Shoup, Donald

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UC BerkeleyACCESS MagazineTitleThe Access Almanac: Graduated Parking FinesPermalinkhttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6vz2s24gJournalACCESS Magazine, 1(37)AuthorShoup, DonaldPublication Date2010-10-01Copyright InformationThis work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, availalbe at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ Peer reviewedeScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital LibraryUniversity of CaliforniaC IT IES OFTEN INCREASE THEIR PARKING FINES WHENthey need more money. Los Angeles, for example, is facing amajor budget crisis and increased its fines for all parkingtickets by $5, regardless of the violation. This across-the-board hikesuggests that the higher fines are more about raising money than aboutenforcing the law. But a few cities have discovered how to enforce thelaw and raise money without costing most drivers anything. Cities canachieve these three goals by using graduated parking fines.Fines are necessary to enforce parking regulations, and enforce-ment is important because violations have victims. If a driver staysover the time limit, others have a harder time finding a space andbusinesses can suffer from low turnover. Double parking can blocka whole lane of traffic. Illegal parking in a disabled space makeslife even more difficult for people with disabilities.Setting the right fine for each parking violation is complicatedbecause a few repeat violators often account for a large share of allviolations. In Los Angeles, for example, 8% of all the license plates thatreceived tickets in 2009 accounted for 29% of all the tickets in thatyear. In Beverly Hills, 5% of license plates accounted for 24% of alltickets. Californians are not the only serial offenders. In Manchester,NH, 5% of the plates accounted for 22% of all tickets and in Winnipeg,Canada, 14% of the plates accounted for 47% of all tickets.Most drivers rarely or never receive a parking ticket, and forthese drivers modest fines are a sufficient deterrent. But the manytickets for a few repeat offenders suggest that modest fines will notdeter drivers who view parking violations as an acceptable gamble orjust another cost of doing business. However, if cities raise parkingfines high enough to deter the few chronic violators, they unfairlypenalize many more drivers for occasional (and often inadvertent)violations.Graduated parking fines are a way to deter chronic violatorswithout unfairly punishing anyone else. Graduated fines are lenientfor the many cars with only a few tickets but punitive for the few carswith many tickets. In Claremont, CA, for example, the first ticket forovertime parking in a calendar year is $35, the second $70, and thethird $105. For illegally using a disabled parking space, the first ticketis $325, the second $650, and the third $975.For minor violations like overtime parking, some cities issue awarning for the first offense and graduated fines for subsequentoffenses. The warnings show citizens that the city aims to encouragecompliance rather than to raise revenue. Because parking ticketscreate hostility toward both the enforcement officers and City Hall,a warnings-first policy for minor offenses can reduce political opposi-tion to enforcement. Repeat offenders will pay more but everyoneelse will pay less.Until recently, graduated parking fines were impossible becauseenforcement officers had no way of knowing how many previoustickets a car had received. Now, however, officers carry handheldticket-writing devices that wirelessly connect to the city’s ticketdatabase. These devices can automatically assign the proper fine foreach violation according to the number of previous tickets for thelicense plate.A driver who receives many tickets for the same offense isprobably either careless, unlucky, or a scofflaw. Risking a ticket maythus be a rational choice. A study by the Boston TransportationDepartment, for example, found that the price of a ticket multipliedby the probability of citation for illegal curb parking was often lessthan the price of off-street parking for three or more hours, so thetemptation to risk a ticket is strong. Scofflaws can do a simple cost-benefit calculation; they may get a ticket for one in 10 violations, butthe conventional fines never increase. Higher fines for serial violatorscan reduce the total number of violations without harshly penalizinganyone else. Graduated fines are therefore fairer and more effectivethan flat-rate fines.Most cities will no doubt continue to rely on parking fines to helpbalance the budget, but the next time they need more money fromthis source, cities should increase the fines for chronic offenderswithout unfairly penalizing everyone else.This article was originally published in the Los Angeles Times.T H E A C C E S S A LMANA CGraduated Parking FinesB Y DONA L D S HOU P41 A C C E S SN U M B E R 3 7 , F A L L 2 0 1 0

The Access Almanac: Graduated Parking Fines

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