Los Angeles News
Illegal To Park At Broken Meter
By Katherine Noland
Dec 6, 2012 - 6:36:03 PM

LOS ANGELES—The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday, December 5 to uphold the current law against parking at broken meters.

Although the new California state law, effective January 1, says that one can park for free at a broken meter for the malfunctioning meter’s allotted time, the law also allows cities to override it. With a 12-2 vote, the two-year-old policy that forbids drivers to park at non-functioning meters remains in action.

Violation of the policy will result in a $63 ticket. The city has reported to collect up to $5 million in revenue a year since it’s adoption in 2010. Before 2010, at least 10% of meters in the city were broken at any time, according to reports. Since then, this number has decreased significantly, where only 8 out of 40,000 meters require repair each month.

City officials believe that this law has prevented meter vandalism, seeing as now the destruction of a meter will make no difference in whether or not one will get a ticket.