[79CamaroDiva]

What the title says.. would you ever fight a ticket if it would probably cost you more to fight it than it would to just pay it?

I was down at my dad's friends shop in Garfield a few months ago, and his building is right along the side of the road, and the ONLY place to park is off the side of the road in front of the building and wooden guardrail along the side of the building to keep idiots from crashing into the Passaic River. He's friends with the local police, they come in and bs with him all the time. I came out of the shop after I was done painting (i'm airbrushing a bike for him) and as i'm driving away, notice there's a ticket under my wiper. I pulled over, and foudn out it was an improper parking ticket. I told the shop owner, he said its bs, that its private property, and if they wanted to argue regardless, I was parked off the correct side of the road, not blocking any traffic, and there are no signs that say no parking.

So I'm fighting it. I already went to court once, the officer wasn't there, EVEN THOUGH i had to tell them that I would be coming to court AND the ticket number.. they should have had the guy there. Now I have to go back. When I did get up at court, after they said they'd have to have the officer come in, I asked the judge what, exactly, i was ticketed for, and he said that improper parking is either parked on the wrong side of the road (facing wrong direction), or not parking wtihin so many inches of the curb, etc. None of those criteria applied to me, so I have to go back and take pictures of the lot, how I was parked, and bring htem back to court.

In all honesty, its gonna cost me more in gas and work lost to fight this, but to me, its a principle thing. I'm not gonna give the town money for something that I didn't do, because a rookie thought I shouldn't be parked there. (yes, verified as a rookie)

Would you do the same thing or would you just pay it?