RE: parking ticket

["Idleman, Christopher" <CIdleman@domain.elided>]

Regarding the Alfa misidentified as a BMW, a few years ago I received a New
York City parking ticket in the mail.  Written very neatly and clearly on
the ticket was the NJ license plate number from my '74 Spider, but the make
was described as "Buick."  In fact, at the time of the alleged parking
offense my '74 had been disassembled and was sitting in my garage in NJ --
it couldn't have gone anywhere.  Obviously some disgruntled NYC metermaid
had incorrectly copied the digits from a misparked Buick's license plate.  I
mailed a copy of my registration showing that the license number written on
the ticket did not correspond to my car, and the ticket was immediately
thrown out.  You should be able to use a similar ploy -- y'know, "the
officer actually ticketed a BMW and must have transposed a digit when
copying the license plate numbers..."  Of course, this works best if you
received the ticket in the mail -- if you retrieved the ticket from your
windshield or were handed directly the ticket by the officer, then things
become a bit muddier if you've already communicated with the court (after
all, how did YOU get possession of a ticket that was issued to "someone
else's car"?)  You still should be able to get it thrown out on a
techicality.

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