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After nearly a year of fighting a parking ticket he received in Kips Bay, Manhattan, Lee Rottenberg of Queens feels discouraged.

His handicapped permit entitles him to park in certain no parking zones, but the ticket issued last January claimed he parked in the no standing zone behind it.

Rottenberg submitted photos to prove that, had he been parked where the ticket claimed, he would have been obstructing traffic, a worse offense that was not listed on the ticket. But the Department of Finance found the evidence unpersuasive, particularly because the timestamp on the photos was two hours later than the time that the ticket was issued.

"That's kind of absurd. How could I have taken a picture at the time of the incident? Obviously I wasn't there when I got the ticket," says Rottenberg.

Rottenberg is far from the only one to meet failure after sending in evidence contesting a ticket.

"People are guilty as soon as they get the ticket, especially if you don't have the finances to fight it by taking a day off from work," says Bronx Councilman James Vacca.

Vacca is trying to address this problem with a bill that would require ticket agents to submit their own photos proving that a car is illegally parked.

"It would be beyond dispute," says Vacca. "Evidence of an infraction or it would represent evidence of a ticket issued in error."

Unfortunately, even if the bill becomes law, it is too late to help Rottenberg. But he says he's just glad that the recipients of future parking tickets could be proved guilty, rather than presumed guilty.

"You won't be able to get tickets like I got where, you know, it obviously is not a correct ticket," says Rottenberg.

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