They are as common in the summer months on the Vineyard as out-of-state license plates or tourists in T-shirts, those familiar purple and white parking tickets tucked under windshield wipers that spell trouble: you have parked in the wrong spot or stayed too long.

Many get shoved into glove boxes; some are promptly paid, while others are challenged by motorists who either have a legitimate gripe or simply decide to take a shot and hope challenging the ticket will be enough to get it reversed.

Joseph E. Sollitto Jr., the Dukes County Superior Court clerk who also serves as the Island parking ticket clerk and conducts the hearings, has heard every story in the book his nearly 30 years on the job. And though he prides himself on being open-minded and understanding, he only reverses a tiny fraction of tickets issued.

“I’ve heard all the excuses over the years. It’s gotten to the point where they all sound the same,” Mr. Sollitto said. “I always hear: The space wasn’t clearly marked. I didn’t know I had to park inside the lines. I was only there a few minutes . . . those are the regulars.”

Mr. Sollitto has presided over parking ticket hearings since 1981, when a law was enacted forcing cities and towns to handle their own parking ticket hearings instead of a district court. At the time the all-Island selectmen’s association decided it would be easier to have one person oversee the hearings, so all six Island towns elected Mr. Sollitto to do the job.

Previously hearings were held in the basement conference room of the Edgartown courthouse, usually in the afternoons during summer months. Now they take place in his office five days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. year-round.

The tales are legion.

Mr. Sollitto recalls the time a well-known local woman parked in front of the courthouse, with half her car in a legitimate space and the other half in a restricted space. The woman went into his office and admitted she parked half of the car in an illegal spot, but argued she should only have to pay half the fine, in this case $7.50 of the $15 ticket.

“I told her getting a ticket is like being pregnant. You either are or you aren’t [parked illegally],” he said.

The woman paid the ticket.

There was the time someone parked in front of Giordano’s Pizza in Oak Bluffs and was incredulous upon coming outside and finding a ticket on the car. The woman told her husband that the blacktop where she parked was painted with a sign that said “Cars Only,” but when he backed the car up they both saw she had missed a key word. The spot was reserved for police cars only.

“I sort of felt for them on that one; that’s understandable,” Mr. Sollitto said.

Occasionally he can find no fault with the argument before him. Case in point: an elderly woman from Vineyard Haven.

“I told her to give me a good reason why I should throw out this ticket, and she looked at me and said: ‘Because I’m a 91-year-old woman who is asking you nicely, and I may not be around much longer.’ That was good enough for me,” he said.

Then there was the story of a man who parked in an illegal spot because he needed to make an emergency bathroom stop.

“He told me had a few hot dogs on the boat, and his stomach was acting up a little. I actually turned that one back . . . I’ve had hot dogs on the boat, too,” said the dapper clerk who wears a bow tie daily.

Anecdotes aside, revenue from parking tickets has steadily increased over the last three decades. A total of 9,027 parking tickets were issued Islandwide in 1983, generating around $95,000 in revenue for the six Island towns. The figure climbed to 15,879 tickets in 1991, bringing in $161,758 in revenue.

During fiscal year 2009, which ended July 1, the number of tickets dropped to 13,116, although revenue had climbed to $292,501, largely because all six Island towns agreed to increase parking fines last winter.

Tisbury led the way in 2009 by issuing 6,699 tickets that brought in $118,635 in revenue, followed by Oak Bluffs with 3,349 tickets and $88,782 in revenue and Edgartown with 2,365 tickets and $62,290 in revenue.

Edgartown police Sgt. Kenneth Johnson said many people incorrectly assume that town and police officials view parking tickets as an important source of income, when in reality they are intended more to move people along and keep parking spaces open for people likely to spend money in local businesses.

He said traffic officers try to be as lenient as possible.

“We allow a lot of leeway for overtime, it’s already two-hour parking on the streets, and you are limited to two hours only if your car gets chalked right away and the [officer] comes back two hours later — which doesn’t really happen that much,” he said.

The police also hear a litany of pleas from motorists, often in the form of notes placed on windshields.

“Oh, we see those notes all the time. Some say: ‘Please don’t give me a ticket, I’m working here all day,’ ” Sergeant Johnson said.

Some tales are not so funny. Last month a 38-year-old Island man physically threatened an Edgartown traffic officer amid a stream of profanity.

“He wouldn’t let it go. He threatened the officer and followed him down the road yelling . . . we can’t allow that,” Sergeant Johnson said.

As a result, a $25 parking ticket morphed into criminal charges of disorderly conduct and threatening to commit a crime.

The incident is the exception, Sergeant Johnson said. He credited his officers for keeping their cool.

“They have the most thankless job on the Island. They are always getting yelled at and screamed at,” he said. “Nobody likes getting a ticket. But people shouldn’t blame [the traffic officers], they’re just doing their job.”