Steve Steinberg refused to pay a parking ticket issued after his car had been stolen, so the Washington, DC Department of Motor Vehicles sent a collections agency after him. Steinberg’s car was stolen in September of 2006. After he reported the theft, Steinberg says, the DC police and DMV ticketed his car, towed it, then released it to the thief.
Despite having several opportunities to check the car’s license plates, the only thing Steinberg got from the police was a $200 ticket for the parking violation the thief had committed. Steinberg sent letters to the police and DMV and informed them that his car had been stolen and he would not pay the ticket, so the DMV reported him to a collections agency.
Ticketed While Stolen: Theft Victim Vows He’ll Never Pay [WUSA9] (Thanks to Dyniece!)
(Photo: Superchou)
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Yeah ummm…I live in Baltimore, so I can only imagine DC is the same- pretty much all impound lots are shady, particularly in city areas. No one is concerned with cars being stolen- anyone with enough $$ can get a car from impound…and before anyone gets cars back, the tow driver or lot employees strip everything of value or not from/off a car. Pretty much the only hope is to get the car at impound within 6 hours of when it was towed, and it MIGHT be intact…cops don’t care.
@backbroken:
A remarkably similar story involves my mother and the cops of Indianapolis, Indiana. A woman in a large, expensive SUV at a stop light put it in reverse and backed into my mother’s car, damaging both vehicles, then drove off. My mother, angry at this woman’s audacity, made the bad decision to go after her. She pulled beside the woman in the SUV and tried yell to the woman to pull over, as they both had their windows down; the woman ignored her without even looking. My mother noted that the woman was wearing very nice clothes and wore an enormous diamond ring. After chasing the woman a few blocks, she managed to flag down a cop who stopped both of them. Here’s where things go downhill quickly…
Additional cops showed up and they questioned the woman in the SUV first. After waiting almost half an hour, they asked my mother for her story. Immediately upon finishing, the cop informs her that their stories don’t match up. They decide they’re going to find it was a both-at-fault accident. A few days later, my mother receives 2 envelopes in the mail. One’s from the police, saying they’ve entered the accident as entirely my mom’s fault. The other’s from the SUV woman’s insurance company saying my mother is responsible for repairs to the SUV and they’ll place a lien on her new car if she doesn’t pay.
My mother tried getting an attorney, but they all told her that with the police on the SUV woman’s side, there’s nothing she can do. Her insurance ended up paying for the damage to the SUV, but her premiums went up as a result. Even worse, she contacted a friend of hers who works in the police department, and he couldn’t get any information about the accident, saying it was very suspicious. Apparently, the SUV woman was well-connected and pulled some strings to get the whole thing turned in her favor.
How are you supposed to show your vehicle registration when it’s legally required to be in your car? Or do they do that differently in DC as well?
@WraithSama: That really sucks. I made a conscious decision to not chase the person in front of me because, well, it was DC and all.
@JollyJumjuck: Living in a neighborhood where our only options are street parking, having unauthorized vehicles makes it really difficult to get home. I’ve been pretty happy with Parking Enforcement when they come by and pull the jerks who take up our spaces so they don’t have to pay to park at the stadium.
@Falconfire: Suck. Why was it towed?
I love how much contempt people have for parking police. It’s great, I get to hear all kinds of people saying they don’t deserve their tickets because they were running late, or everybody does it, etc.
That doesn’t make the police right in this case, this is a case of ridiculousness. But at the same time, the attitude people have towards anybody who might write a parking ticket is just ridiculous. Maybe people should comment on this specific incident, or a specific incident that happened to them instead of calling anybody involved in parking enforcement “parasites.”
Nicest people I know right now are in parking enforcement.
@WraithSama: That’s terrible! I always try to quickly memorize the license plate of cars that hit me. And yes it’s happened a lot…I don’t live in DC, but fairly close to it. Had my car side-swiped three times, and then totaled.
