How to Park your Pickup Truck and Avoid an NYC Parking Ticket

Last Updated on September 23, 2021 by Lawrence Berezin

Is Jack’s pickup truck a commercial or a passenger vehicle?

Jack recently posted a thoughtful comment on Larry’s Blog. His challenge was parking his pickup truck overnight in a residential neighborhood. (Can you feel Jack’s pain?). That is to say, Jack’s pickup truck:

• Weighed in excess of 5,500 pounds
• Was not capped
• Was unaltered
• Had commercial plates

Meantime, Jack argued that his pickup truck was not altered and was not a commercial vehicle under the NYC Rules.

On the other hand, the parking ticket warrior who issued the ticket for “overnight parking” replied that if a vehicle bears commercial plates, it is a commercial vehicle (and cannot park overnight on a residential street).

Commercial pick-up truck

NYC parking rules versus DMV regulations

It is essential to separate the New York City Traffic Rules from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicle regulations for registering a pickup truck. I’ll summarize, For a pickup truck to qualify as a commercial vehicle under the NYC Traffic Rules:

• It must be altered.
• If not altered, it cannot be issued a parking ticket for overnight parking in a residential neighborhood because it is not a commercial vehicle.

On the other hand, according to the DMV regulations:

• if a pickup truck weighing in excess of 5,500 pounds with a uncapped bed
• Is registered as a passenger vehicle, and parks on an NYC street,
• It can be issued a parking ticket for improper registration
• Because the owner violated the DMV regulations that are incorporated in the NYC parking violation.

Furthermore, suppose an owner registered his unaltered pickup truck weighing more than 6001 pounds as a commercial vehicle. To clarify, a warrior or cop can issue a parking ticket for an unaltered commercial vehicle.

Here’s a helpful checklist for pick-up truck owners published by the NY DMV

Commentary

I’ve written several blog articles about figuring out if a pickup truck is a commercial or passenger vehicle. And, what happens if you guess wrong.

That is to say; my analysis is a bit more complex than “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck…Well, it must be a duck.”

Indeed, it behooves the pickup driving community to learn the difference.

What if your pick-up truck is registered as a commercial vehicle

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