I wrote relatively few parking tickets as a municipal patrol officer, but my tactic for any ticket was to minimize the importance of the ticket and my involvement. When someone seemed to be poised to launch into an argument or a tirade, I usually said something like, Listen, this is just a notice to appear. You're more than welcome to plead 'not guilty' to this, and depending on the circumstances you present to the judge, they may crumple this thing up and send you on your way.That re-framed the situation from This evil cop is costing me money, so I shall harangue him to This isn't hopeless - I'll fight this and be publicly vindicated in court. Of course, once they cooled off, they realized they'd have to take a day off work to appear on the charge and wound up just paying the fine by mail. I only testified on one parking ticket case. The defendant defended himself and did a patently horrible job - I more or less buried him from the stand while he was cross-examining me, and the prosecution's entire case essentially consisted of me verifying the ticket I wrote was authentic and accurate. The judge found him guilty and doubled the face value of the fine.