@Leah: You’re supposed to keep the registration IN the car (at least in MO) but I have the title at home in a fireproof lock box.
@SuperJdynamite: In Utah, the registration papers state to keep them in the car at all times, so yeah, if this happens, you’re screwed. And since most people don’t have the titles to their cars, the bank does, this would be another problem.
@SkokieGuy: Oh man, I thought I got screwed when my car got towed the first day I moved to Chicago due to the archaic winter parking rule on Milwaukee Ave. But that is much worse. In any case I think we can agree that the parking industry in Chicago is a racket.
I’m sorry but this story simply isn’t believable. I’ve had my car towed in multiple states now, most recently just 2 weeks ago and the process is always the same. You need to present a driver’s license in the name of whoever the car is registered to or have a notorized statement. I once got towed in chicago years ago when I was driving a car under my dad’s name. I had to get a statement from him faxed even to have access the car so I could get the registration and insurance out. There is simply no believable way that a thief would go through the effort of faking all of this, insurance, registration, driver’s license to get the car out of a tow yard.
@sohmc
This is just a continuation of DC’s stupidity.
Case in point: DC wanted a baseball team. So they buy a baseball team…without a stadium. Then they wanted a stadium. So they built a stadium…in a very high crime area. DC then didn’t realize that people won’t know how to get there because there is a Metro stop named “Stadium Armory” which has nothing to do with a stadium. Then DC realized that they didn’t have enough parking. So they ask people around the area to host parking.
Unbelievable….
First of all, RFK (a stadium)is located at the Stadium Armory stop. Second, free parking and shuttle service is available to people who park at RFK to go to the Nationals games. Third, WTF are you talking about “asking people to host parking?” That makes no sense, and is not true.
This is what happens when you outsource law enforcement to private companies. Goddamned idiots.
This is what @SkokieGuy: so the city provides free disposal fees now? LOL
okay okay okay. jesus christ with a tow truck. everyone. MPD, the metro police department, and the DMV, department of motor vehicles are TWO separate agencies. before you continue cop/police bashing, take a deep breath. if you must commence with ‘goddamn the man’ comments, commence with general DC government bashing. BUT, also, with understanding that things have dramatically improved in the past few years. also, if you go back the WUSA9 story, it mentions nothng about MPD ticketing. wha?
@Leah:
A few years ago I co-signed a note for my nephews car. As a result I was on the title. He got it towed one night and got a friend to drop him off at my house. The next morning he had to be at work quite early so we loaned him a vehicle, and went to get his car out of the impound (private). My drivers license and a $150 was all that was required, the lot owner just looked up the information from the state.
We don’t have the same vehicle registration in Texas. We have two stickers on the windshield, one is for the safety inspection, the other is registration. The registration comes with a receipt, but it is only required to be kept with commercial vehicles.
When I have had cars financed I don’t remember ever getting even a copy of the title (with a lean indicated). I of course got a title when the loan was paid off.
Something like this happened to a friend of mine. she used to live in philly and they “relocated” her car without telling her for construction. she filed it as stolen, then she gets a call from her mom about a bunch of over due parking tickets a couple months later. We did find the car about a week after i vanished. They had moved it a few blocks over and around the corner. Spotted it looking for a parking space haha.
Um, my roommate’s car was stolen and parked blocking a driveway. It was towed, and she had to pay $350 to get it back, even though she reported it stolen when it was first missing. I don’t know why this kind of stuff happens.
Remember that time the parking police towed the car with the dead body in it? Not in D.C., but hey, meter maids is meter maids.
Parking tickets, just like red light cameras, have less to do with public order and safety, and more to do with revenue-making.
They’re not taking this very seriously.
@backbroken: Was that you?? Sorry!
If it makes you feel any better, I feel the same way about DC Police…
Are we sure Steve just didn’t report the car stolen so he can get free parking? It’s almost as dumb as paying for $150 in groceries and stealing $22 in soda.