Got a Parking Ticket?

Got a parking ticket from the municipality? The Supreme Court has decided!

You just left the car for few minutes without the parking voucher, or any other method used today, and when you come back: Bad news, that annoying ticket is waiting for you on the windshield.

As you may know (or not), these tickets will be valid for three years only, after three years the tickets are void. So all you have to do is ignore the ticket! Pretend they are not there. Ignore the mail, don’t sign anything and wait for the three year period to pass.

This won’t help you anymore! The Supreme Court (The honorable Justice Mr. Eliakim Rubinshtein) has decided in favor of the municipality in a case where a few citizens claimed the municipalities are “using registered mail” to stop counting these three years. Why, you may ask?

Let’s say in 2005 you parked your car in a blue and white spot and left it for few minutes but when you came back you realized that you had forgotten to activate the parking device and therefore you received a ticket from the municipality.

Now let’s suppose you moved in 2006 to another city, forgot to pay the ticket and never changed your address with the Ministry of Interior as you are required to do when you move.

Let’s assume now that after a year you received a notice from the post office. A registered letter was waiting for you. So you went to the post office but when you saw the envelope you decided not to accept it and didn’t sign for it. And a few months after that, when you were not at home the postman knocked on your door and your wife signed for the registered letter.

From that moment the three years “started all over again”. It doesn’t matter if you personally signed or not, and actually it doesn’t matter if anyone signed for the registered letter. If the address the registered letter was sent to is the same as the one registered with the Ministry of Interior, the letter is assumed by law to have been “received”.

You may end up paying not only the original 70 or 100 shekel ticket, but the judge could decide to increase your fine to 1,000 shekels.

Please remember! If you get a ticket: pay for it as soon as possible and don’t try to avoid it. It can be done also through the Internet.

Sincerely,
 

Tzvi Szajnbrum, Attorney at law