Idk if this is an effective life hack but I’ve seen a few instances where just appealing makes things go away (whether they were warranted or not).

Just last week I had a friend appeal a ticket just because he didn’t realize it was paid parking, they let him go as a first time incident.

My partner has appealed 3 tickets on separate occasions and gotten away pretty scot free (twice, a typo on the ticket and once the cop showed up to the appeal and told him to donate some money to charity in lieu of forcing him to pay the ticket). Most of the time it’s more effort for them to fight you on it, so you might as well try ¯\_(ツ)_/¯