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There are certain streets and neighborhoods you'll want to avoid if it's your life's mission to stay away from parking fines. According to research done by NBC 4, certain areas of L.A. are more prone to parking tickets.
NBC analyzed more than 9 million tickets that were handed out by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation in the past four years, and they discovered that, of the more than 361,000 blocks in L.A., only 500 blocks accounted for nearly 20% of the tickets.
To test their suspicions, NBC parked two cars in separate neighborhoods to see how long it would take them to get ticketed. The car in Larchmont—discovered to be one of the "hot spots"—was ticketed 18 minutes after the meter had expired. In Van Nuys, however, it took four hours before the car was tagged with a ticket, even though LA Parking Enforcement had driven past the spot two times.
Jay Carsman, the former parking ticket coordinator for the city, told NBC that it's more efficient for parking enforcement to focus on certain areas, rather than treating all of L.A. with equal scrutiny. "Low hanging fruit. It's easy, it's cost effective," said Carsman. The targeted areas, obviously, tend to be popular with shoppers and tourists.
Not surprisingly, Hollywood and downtown were among the most ticketed neighborhoods in the city. Areas in Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Westwood, and Larchmont were also among the hot spots. Check out the map here to see where the most tickets are being handed out:
NBC even went as far as to list the top 100 streets that get the most tickets. The top five streets were:
