patrick.net

I once got a ticket for not turning my wheels toward the curb when parked on a flat street in SF. Turns out the street was at a barely perceptible 3% grade.

I promised I will never drive to SF again, and so far pretty much held to that. I take Caltrain or BART.

Or park in a parking lot. Having said that when I went to SF, I did not take a car downtown (used public transportation and my bicycle)

upisdown says

Part of the reason to use the plate-reading technology is to be able to prove their violation, along with on-the-go type of technology so as to be able to cover more area,

Obligatory Parking Wars reference. At least they verify the VIN before they boot the car.

CL says

They're pretty flexible for street parking. They don't even usually ticket
twice if you don't move. They would catch the Captain's trick though. They flip
the ticket up to see if you're on the same block and when you were cited.

I was in a meeting when the meter ran out and got a ticket, then another because they must have come by right after to see if I moved the car, with no time on the second ticket. Upon the second ticket, they called the tow truck. When I called the city trying to find my car, some pissy employee gave me a list of the towing companies to call to find it. About 2 hours later, I was able to track it down and pay for the raping of my wallet to get it back. The next time that I was there one of the employees of the company told me to turn the front wheels toward the street so that a tow truck couldn't tow it. I got a ticket for that then. My out-of-state plates probably had a lot to do with the tickets too, as they knew that I probably couldn't and wouldn't fight it. In a different city in the same state, I did fight a parking ticket and ended up paying court costs that was $2 more than the ticket with a late charge. And I got the wonderful priveledge of waiting for a couple of hours to go before some low-level moron of a judge to get that.