Last Updated on December 14, 2017 by Lawrence Berezin
NYC parking tickets pay or fight, no more settlement
Unless you live under a rock next-door to the GEICO guy, you know the NYC parking tickets Fine Reduction/Settlement Program is scheduled to end this month. Bad news for the NYC driving community.
You will no longer be offered the option of reducing your parking ticket fine in exchange for pleading guilty to the parking crime. Here are some numbers to put this in perspective. NYC issues about 10M parking tickets per year. The big but is only about 3M of these NYC parking tickets are disputed. The other 7M is paid…No questions asked (what a shame). I surmise a significant number of the NYC parking tickets are paid (no questions asked) because of the offer of a reduced parking fine.
What do you think the members of the NYC driving community who pay (no questions asked) will do when the NYC Fine Reduction/Settlement Program is laid to rest?
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Gov. Cuomo signed a Bill into law allowing livery cabs to pick up street hails (on Tuesday, December 20, 2011).
“The so-called “five-borough taxi plan,” proposed by the mayor with the aim of making cabs more accessible across the city, will create up to 18,000 new permits that will allow livery drivers to pick up passengers legally on the street.
Under the agreement, 6,000 street hail permits will be sold each year, for the next three year, with 20 percent required to be handicapped-accessible, by law.
The permits will start out at $1,500 each.”
Read more…
- “Governor Announces Deal on Livery Cab Street Hail Plan”
- “The Text of the Livery Cab Street Hail Law”
The NYC parking sign grace period law
The NYC driving community has a get-out-of-jail-free card when a brand, spanking new, parking sign, displaying a new parking rule, ambushes your car.
“On November 16, 2009, the NYC Council passed one of the best parking laws, ever. It was signed by Mayor Bloomberg on December 7, 2009, with an effective date of March 21, 2010. My best, most favorite part, is the provision permitting a member of the driving public, who receives a NYC parking ticket within five (5) days of the installation of a brand, spanking new, parking sign, to fight the parking ticket by raising the installation of a new sign with a new parking rule as a defense.
In other words, you simply prove your parking ticket was issued within five (5) days of the installation date of the new parking sign with the new parking rule, and your parking ticket will be dismissed.
I still get a lot of calls from our members of the NYC driving community who are in the dark about this law, and got ambushed by a new parking sign.
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Commentary
I am furious about the decision to eliminate the NYC Fine Reduction/Settlement Program. I urge Mayor Bloomberg to reconsider this short-sighted solution to his quest for new revenue streams to plug the holes in his budget.
While the NYC Department of Finance claims to be losing money on this program, what about the approximately 7M NYC parking tickets that are paid (no questions asked)? What if (I hope) the bearers of these parking tickets decide to fight when they’re right, instead of conveniently surrendering?
There is a lot of controversy surrounding the new livery cab law. Obviously, the taxi-cabs fought the new law because of the influx of competition. But, along with the influx of competition, the new law mandates a plan to make all taxi cabs handicap accessible; and offers the livery cabs up to $15,000 towards retro-fitting their cabs or buying new cars. Is this new law a good thing for New Yorkers?
Please be vigilant about the unexpected birth of a new parking sign regulating your favorite parking space. You have a 5-day grace period from the date the new parking sign is installed to beat a NYC parking ticket. If the parking sign’s birthday is nowhere to be found on the sign, I suggest making a FOIL request to the NYC DOT for the date of installation.
TIP: Martin Luther King, Jr’s Birthday is celebrated this year on Monday, January 16, 2012. BUT, it is only a legal holiday, not a major legal holiday. Park safely!
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