Top Seattle parking scofflaws are billion-dollar firms

Washington state drivers who don’t pay parking fines in the City of Seattle face hefty penalties, including the “boot," a tire clamp that immobilizes a car until the owner pays up. But a KING 5 Investigation found that a select group of multi-billion-dollar companies has been permitted to avoid the penalties while piling up more unpaid parking tickets than anyone else.

By law, parking tickets must be paid by the vehicle’s registered owner, no matter who was driving at the time of the infraction. After lobbying in Olympia, however, rental car corporations succeeded in pushing through a law that establishes rental car companies in Washington as the only registered vehicle owners that do not have to pay their parking infractions directly.