The traffic police (Transito) and the municipality cops had made the warning several weeks back that with the changes in the transit law they had the authority to write tickets and take down the plates of any vehicle that is partially or totally blocking the road, or parked in restricted zones, whether the driver is present or not; this applies even in residential areas in the event a report is filed.

Parking in restricted areas is very common in many places in Costa Rica, especially in downtown San José and Heredia, this obeys in part to the lack of adequate infrastructure but many times is simple negligence by the drivers.

The traffic police have carried out operations in the metropolitan area to enforce the law that became effective July 17; besides issuing the respective ticket they also take down the vehicle’s plates.

According to the legal director of the Costa Rican Road Safety Council (Cosevi), Carlos Rivas, right now the traffic police are taking as many as 300 plates daily. This has caused chaos at the Cosevi offices where drivers have to go pay the fine and request the plates back.

Cosevi gives out 200 tabs or spaces every day, that’s as many cases as they handle on a daily basis, drivers many times are not aware that officers have up to 72 hours after they’ve written the ticket to turn in the plates to Cosevi, so sometimes they show up and their plates have not been turned in, other times they have to go several days to try to get one of the 200 spots available.

Drivers have complained that there are people who sell their spot in the line for as much as $40.00. Others have mentioned they’ve had to wait over a week to get their plates back.

Rivas stated that in the period between July 17 through August 3rd there were already over 3000 cases, the majority of the drivers facing problems were fined in Heredia, followed by San José and Alajuela.

Drivers who face this problem must pay the fine which is of close to $100.00, wait three days before going to Cosevi to requests the plates back and prepare for a long wait.

So far this year Cosevi has issued 6,193 tickets for bad parking, the majority of them after July 17 and drivers have had to pay over 70 million colones in fines.