Last Updated on September 3, 2022 by Lawrence Berezin
Parking ticket vigilantes are coming to your neighborhood soon
NYC encourages citizens to become parking ticket vigilantes and report illegal parking, engine idling, and other offenses. Indeed, Charles Bronson would be proud!
In the same vein, Brooklyn councilperson Stephen Levin introduced a bill:
This bill would create a new violation and civil penalty for hazardous obstruction by a vehicle of a bicycle lane, bus lane when bus lane restrictions are in effect, sidewalk, crosswalk, or fire hydrant when such vehicle is located within a radial distance of 1,320 feet of a school building, entrance, or exit. The proposed legislation imposes a $175 penalty for each such violation. Such violations would be returnable to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH). The proposed legislation would require the Department of Transportation (DOT) to create a civilian reporting program where civilians may submit complaints and supporting evidence for alleged violations to DOT. Where DOT brings a proceeding before OATH using evidence or information submitted by a civilian complainant, OATH would award the complainant 25 percent of any proceeds collected as a result of such proceeding.”
Parking ticket vigilantes can report violations online
Does NYC ignore parking ticket vigilante’s complaints?
Disgruntled users of New York City’s 311 system have long suspected that the police don’t care about their illegal parking complaints, but they’ve never had much proof. Until now.
‘I’m informing you that we are not responding to your calls,” an NYPD police officer told Brooklyn resident Seth Friedman last week in response to his 311 complaints about illegal parking in his Brooklyn neighborhood. ‘You are wasting our time … with these silly jobs.’
Streetsblognyc
Trucking group fires back after NYC cracks down on illegal truck parking
“The Trucking Association of New York said the problem can be solved not by issuing tickets and towing trucks but by creating more truck parking.
‘While we in no way condone parking on residential streets where it is illegal to do so, we feel it is imperative to understand we cannot ticket out of this problem,” TANY President Kendra Hems said in a statement posted to the group’s Facebook page. “Heavy enforcement alone has not worked in the past and will not work now absent available commercial vehicle parking. The reality is that drivers, many of them our neighbors, family, and friends, have nowhere to park. This is not their personal vehicle, but the vehicle that embodies their livelihood and provides for their family.”
Hems added that the city needs to “address the underlying issue of inadequate truck parking in all five boroughs. The industry is taking steps, but we cannot do this alone. We need our partners in government to dedicate the time and resources to resolve this problem.'”
A wonderful member of our community posted this and other thought-provoking comments on Larry’s blog:
Larry,
I just got off the phone this morning after my first experience defending a No-Idling citizen complaint from NYC DEP on behalf of the company I work for. The judge was fair and cordial and allowed both myself and the DEP representative to give our “evidence”. I had already done all of the necessary research on the statute and the exemptions from the rule, so I was well-prepared with documents and photos to defend our case. Not so the DEP rep. His citizen-shot phone video was grainy to the point of being impossible to view at times, and the complainant suspiciously avoided showing the one angle that would have shown the external parts of the cargo compartment heating unit; however, they did inadvertently show the hot air duct that leads from the heating unit along the wall of the cargo compartment that distributes heat from the unit to the cargo area that holds our shipments of tropical plants and poinsettias at that time of year (late November of 2019). And when the judge asked him about the exceptions permitted under the statute, he adamantly refused to admit what he himself had uploaded as evidence of our “crime”: the DEP rule that clarified the language in the law pertaining to permitted exceptions. He insisted that “heating and air conditioning equipment” did not qualify as exemptions that permitted idling; I pointed to the line previous to that which reads:
“2. a system that controls the environment of temperature-sensitive cargo or substances, including but not limited to food, provided that such cargo or substances are being transported in a vehicle designed for the transportation of such cargo or substances.”
The judge asked the DEP guy, “this appears to support the defendant’s claim of the cargo compartment heating system being a permitted exempted use”, but the guy was in too deep and refused to back off, even when I pointed out that the line he was leaning so heavily on referred NOT to the cargo compartment but to the driver’s cab (“…cabin comfort”).
Pretty sure I kicked their butts on this one, but I’ll have to wait for the decision to arrive in the mail. The most infuriating part of this process, aside from the butchery of due process resulting from the 29-month lapse between the date of the “offense” and when we received the summons (11/30/19, months before Covid shut down City offices), was the fact that we were not able to review the DEP’s evidence (the video) until the hearing was well underway. In no other adversarial procedure would one party be unable to be (a) confronted by the accuser or (b) access physical evidence to be presented at the adjudication hearing (unless you count red light and speed camera summonses, that is).
New York…just like I pictured it…
NY Times writes about the future of transportation
NY Times reporter, John Surico, asks the intriguing question, “Can technology help cities manage curbs better?
As congestion grows, cities have increasingly looked to tech companies to create flexible systems that quickly respond to the ever-changing needs of a street, even in a single day or hour. Supporters say new tools that can more accurately analyze the use of curb space (the “smarter curb” model, as it is called) could reduce traffic, lower carbon emissions and encourage greener modes of travel. Yet while results are promising, age-old problems persist.
NY Times
Commentary
A vigilante is defined as:
“A member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate.”
Meanwhile, my knee-jerk reaction to a vigilante is contempt. However, the people in NYC who report parking and other such violations are not without legal authority. As a matter of fact, they do not fit the definition because NYC welcomes their help in policing parking and other such violations.
Well, are they mercenaries like Michael “Mad Mike” Hoare?
Mercenary
“Serving merely for pay or sordid advantage: venal also: greedy.”
Nah, that description may be a little too harsh.
As a general rule, I never liked or admired people who “fink” on other people. However, there are exceptions, such as:
- Honorable whistleblowers
- Neighbors who report the scoundrels that block their driveways
- Reporting crime to the police
But, I don’t like people who spend their time acting as self-appointed curb space monitors and report people who park in a no-standing zone during restricted hours. I especially don’t like a pending bill that creates a bounty to reward members of the parking ticket posse who report illegally parked cars.
How about you? Am I being overly harsh? Is it a good idea to deputize all the people in NYC to search for parking violators? And, pay them money if the parking violator is convicted of the violation?
Please share your valuable opinions with us.
If the city really cared about pedestrians, bike riders etc then they would have more outreach to pedestrians who play Russian Roulette with the cars. They would ban these crazy ebikes and scooters who basically do what they want on the streets. But what do you expect from holier than thou politicians who love talking points and say “we will stop car violence” “we will stop the car culture.” All they care about is the gotcha tickets. They know good and well there can be serious altercations if someone sees a vigilante filming his car. You can barely trust a traffic agent who is deputized to give a ticket. How can you trust a vigilante who has monetary motives? this doesn’t make a bit of sense.
Hi Tee kay,
Bravo!
You raise some excellent points in a clear, direct way.
I agree!
Thanks for sharing your valuable comment, Tee kay.
Regards,
Larry
Josef Stalin would be proud of the ‘parking vigilantes’.
Hi NHU,
I dislike these types of tactics, too.
Thanks for commenting, NHU!
Regards,
Larry
great
Thanks, Stella. Much appreciate the comment.
Regards,
Larry