Team 10: Where are San Diego's parking ticket hot zones?

SAN DIEGO - It is one of the last things you want to see when you return to your car -- a parking ticket.

Thousands of tickets are issued in the city of San Diego every year. Violations run the gamut; everything from expired meters, ignoring posted signs, and not cramping your wheel are the most popular violations.

Team 10 dug through data from 2015 and 2016 to find the most popular spots for parking tickets.

Some drivers blame parking enforcement.

"I think it's a conspiracy because it's a lot of us here so obviously it's going to be easy to give a lot of people a parking ticket," said Ashley Moses, who spoke to Team 10 near Cowles Mountain, which is one of the most highly ticketed areas for 2016.

Tiffany Boyd owns Cowles Mountain Coffee, which is right across the street from the mountain. She sees customers’ first reactions when they get a parking ticket.

“Frustrated, they’re so frustrated,” Boyd said. “No one wants to finish a nice hike and come back to a ticket on their car.”

Natalie Bryer has gotten her share of parking tickets. She confessed to at least 10 tickets this year.

“Being over two hours, not cramping my tires, having a bad day,” Bryer joked.

The top five spots for parking tickets in 2016 from January to mid-August, according to data from the City of San Diego, include:

*7000 Golfcrest Drive

*500 4^th Avenue

*3600 5^th Avenue

*3800 5^th Avenue

*7863 Girard Avenue

Team 10 spoke to Laird Tucker with San Diego Parking Enforcement.  Tucker said parking tickets can cost you anywhere from about $37 dollars for a fix-it fine to more than $800 for misusing a disabled placard.

The data showed from January to mid-August this year, 226,134 tickets were issued. During the same time frame last year, 199,188 tickets were issued. When Team 10 asked about the increase, Tucker said this year they are “more fully staffed” compared to previous years.

He said parking tickets are not a conspiracy, like Moses believed, but that they “go where the traffic is.”

Tucker said in 2015, about $18 million in fines were issued from parking tickets, although it is unclear exactly how much the city actually collected.