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If you’ve ever received a parking ticket in NYC, you know that the traffic court system and its rules can get extremely complicated, to the point where it feels easier to just pay every ticket.

That’s no accident!

Due to tricky regulations and regular amendments, many people have outdated or flat-out wrong ideas about parking tickets that lead to paying extra fines for unfair tickets.

Here are the top 6 misconceptions we’ve heard about NYC parking tickets.

Myth #6: The city may reduce your fine

One of the most common misconceptions about fighting a parking ticket in NYC is that if you can’t beat it, you might still be able to pay a reduced fine by pleading guilty to the violation.

Unfortunately, this is no longer true. It’s not surprising that people still believe this, considering how popular the program was! In 2009, over 680,000 drivers too advantage of the fine reduction program. By 2011, that number had nearly doubled to 1.3 million drivers pleading out to reduce their fines. One estimate suggested that NYC was losing close to $50 million a year in revenue due to this loophole.

So the city scrapped the program.

It’s been six years, but New Yorkers have long memories when it comes to discounts, and many still mistakenly believe that pleading guilty will save them money.

Fact: If you plead guilty to an NYC parking ticket, you still have to pay the full fine.

This is true even if you dispute your parking tickets. Reduced fines for tickets issued incorrectly are inordinately rare. In almost every case, disputed tickets are either upheld for the original fine amount, or dismissed completely.

Myth #5: Only the driver is responsible for a ticket

If you aren’t even in the car, you shouldn’t be blamed for bad parking. Makes sense, right? New York State thinks so, but NYC disagrees.

In section 39–02 of the Rules of the City of New York, the city lists the required elements of a valid parking ticket, and the driver’s name isn’t one of them. If you’ve ever come up against this kind of conflict before, you can probably guess that NYC only enforces their own rules.

This means that unlike traffic tickets and moving violations, which are issued to a specific driver, parking tickets are issued to the vehicle, and the owner is ultimately responsible.

Many motorists aren’t aware of this, and think they can ignore tickets issued while someone else was driving. This is especially common for vehicle owners who share their cars for work, or for people who share ownership with another driver.

While a ticket is ignored, it racks up late fees and penalties, until it can no longer be disputed at all, and you’re stuck with double the original fine.

Myth #4: Ticket agents have to treat everyone equally

We’ve all had that moment of anger and frustration when we return to our cars and spot that little orange envelope. But what adds insult to injury is when you look down the block, and nobody else has been ticketed.

It doesn’t seem fair, and you start to wonder if someone was just trying to reach their quota for writing tickets.

It’s not impossible, but what’s more likely is that those other cars were parked legally, and you were not. The arrows and signs marking parking and no-parking zones are often angled in a confusing way, and it can be hard to tell exactly where is ‘safe.’

When parking is scarce, we often don’t pay close enough attention to why we found the last open spot, and ticket agents can swoop in. But there’s no rule that says they have to ticket everyone around you.

Myth #3: You cannot get a parking ticket if you are in the car

Unfortunately, you can get a parking ticket if you are still in the car.

If you’re sitting or sleeping in your car while parked illegally, traffic agents are all too happy to scan your registration and write you a ticket while you wait. There’s absolutely no requirement for them to talk to you before writing the ticket.

Despite what you might have heard, ticket agents don’t care when you move from an illegal parking spot. (Often times, they’ll hope you stay parked there longer, so they can write you an additional ticket!)

If you see a ticket agent walking towards you while you’re parked, your best bet may be to start driving before they get close enough to scan your car’s details.

Myth #2: Defective tickets get dismissed automatically

This myth is rooted in wishful thinking, plain and simple. In a perfect world, once a ticket was written incorrectly, the city would notice and cancel it on their own.

But in NYC, the only way to get a parking ticket dismissed is through a formal dispute, which the city now allows drivers to perform by mail or online, as well as in person at the courthouse.

Fighting by mail or online may be convenient, but it’s often not as effective as an in-person dispute, and a lack of understanding about what precisely qualifies a ticket as improperly written leads to many drivers finding themselves forced to pay for bad tickets.

Because of the complexity of the city’s parking rules, and the accuracy of the registration scanners now carried by ticket agents, drivers fighting their own parking tickets in NYC only get about 10% of their tickets dismissed!

WinIt, a startup founded in NYC , offers drivers the opportunity to entrust their disputes to experienced professionals. Their team of specialists have been disputing parking tickets in NYC for over 20 years.

After you submit your parking ticket in the free WinIt app, former ticket agents and traffic court justices analyze your ticket for errors, and dispute specialists represent you at in-person hearings, leaving you free to focus on more important things.

WinIt’s ticket-fighting experts dismiss more than 30% of all tickets they dispute.

Myth #1: I have evidence that I was parked legally, I’m safe

This is probably the most commonly believed myth about NYC parking tickets, and it’s easy to see why.

If you have a photo to show you were parked correctly at the time, or that your ticket was written incorrectly, you’d think the judge would be happy to dismiss the violation.

You’d be wrong. In order for the court to accept your photo as evidence, it must include — in the photo — proof of the precise time, date, and location where it was taken. Because it’s so easy to move your car after receiving a ticket, justices will usually ignore this kind of evidence.

One solution that some clever motorists have found is to use two phones: display the current date and time on one, and hold it in the frame when taking a photo of your parking job with the other. Of course, this trick only works if you have two phones, and are parked somewhere that you can easily identify the exact location, typically with a street sign or address number visible in the background.

This list only scratches the surface of common misconceptions and myths about parking tickets, and we’ll be sure to visit more of them in the future. If you’ve got a parking ticket and aren’t sure if you can fight it, WinIt can review and fight your parking tickets risk-free.