The D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, however, says Davis parked illegally on P Street in Northwest Washington last July, according to its records.

"If this is true, it was a resurrection," said the man's son, Nick T. Davis, of Warrenton, who has been battling the District for months trying to prove that his father never incurred the parking ticket. "As much as I want my father to still be alive, that is just not happening."

When The Washington Post asked the DMV last week about a similar mix-up -- a 78-year-old D.C. woman kept receiving parking tickets for cars she didn't own -- District officials took a couple of days to track the problem down to a computer glitch.

Apparently, addresses and license plate numbers were mismatched in a database of motorists whose registrations came up for renewal between August and October 1999, said DMV spokeswoman Regina Williams.

The DMV was flooded with calls yesterday from others complaining that they also were unfairly ticketed. Williams said none of those calls was a result of that specific problem. But since the DMV pinpointed that snag this week, other stories, such as Davis's, have surfaced that cannot be explained by that mix-up.

Williams said DMV officials plan to meet with their contractor, Lockheed Martin IMS Inc., today on ridding the computer system of the persistent problem of collection notices being mailed to people for parking infractions on cars they don't own.

In Davis's case, even after a DMV clerk verified that the plates on his father's 1987 Chevy Caprice have been inactive since 1993, the DMV asked him yesterday to send it a copy of his father's death certificate, explaining that the burden of proof is on him.

"When I first called them, they asked me why I don't just pay the fine and get it over with," Davis said.

That response, almost universal in these cases, infuriates already frustrated residents. But DMV Director Sherryl Hobbs Newman said it is not DMV clerks who are answering calls that way: The phone number on collection notices is for Lockheed Martin or its collection agency. "Those people don't have the information, the resources to deal with these issues," Newman said.

She suggested that motorists call the DMV directly at 202-727-5000 and ignore the phone number on the collection notices.

But some motorists said that even if they call the DMV directly, the deck is already stacked against them.

"The problem with this is that because these tickets are put on cars these people don't own, the first time they hear about this and have a chance to try and fight it, it's already in the collection process and they're on the defensive," said Thomas Lippman, vice president for program communication at the World Wildlife Fund and a Chevy Chase resident.

Lippman, a former reporter at The Washington Post, said he received a collection notice from a law firm two years ago for a ticket on a Honda he never owned.

"I sent them a letter back saying 'Not my car,' " Lippman said. "I think the law firm went on to find a better client, and I never heard about that again. But to my dismay, the cycle began all over again with a notice I got a couple of days ago."

Washington Post

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Answers

Officials at the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles think a computer glitch caused some residents to receive parking tickets in error. Virginia Edens was ordered to pay up for parking misdeeds committed by a Jaguar and a Ford pickup. Edens, 78, who walks with a cane, doesn't own either vehicle. DMV officials said addresses and license plate numbers were mismatched in a registration database. In another case that DMV officials say can't be attributed to that computer mix-up, Nick V. Davis was cited for parking illegally on P Street NW in July. But he has been dead for 10 years. His son is fighting the ticket.

Washington Post

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2001