46 percent of parking ticket appeals successful at CMU

About 46.3 percent of parking ticket appeals since July 1 were successfully appealed or voided, said CMU Police Service Officer Mike Anderson.

There have been 181 accepted appeals out of the 391 filed appeals. The police department also voided 1,575 tickets for various reasons since July.

Seventeen tickets remain open in their appeal, and the CMU police need students to provide some sort of proof before the appeal can be decided.

Anderson said the police will void tickets for a number of reasons, including confusion on restricted areas.

“We don’t want to be the bad guys,” he said. “I can point out what they did, void the ticket and refund their money. It’s not always the case.”

Out of the 31,027 total tickets in the 2008 fiscal year, 3.7 percent were appealed.

More than 50 percent of attempted appeals were successful.

Tickets can be appealed for many reasons, from doctor’s notes to car troubles.

“All we ask them to do is explain the situation,” said Kim Roshak, manager of Parking Services.

The 1,575 voided tickets have cost the police department $36,090 of lost revenue.

“It affects (the budget) a little bit,” Anderson said. “Are we worried about it? No.”

While police officers are willing to work with students, Anderson said tickets issued for parking in the new Washington Apartments parking spots are unlikely to be appealed successfully.

The two most common tickets are distributed for parking in a restricted area and failure to display a permit.

Lauren Quinlan, a Millington junior, received a parking ticket for an expired meter outside of Foust Hall last year, but chose not to appeal it.

“I just paid the $20,” Quinlan said. “At the time, I was going to a doctor’s appointment, felt crappy enough, and didn’t feel like arguing it.”

The amount of time an appeal takes can stop some students.

Greenville sophomore Lauren Guilfoyle received a ticket her freshman year for parking an unauthorized truck in the Towers parking lot. She said she was on her way to get a pass for it when the ticket was written, but opted not to.

“I thought about appealing it,” Guilfoyle said. “It was time consuming, and I was really busy at the time.”