Anyone who's ever lived in San Francisco knows that parking tickets are just as much a part of the landscape as little cable cars climbing halfway to the stars; if your car ever stops moving there, you will get parking tickets and plenty of them (and if you don't pay, your car will be towed away and held for a jaw-dropping ransom). Combine this reality with the popular perception that the entire SF parking-enforcement system is a cynical revenue factory for a huge sty full of Boss Tweed types, and you'll see how the poor saps who actually write the tickets might be on the receiving end of some citizen hostility while performing their appointed rounds. Well, now they're getting mace and cameras!
Parking-ticket rage targets the messenger [Los Angeles Times]
Related:
Former SF Tow Company Settles Fraud Suit [internal]