Over 4,200 drivers slapped with $117 tickets under new ‘daylighting’ rule despite backlash over confusing ‘curb’ clue

BAFFLED drivers in San Diego have been whacked with 4,200 parking tickets despite confusion over the complex new daylighting law. 

The controversial new law makes it illegal for drivers to park their cars within 20 feet of a crosswalk, on the side of the street that faces the crosswalk. 

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Drivers have been slapped with a hefty $117 fine for parking too close to crosswalks at intersections across California. 

That means the city has raked in nearly half a million dollars, $491,400 in two months alone. 

Curbs around certain areas have been painted red to educate unsuspecting drivers about the new parking restrictions. 

But many are bamboozled because the law also applies to unmarked crosswalks on the approach side of the road. 

In an attempt to ease drivers into the new regime, California gave a generous grace period, issuing blue notices rather than fines from January 1. 

But since March 1, seething motorists have been harshly penalised under the new rules. 

“I think they should not do this at this time,” Masie Wong told NBC affiliate KNTV.

“They should at least wait for the economy to get better.”

Wong, who owns an AC trading company, complained that she’d had to shut a location downtown due to limited parking spaces. 

Celina Preciado argued it would hit the economy, making shopping and dining in the city more difficult. 

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“It’s already hard to find parking as it is,” Preciado said.

“We probably will have to use public transportation now more often.”

On the other hand, pedestrian Neema Esfandiari praised the law, telling ABC affiliate KABC-TV, “People’s lives are more important than a little extra time looking for parking.

“And I don’t think it’s going to change too much.”

“It allows the driver to see pedestrians in the crosswalk and the pedestrian to see the driver that’s coming. It’s very simple [and] inexpensive,” Jodie Mezeiros of Walk SF told KNTV.

Erin Longen, San Diego Police Department’s Parking Enforcement Supervisor, defended the decision, claiming that “It’s all about pedestrian safety.” 

She added: “So as you approach a crosswalk, just think about any little kid walking to school, you’re not able to see them when a car is parked close to the crosswalk.”

“We handed out 1,500 warnings for two months, it was a little blue slip we would leave on cars we saw in violation,” Longen said. This helped get the word out ahead of the ticketing and enforcement, which began on March 1.

“We’ve written over 4,200 tickets, which sounds like a high number, but it’s less than 10% of the tickets were writing as an agency, and we are writing them both proactively and reactively, so people do use the Get It Done App to report violations in their neighborhood, so we respond to those as well as just in the community seeing what we see.”

She said that the most issues arise where parking is already scarce, specifically, Normal Heights, North Park, Hillcrest, University Heights, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and La Jolla. 

Longen warned: “Just remember that some red zones were painted prior to this law, so some of them might only be 5 feet, but we have to give that 20-foot clearance.”