Subject: [NEXTEL-1] The Seattle Times: Man parks, leaves his headlights on, gets a $28 ticket

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 14:32:06 -0500

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Local News:
Wednesday, January 01, 2003

Man parks, leaves his headlights on, gets a $28 ticket

By Janet Burkitt

Seattle Times staff reporter

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John Seth was not happy when he returned to his car after making an early afternoon delivery in downtown Seattle last month and found that he'd left his lights on.

He was even less pleased when a city parking-enforcement officer handed him a $28 parking ticket. Not for being in a space illegally or for having an expired meter — it was for those headlights.

" 'You left your lights on,' " Seth recalled the parking officer saying. 'We can cite for it, so we do.' "

Seattle's law on lights

Every vehicle shall be equipped with one (1) or more lamps, which, when lighted, shall display a white or amber light visible from a distance of one thousand feet (1,000') to the front of the vehicle, and a red light visible from a distance of one thousand feet (1,000') to the rear of the vehicle. The location of the lamp or lamps shall be such that at least one (1) lamp or combination of lamps meeting the requirements of this section is installed as near as practicable to the side of the vehicle which is closest to passing traffic. (RCW 46.37.150(1)

Seattle Municipal Code, 11.82.300

"It's just insane." Seth said yesterday. "And the worst part of it was she smiled when she gave it to me and said, 'Merry Christmas.' "

Seth, a driver for the film company Film Stop, had no idea he could get a parking ticket merely for forgetting to turn off his lights — and he's not alone. The handful of police, city and court officials who could be reached yesterday said they'd never heard of anyone being penalized for such a thing.

"Even I am not aware of a law" that makes leaving lights on a citable offense, said Leo Poort, legal counsel to the Seattle Police Department. "It'd be news to me."

On Seth's parking ticket, he's cited for "Lights, parked vehicle." The part of the city code cited doesn't explicitly say anything about leaving a parked car's lights on, but rather details how a vehicle's lights need to be properly working (which Seth says his were).

A city ordinance does make it illegal to leave a car parked with the high beams on, and state law referred to in the city code declares that headlights of parked cars "shall be depressed or dimmed."

Nevertheless, police spokeswoman Deanna Nollette said she hadn't known that leaving car lights on was a parking infraction in Seattle until she talked to a parking-enforcement supervisor yesterday. She said she never issued citations under such circumstances when she was working as a patrol officer, but did try to turn the lights off as a courtesy if the car was unlocked.

She said it's not general practice within the department to give tickets simply for forgetting about headlights, but it is within an officer's discretion to do so. The supervisor said the officer who issued Seth's citation was relatively new on the job and had talked to one of her superiors after issuing the ticket because she'd had second thoughts about it, according to Nollette.

The officer was told she could cancel the ticket and was going to do just that, but Seth's car was already gone, Nollette said. The parking-enforcement unit had been made aware of Seth's complaints and was prepared to rescind his ticket but hadn't heard from him again, Nollette said.

Seth couldn't be reached yesterday to comment on Nollette's explanation, but said earlier that his employer would likely pay the ticket because he got it on the job.

But he said that doesn't matter.

"I feel cheated," he said. "I've got better things to do than to mess around with things like this."

He figured contesting it in court would be time-consuming, and he was doubtful a magistrate would strike the fine completely anyway.

If there's any silver lining for Seth, it might be that if he had gotten the ticket today, it would be $38 instead of $28 because of the city's efforts to balance the 2003 budget.

Still, "For the life of me, I can't figure out what the public-safety issue is," Seth said. "I mean, is a small child going to walk too near to your lights and be vaporized?"

Janet Burkitt: 206-515-5689; [email-masked].

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company

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