Stolen Honda Civic Given 29 Parking Tickets in San Francisco without Police Taking No

[Honda News Feed]

When South San Francisco resident Michelle Vuckovich’s 2000 Honda Civic was stolen from her apartment’s garage on September 26, she thought she had done all she could do by calling the police. And indeed, within 30 minutes of her phone call, an officer had taken her statement, filed a report, and submitted the car’s make and license plate number to a statewide computer database of stolen cars.
Unfortunately for Vuckovich, that didn’t stop her from receiving a parking citation in the mail a few weeks later, telling her that the car had been ticketed in San Francisco proper just hours after it was reported stolen.

(Click through the jump to read on about the stolen Civic and its tickets.)

The next ticket came with a warning from San Francisco parking control, that the stolen Civic had been placed on a parking “watch-for list.” This second parking infraction took place one day after the car’s theft, more than enough time for the plate to show up in the database. A third ticket came a few days later, and many more were to follow it; six in less than a week, and 29 in total while the car was listed as stolen.
Soon after the tickets started flowing in from the mail, an astonished Vuckovich called the SFPD to find out why no action was being taken. The officer she spoke with couldn’t say why the parking officers weren’t running the plate to see if it had been reported. Vuckovich then contacted the Department of Parking and Traffic, where she was again met with a frustrating lack of answers.
In the end, Vuckovich went with a friend to the general vicinity of the parking infractions, and was able to find the car exactly one month after it had been reported missing. To add insult to multiple injuries, the Civic was parked just two blocks from the police station.
Vuckovich’s Civic was in fine repair, with only a damaged lock to show for its capture. There’s no word on whether the thieves have been caught, or if the parking fines were paid.
+ SFGate: Matier & Ross: Stolen car kept getting tickets, cops didn’t notice
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