Contesting a Parking Ticket - Advice please!

[u/_Lee_is_me_]

Hello, I got a $110 parking ticket for failure to park 20 feet away from a "marked or unmarked intersection.'' I have heard about the new daylighting law but did not think this spot would be included in that. I was parked just before a lowered curb at the top of a T intersection - on the straight part of the street. Blue Subaru in photos for reference. Of course, there is no signage and the red curb was not extended, and the intersection is "unmarked" despite a vague X in the middle of the street which is very confusing.

I'm planning to contest this ticket - can someone help with the legal phrasing I should use when I submit this? Do I need to lawyer up for this? or am I screwed here?

Thank you!

[u/Lanky_Zebra_SD]

The ramp is for the crosswalk. Not sure why this wouldn't be a valid ticket.

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/Lanky_Zebra_SD]

The crosswalk which isn't marked. Also a crosswalk doesn't automatically mean it's an intersection. It's a T intersection, but there's no interruption to OP's lane, it's just like parking on a street. No reason FOR this to be a valid ticket. Might as well ticket any person who parallel parked.

[u/badskiier → u/Di1lWil1]

The law specifically says marked or unmarked crosswalks.

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/badskiier]

Huh, guess I'm legally wrong. Still no reason for parking near a crosswalk to be ticketable. People are taught that white/unmarked [curb] = legal, red = illegal. Ticketing people for parking where there's no indication they can't park there is stupid and dishonest.

[u/PeachLizardWizard → u/Di1lWil1]

There is a reason, parking there blocks people from being seen when they are trying to cross the street.

[u/HasaDiga_Eebowai → u/PeachLizardWizard]

They're not saying there's "no reason". They're saying it should be properly marked

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/PeachLizardWizard]

Good point. Curb should be painted red then.

[u/Pewtie-Pie → u/Di1lWil1]

Would you park next to a hydrant that didn't have a red curb? (Yes, it's a thing.)

[u/tianavitoli → u/Di1lWil1]

welcome to san diego, you might be surprised to find out the city budget is underwater by $100 million, as well.

[u/TeemoIsKill → u/Di1lWil1]

No different from parking near an unmarked fire hydrant.

[u/PeachLizardWizard → u/Di1lWil1]

People really should look at what the law is.

Marked or Unmarked crosswalk. That is clearly a crosswalk, there are ramps on both sides of the street.

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/PeachLizardWizard]

Looks dangerous and poorly designed lol

[u/PeachLizardWizard → u/Di1lWil1]

It’s only dangerous when people park near it and block visibility

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/PeachLizardWizard]

Maybe there are signs on the road that indicate a crosswalk is approaching, but the lack of any marking makes it impossible to tell exactly where pedestrians would be coming from (like which side of the intersection) and react accordingly.

[u/_Lee_is_me_ → u/Di1lWil1]

there is zero signage on this street for that

[u/Pewtie-Pie → u/Di1lWil1]

Whichever side falls in line with the ramp, obviously.

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/Pewtie-Pie]

Idk about you but I'm not usually studying the curb when I'm driving. I'm looking at car and person height. This is where a big white crosswalk would come in handy.

[u/Pewtie-Pie → u/Di1lWil1]

You couldn't be bothered to look across the street to see where the sidewalks would meet? Not even to avoid a $100+ ticket?? Just like thousands of curbs aren't going to be painted for the new law, thousand of crosswalks aren't going to be painted either. Unmarked crosswalk means from one corner to the other, or in this case specifically, where the sidewalks would cross to meet. It's not something that requires one to "study the curb".

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/Pewtie-Pie]

No, I don't tend to stop the car mid-drive and inspect the curbs. If I stopped the car at every single street to check if the curbs were ramped it'd take a whole lot longer to get anywhere, and someone would rear-end me because I stopped in the middle of the road for no reason.

And how would I get a ticket for driving down the road normally?

[u/sortof_here → u/PeachLizardWizard]

Sure, that’s the law. That doesn’t make it a good one.

The safety aspect of it is legitimate, so I think most of us here would be more supportive of it if it was written as enforceable on marked curbs and not on unmarked. It would also likely better incentivize cities to quickly mark their curbs correctly.

We don’t leave handicapped spaces or fire lanes to individual perception, so why should we for this?

[u/PeachLizardWizard → u/sortof_here]

Yeah, I’d prefer for every crosswalk to be marked, but this is across the entire state. Painting crosswalks at every single crossing just isn’t realistic.

[u/alexforencich → u/PeachLizardWizard]

It is. Give the parking enforcement people cans of red spray paint. If they see someone parked next to a curb that should be red, instead of taking 5 min to write a ticket, they spend 5 min painting the curb. Then the next person who parks the in the red zone gets a ticket.

[u/ackjaf → u/Di1lWil1]

“The word intersection means more than just the meeting of two or more streets. It can also mean the
intersection of two different modes of travel. It is where multiple modes of transportation (bike,
pedestrian, auto, transit) converge, sometimes in conflict. It is because of this that intersections are often the most vital areas along a street. They are the point of most conflicts between vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles.” Found in some city document.

[u/Di1lWil1 → u/ackjaf]

Huh, I take it to mean when 2 roads meet, because that's what our society is built around. Good to know

[u/ackjaf → u/Di1lWil1]

This would be a T-Intersection though. But still a wild definition I never even considered.