City missing out on parking ticket bonanza

LEAVING your car in a no parking area in Panama will cost you $100, and as the number of vehicles on city roads increases by around 50,000 a year, the police have become visibly more active in calling for tow trucks. But 90% of the revenue goes not to the city but the towing company.

The penalty for leaving an illegally parked car is $10. The towing company, which takes the offending vehicle to one of the many corrals scattered across the city, pockets $90, more if you don’t pick up your car the same day.
This, far from representing a high revenue for the state from charging offenses, has become a profitable business for towing companies.
In 2012 70,423 fines were imposed. In 2013 the figure rose to 77 365, and in the first seven months of this year 46,169 parking tickets were handed out
Yessica Nunez Stagnaro, representative of the Panamanian Association of towing operators, said that union members do not operate without a prior call from the traffic authorities.
Meanwhile motorists continue to suffer from lack of adequate parking facilities, and drivers face heavy parking rates for visits to hotels and malls.