It’s a well-documented rumor: If your parking ticket isn't handed to you in person, you don’t have to pay it. However, ASU, a university of more than 83,000, has its own set of messy rules.
When it comes to transportation enforcement, ASU is split up into two sections: the ASU Police Department and the Parking and Transit Services.
ASU PD Sgt. Daniel Macias said the department generally handles things like criminal speeding, and only work on parking citations if the car is in a fire lane or parked in a handicapped spot.
So while they have power to focus on matters like parking citations, that job essentially falls to ASU PTS.
After a citation is written, the owner of the car has one month to pay it. In the next three months the price of the ticket goes up by $10 each month.
JC Porter, assistant director of Parking and Transit Services, wrote in an email that citations vary in price based on severity, but overall “parking infractions are standard across the ASU campus."
After not paying the fine for three months, the fine goes online. PTS Office Supervisor Cathy Harrison said the fine doesn’t go directly to the student account but forms a separate transportation account on the PTS website.
“After the citation is issued, if it's over $30 and 30 days it goes onto their ASU account and puts a hold on their account,” said Harrison.
That means tasks like getting a diploma or registering for classes can be delayed from not paying the ticket.
To match the vehicle to the owner, PTS goes into the MVD system and does a search based on the car’s license plate. If the car doesn’t match any student or staff, they look at the information to see if they can make a connection between last names.
If they make a connection, PTS charges the infraction to the student's transportation account.
However, some students, like entrepreneurship sophomore Darcie Hill, said the process doesn't always seem to go according to plan.
Hill said the process was tricky because her car is registered to her father, and in the case of her specific ticket, they didn't follow through on charging it to her account.
Hill said until she inquired about the ticket, the department didn't know the citation was at all connected to her. Her dad never received any notification of the ticket or communication from PTS, either.
"Honestly, they just make it too complicated to actually enforce," Hill said.
Related Links:
ASU Parking and Transit Services tickets overzealously
ASU offers pay-by-phone parking app
Reach the reporter at megan.janetsky@asu.edu or follow @meganjanetsky on Twitter.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
