Los Angeles Residents Fight Corrupt Parking Ticket Enforcement

Greed meets lack of oversight

You return to your car to a disgusting sight: a rectangular slip of paper tucked under your wiper, which could cost you $63, $68, $93 or more — and double that if you pay late. In fiscal year 2007-08, parking citations in L.A. generated about $128 million, and by 2011-12 the total take for the city was $153 million from about 2.65 million tickets.

That's a ticket for roughly every driver in this city of 4 million.

Last August, having already jacked up towing with a special $100 "release fee" purely to boost city revenue, the L.A. City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa boosted all parking fines by $5 and disabled parking–related fines by $10.