For nearly two year's Marlowe Brownlee worked the downtown beat for the Winnipeg Parking Authority. During that time, he wrote close to 900 parking tickets.

Winter parking tickets plow lots of money into the city's coffers. (Darren Bernhardt/CBC) Brownlee said it can be a thankless job at times.

"[People considered me] a jerk seven hours of the day that I worked. But during rush-hour, all of a sudden, I would be everyone's hero, and I would have people screaming out of their windows at me 'Yeah, get that guy off the street! Way to go!'"

Marlowe said that one of the busiest times of day is 3:30 p.m., right at the start of the rush-hour parking ban.

A CBC Manitoba analysis of nearly half a million parking tickets since 2012, confirms Brownlee’s claim. The most ticketed time of day is between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. — 42,943 tickets in total were handed out during this time. The most common infraction during this time-frame was "no stopping between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m."

The second most ticketed time of day is during lunch hour. This is when there is an influx of downtown employees heading out of the office to run errands — 41,173 were written in total during this hour. The most common parking violation during this time was "expired meter."

Hot spots

The former ticket officer said there are several hot spots throughout the city, like the Exchange District and near hospitals.

"People are going to the hospital and often times the last thing on their mind is that they need to be paying for their parking or that they have to come out and renew their parking. So it's really easy to find expired [tickets], " explained Brownlee.

The ticket data showed that city wide, the zone located between Broadway and Assiniboine Avenue is one of the most likely places to get written up. Last year, more than 8,200 tickets were handed out in that area, the stretch of Garry Street being among the worst in Winnipeg.

Beating the system?

Brownlee has a few tips for motorist looking to avoid getting tagged. The most important thing is to learn to read the signage, he said.

Brownlee also said not to turn on a vehicles four-way hazard lights when parked in loading.

"That's pretty much like saying 'Hey look at me!' and officers will come by and notice you're in the loading zone, then time you and come back in a little bit."

But in the end, there's no way to beat the system, said Brownlee.

Should you walk up to your illegally parked car while an officer is in the process of writing a ticket, Marlowe said there's a chance you'll get left off the hook.

"When people are polite and people are kind, and people aren't attacking me, I'm very apt to look the other way."

Parking tickets by the numbers