A San Francisco motorist who was fined 365 times for illegal parking between April 2018 and March 2023 racked up an unprecedented amount of penalties, but settled just one of them. After the remaining 364 fines were not settled, he owed $81,000, which was converted into more than 28 million Hungarian forints, he wrote. San Francisco standard.
The anonymous driver of the Lincoln is being followed by an equally anonymous Mercedes owner, who parked the car illegally so many times that he was fined $50,000 in just two years, which is equivalent to about 17.3 million Hungarian forints at today's exchange rate – but so far he has not paid A penny.
It is fairly common in the United States for drivers not to pay their fines.
The data revealed that more than 16 percent of the fines imposed during the five and a half years since January 2018, which exceeded 6 million, had not been settled. So every sixth.
The unpaid fines represent a total shortfall of $200 million, roughly 69.1 billion Hungarian forints, but since data older than 2018 is not available, the outstanding debt could reach a much higher amount. This is also a third of the $601 million, or approximately 208 billion forints, that we have sought to collect so far in fines, including late interest amounting to $137 million, more than 47 billion forints.
San Francisco transportation authorities try to prevent nonpayment in several ways. If necessary, they refuse to renew existing registrations or reject applications for residential parking permits if the applicants in question have debts.