SF meter maids ticket stolen car 29 times
A San Francisco woman reported her Honda Civic stolen to the San Francisco police. A few weeks later, she got a parking citation in the mail for her stolen car. Then she got another. And another. In total, her car got ticketed 29 times while being listed as stolen. She called the police and the city's Department of Parking and Traffic, but didn't get any solid answers about the whereabouts of her car, nor why it was being ticketed after being reported stolen. Eventually, she and a friend decided to drive around locations where the car had been ticketed to try to find it.
After driving for three hours, they located the car and waited for an hour before the police showed up. San Francisco's finest were not interested in catching the thieves and didn't search the car before releasing it. The thieves had put 1,000 miles on the car, but otherwise kept it clean. The city claims "parking control officers," who don't work for the police department, aren't expected to figure out which cars are stolen. "Their handheld ticket devices store auto theft information only from San Francisco's database — not the entire state." Ah, well that's good to know.
