Carole Blank Brown gave up her vanity plate, but the parking tickets kept coming. Clearing her name meant more trips to city offices, where judges had to review the fines one at a time.
The 70-year-old New York lawyer had chosen “BLANK” for her red BMW convertible as a nod to her maiden name. This spring, she learned that hundreds of tickets for other cars had been linked to that plate, reported the New York Times.
More than 400 tickets and penalties totaled over $40,000. Among the violations were missing plates and blocked driveways, at places where Brown said neither she nor her BMW had been.
Getting those fines dismissed became a task she had to fit around her work. Over weeks of return visits, she began bringing lunch and an iPad to help pass the hours.
A Familiar Face
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At the city Finance Department’s Adjudication Division, the pile was too large for one judge to clear. Brown went before four judges over two days as they worked through the tickets.
Even after she surrendered “BLANK,” she kept returning to clear more fines. In a single trip, she sometimes got $10,000 or more dismissed. “Everyone knows me there,” Brown told the Times, as quoted by the Post.
An Empty Field
The trouble came to light after Brown updated her car registration with her Upper East Side address. She had moved there several years earlier, but the change brought unpaid-ticket notices to her current home.
First came a $65 ticket for a missing plate, issued in March, and a $95 ticket for blocking a driveway in February. Both listed “BLANK” as the plate number.
Brown challenged the tickets and called 311, where she learned how many more were attached to her name. The empty plate fields on other drivers’ tickets had become linked to the word on her own plate.
She printed the violations so she could bring them to the judges. The Post put her printing cost at $400, on top of the time spent getting the fines removed.
The city has a Parking Summons Advocate who can help with some cases. Drivers must first dispute a ticket or file an appeal and be found guilty. Grounds for help include tickets that wrongly describe a car’s plate number, make, model, or body type.
Still On File
By Oct. 7, another 36 violations totaling nearly $3,000 remained, The National Herald reported in its account of the Times story. The Times contacted the city that day. Brown was told the next day that the problem was fixed.
Newser’s account of the Times report adds that DMV said it would not issue “BLANK” again. Brown chose another vanity plate for her car: “KNALB.”