Nobody is arguing that incorrectly issued tickets shouldn't be challenged. It depends if you think knowingly abusing the system to evade responsibility for wrongdoing is a reasonable and valid defence. This isn't just an us versus them situation. We all have an interest in parking space being appropriately regulated, to our mutual benefit. It's not inappropriately parking vehicle drivers versus 'the state' and sticking it to the man. It's inappropriately parking vehicle drivers versus other vehicle drivers, pedestrians and in fact pretty much everyone who lives in cities.
I happen to think that all accusations of crimes (or non-criminal infractions) should be challenged, not just those which are false.
I see this as a miniature version of the extremely worrying argument about plea bargaining, that it is necessary because the courts couldn't handle the huge volume of trials that would be required without it.
If you're handing out so many violations that you can't handle everyone engaging in an active defense against them, then you're doing something deeply wrong, and the solution isn't to discourage people from exercising their legal rights.
Yes, we all have an interest in parking space being appropriately regulated, but we all have a much greater interest in the state's punitive power being appropriately exercised, and I'm sure there are ways to achieve both anyway.
I've not really seen much indication that they're abusing the system. The one commenter above claims the app sent the same letter twice, someone who works for Fixed said that they don't send the same form letter every time and both tickets must have had the same error (which would generate the same letter). In light of that, I don't see why a form letter specific to what makes the ticket invalid is an issue. Why should someone have to come up with a hundred different way to say "There isn't a 'No Parking' sign within X feet, as per city ordinance YYYY".
I also just want to point out, the SFMTA has brought this on themselves. If they didn't have such an egregious erroneous ticket rate, Fixed could never be profitable. They only get paid if you don't have to pay the ticket, so if the SFMTA had an error rate of 5% rather than 33% Fixed wouldn't have enough to work with.
