Watch this man heading for this gray car. He opens the door, puts his briefcase in and walks around, taking off this ticket for parking illegally, in a no stopping area, a Tow Zone.
And look, we found it happening again and again. Same car, same driver here and here and here, parking illegally, where it's a public safety hazard.
What makes this more interesting, this car is owned by the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.
Its assigned driver, whose identity we're concealing because the car is used for undercover work, is an Assistant DA. DAs are supposed to enforce the law. But city of Boston records show this car racked up more than $12,000 in public safety violations! More than 170 tickets.
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7NEWS"What think when you see this?"
Tom Tinlin, Commissioner, Boston Transportation Department "It's infuriating, the rules need to apply."
And he's not the only government employee threatening public safety by parking in illegal spots. We uncovered this list of Boston parking violations that reveals an astonishing pattern of abuse: Government cars in crosswalks, no stopping zones, bus stops, even in front of hydrants or in handicapped zones.
In the past five years government vehicles got more than twenty two thousand tickets of these thickets. That's 1.2 million dollars in unpaid fines.
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7NEWS"How were they getting away with it for all these years?"
Tom Tinlin, Commissioner, Boston Transportation Department "Unfortunately sometimes you have to raise the embarrassment level and now it's on our screen and now we need to fix it."
Boston city vehicles are constant offenders: 767 tickets with $52,000 in fines. As we showed the mayor, even his office has 28 tickets for illegal parking.
Mayor Thomas Menino, City of Boston "We are the ones who try to tell people to follow the rules, and now we're the ones breaking the rules. We've gotta take care of this."
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7NEWS"What do think when you see this?"
Mayor Thomas Menino, City of Boston "It's frustrating."
Mass law does allow certain government vehicles some leeway when it comes to parking. Employees on official business, for instance, don't have to feed meters. But public safety rules always apply.
Tom Tinlin, Commissioner, Boston Transportation Department "It's inexcusable to park in a handicapped or a tow zone or a bus stop or a crosswalk."
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7NEWS"No matter who you are?"
Tom Tinlin, Commissioner, Boston Transportation Department "No matter who you are."
We found MBTA cars too, repeatedly parked illegally, some in bus stops! Bottom line: the T has almost 400 of these tickets.
Hank Phillippi Ryan, 7NEWS"What do you think when you see this?
Joe Pesaturo, MBTA "Its not a shining moment for the MBTA, Hank, obviously. were not pleased with it, especially when we see some of these were parked in bus stops, you could not be more egregious."
Now–big changes in the works. T officials just distributed this special notice to every employee. It says, "People who violate the parking restrictions will be responsible for all fines and towing charges."
Joe Pesaturo, MBTA "We are going to come down hard on this, and we're going to make sure that if you have a T-issued car and you park illegally, you are going to pay for it."
And that DA's office car, it's not the only one we found abusing parking rules. Records show that office owes more than $45,000 for 638 tickets! The DA's office refused to appear on camera–and told us:
"…all employees are on notice that they will be required to pay for any violations they incur in the future."
If you get a parking ticket and don't pay it, you could get booted. But we found for these illegally parked vehicles, that doesn't happen. For years–until we asked–they've just gotten away with it and that allowed the parking free-for-all to continue.
Tom Tinlin, Commissioner, Boston Transportation Department "The problem is clear and glaring and we need to address it."
Parking officials told us they're now considering booting and towing the worst offenders. If you see a government car parked illegally we want to know about it, send us a photo.
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