first time the NBC4 I-Team busted the city for faded parking signs. We first reported the problem 14 years ago.
Jay Beeber is a driver advocate with "Safer Streets L.A." He says the city should have replaced the faded signs long ago, but believes there's a reason why it hasn't. "There's no incentive for the city to fix it because they want the money," he said. "They get a lot of revenue from these tickets."
Indeed, the city issued 129 street cleaning tickets on a Waring Avenue block in 2017. At $73 per ticket, the city stood to make a little over $9,400.
After the I-Team pressed the city, however, parking enforcement began skipping over the block. An officer told an NBC4 producer that he wasn't ticketing because the signs were faded. The city later confirmed that it's replacing the signs.
Unfortunately for Temple, the city said he didn't appeal his ticket on time and must still pay up, which doesn't sit well with him. "You'd think commons sense would dictate" their decision, he said.
Others who receive a parking ticket in Los Angeles that they don't think is fair have a right to contest that ticket within 21 days (it also won't hurt to supply pictures that may help your case). People can also report faded signs on the Los Angeles Department of Transportation website.
