Unfriggen believable: Stolen car kept getting tickets,

[cboy4]

cops didn't notice.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/24/BAS8U31UA.DTL

San Francisco Chronicle
Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross
Monday, December 24, 2007



If you want an example of just how screwed up things can be in the big city, look no further than the case of Michelle Vuckovich and her stolen Honda Civic.

Vuckovich's odyssey started back on Sept. 26, when the 37-year-old video game producer's 2000 Civic was stolen out of her South San Francisco apartment garage.

<snip>

But apparently nobody noticed, because a few weeks later, Vuckovich got a citation in the mail indicating the car had been ticketed by a San Francisco parking control officer on Union Street just hours after she had reported it stolen

<snip>

In all, Vuckovich's stolen car got ticketed 29 times in San Francisco while it was listed as stolen. :wtf:


Jesus, keep reading...it gets better.

[zbdent]

1. Watch the freepturds blame this on the liberals not only because "liberals hate cops"

but also because the cops ticketing the car are "liberals" (or hired because of the liberal "affirmative action" or ADA ...)

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Hey they stole that idea from NYC !

Darn Friskies!!! Difference here is the thieves would have 'parked' the car at a hydrant, stripped it, and the NYC parking cops would just keep writing tickets and piling them on the windshield for about a month.

Not many things uglier than a broken, brain dead bureaucracy.

A malignant tumor, maybe. Not much else.

[Historic NY]

6. Hey they did that with my uncles car...........

I even called them but it must have been a city secret because they couldn't tell me where the car was exactly. It got tickets for a month before the Sanitation slugs took it off the street. I told the guy on the phone that you can keep ticketing a stolen car but will not let the owner retrieve it. I guess it got picked clean. I remember going down the West Side Hgwy and seeing all the old bones of cars dumped along the road.

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. People think I make these things up. Thanks. nt

[RB TexLa]

3. And I had a police officer call me and go off on the phone because I didn't call them and report my

car was stolen. He was screaming about "how could you not have called and notified us about this," and crap. I was sitting there thinking how the hell would this guy care that someone had stolen my car. I guess the insurance company called them after I called to cancel the coverage.

[Bitwit1234]

4. Forensic Files had something like this on.

A young woman was missing for two weeks or more before they found the body. People kept calling police and telling them a suspicious car was parked on a street. They only thing that happened was it kept getting tickets. Eventually they found it was the young woman's. And she was in the trunk of the car.

[havocmom]

5. And some departments want to fingerprint EVERYBODY in a traffic stop

What, those pricey computers don't work?

Seeing more and more intrusive (and rights violating) data gathering and less and less real police work.

Gotta wonder if the powers that be are just dangling (weapons, tech toys, rights waiving) carrots to separate the brown shirt wannabees from the good cops so they know who to promote and keep around.

[ThatsMyBarack]

7. As a 2001 Civic owner....

....I find this painfully disturbing. You don't even have to own a civic--it could happen to anyone. :scared:

[prole_for_peace]

9. at least they didn't make her pay the tickets..

that's where i thought the story was leading and it wouldn't have surprised me at all.


many years ago a friends car was stolen. it was a piece of crap pacer but it was transportation to school. i remember that she laughed how she had gotten home on fumes and that the theives weren't going to go more that a block or two before it ran out of gas. anyway, months later she gets a call that her car is in a impound lot 300 miles away. they also tell her that she owes the tickets and impound fee to get it back. she just told them to the keep the damn thing.

[MurrayDelph]

10. Several stories

1. I don't whether it is the case in San Francisco, but in Los Angeles the traffic enforcement is "outsourced" to a third party, who collects a percentage of every fine collected. So it is in their interest to be "aggressive" in finding opportunities, since in most traffic incidents you are considered guilty unless proven otherwise. Several years ago, I worked in an area along Wilshire Blvd, where the side streets were all legal to park, except on "Street Sweeping Day." In the city of Los Angeles, if it says "No parking 12n to 2pm Friday, Street Sweeping" this means that one Friday a month the street sweeping machines will come by; but the parking ticket people come by EVERY Friday. I once went out for lunch at 12:05 Friday and the street had eight cars that been ticketed, with the Enforcement Agent gone by then (Admittedly, this does mean that they were all illegally parked, but there is no way that Agent could have known for certain that some of them might not have come out in time!).

2. I have a bad knee, severely damaged enough to qualify for replacement surgery (I am holding out for better options). It is bad enough that I qualify for a handicapped placard. Before the permanent placard arrived, I was issued a temporary one. Soon before the temporary one expired, I went to Fry's electronics, where a Enforcement Agent saw me pull into a handicapped spot, and asked to see my paper permit (the one that shows the placard is mine). I showed it to him, but damned if that guy didn't follow me around the store to see if he could catch me "faking". Faking would mean a big fine (and a big commission for him).

3. I once parked in a covered lot in the Valley at a meter (which you can do with a Handicapped placard), because the metered spot was significantly closer to the store I was going into than the handicapped spots were. When I came back, there was a ticket under my wipers, directly twelve inches below where my tag was hanging. I tracked down the Agent, still in lot, and was told that I had to either pay it, or send in a photocopy of my placard.


...and the stupidity is not reserved for the psueudo-cops:

4. Several years ago, my wife received a call from some Sheriff's Department in a small town in northern California, to tell her "We found your truck." When my wife informs them that she does not own a truck, they describe it to them, only to be told by my wife "That's my ex-husband's truck!" The Deputy then admits "That's what he told us." (Ex-husband used to have Hippie Hair). She proceeded to chew out the cop. Later, ex-husband told my wife "The sheriff said he wished his ex-wife was as nice to him as this one was" to the ex. Note to Sheriff's Deputy: maybe if you weren't such an asshole, she might be.