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The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It (tumblr.com)
Data analyst Ben Wellington claims that that the NYPD has been systematically ticketing legally parked cars for years. Doing so, he says, helps NYPD collect millions of dollars every year. In a blog post, Wellington notes about a change of law in 2008 (PDF) which allowed one in New York City to park their car in front of a sidewalk pedestrian ramp -- provided it's not connected to a crosswalk. Despite this, the NYPD continues to ticket people. To check how many more people are falling for this, Wellington looked into NYC's Open Data portal, and his findings are startling. In front of 575 Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, which is in the middle of the block, with no crosswalk, over $48,000 in parking fines were issued in the last 2.5 years. He writes: 1705 Canton Avenue in Brooklyn, 273 Tickets, $45,045: Legal. 270-05 76 Avenue in Queens, 256 Tickets ($42,440) Legal. 143-49 Cherry Ave, Queens, 246 Tickets, ($40,590). Legal. A spot in Battery Park, ranked #16 on my list and the top spot in Manhattan, had 116 tickets ($19,140) and turned out to be legal.Wellington wrote to the NYPD about this, and he got the following response: Mr. Wellington's analysis identified errors the department made in issuing parking summonses. It appears to be a misunderstanding by officers on patrol of a recent, abstruse change in the parking rules. We appreciate Mr. Wellington bringing this anomaly to our attention. The department's internal analysis found that patrol officers who are unfamiliar with the change have observed vehicles parked in front of pedestrian ramps and issued a summons in error. When the rule changed in 2009 to allow for certain pedestrian ramps to be blocked by parked vehicles, the department focused training on traffic agents, who write the majority of summonses.
I mean they could raise a fortune just ticketing double parked cars in Main St. Flushing, why be criminal about it all?
I noticed there was no mention of refunding the illegal ticket fines. Typical, sure we'll try to get them to stop but why would you get any money back?
Will they refund people and wipe their record of the error?
Ignorance of the law is an accepted excuse for law enforcement's mistakes, but not an acceptable excuse for the mistakes of people being punished by law enforcement. That's fair, right?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This is democracy in action. It isn't perfect, but good luck trying to get a King to change like that.
I grew up in Anchorage in the 1990s. We were so fed up with overzealous parking enforcement that we disbanded the parking authority by referendum.
After that only uniformed police officers could write tickets. That was a much more tolerable and balanced level of enforcement.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, unless you're the government. There are so many laws the government can't even keep track of them all, how are regular people supposed to?
Combine this with the permission of police to lie as a matter of course, and we have a system that is way too top heavy.
I'm looking forward to autonomous cars driving a stake into the hearts of vampiric police departments... but only after proclaiming, "here are your 30 pieces of silver, you Judas!" and dumping a bag of silver coins on their searing flesh. It really is the most satisfying way to pay parking tickets.
This is actually what will happen. As cars go autonomous, the need for parking at the places you visit will diminish. It will take a generation, but eventually, so will parking at homes and places of work. Autonomous cars will 'rest' in off-street buffer lots and maintenance warehouses, and it will be No Parking forever citywide.
Data analyst Ben Wellington is now on the Terrorist Watch List, is randomly stopped and frisked on a daily basis, and selected for state tax audits every quarter.
They need to fix the law back, so they can be ticketed appropriately.....
It was kind of stupid gov't in action enacting laws that allow vehicles to interfere with pedestrian access.
If you're not angry about the current political situation, you're either *REALLY* not paying attention, or getting paid by it.
Either way, fuck off for being glad people were beaten.
On the one hand, I kinda agree with you. Let the cops issue whatever tickets they want, and let it be hashed out in the courts. It's no different from letting anyone sue anyone else for anything, and letting it get hashed out in the courts. On the other hand, then you get things like "I'm innocent, but it's too much of a hassle to prove, so I'll just pay the damn fine", and I feel that cops, or hell, government in general, should be held to a standard that discourages such practices.
And I also support the use of deadly force as self defense against the "mafia in blue". If they break the law so frequently with no consequences, then they are no longer the upholders of the law. They are just another criminal organization and defending yourself against them trying to kidnap or shoot you is perfectly acceptable.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
You could call your car say, thirty mins before you want to leave downtown or have it pick you up at a give time...
Better to call it 45 minutes ahead of when you expect to leave and let it drive around the block for the extra time. That will just create more traffic and so the car will take longer to get to your destination. Better call it an hour ahead just to be safe.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I lived for a while in a place where car theft was legal - if you happened to own an impound lot. My car was stolen by such a lot owner from my reserved, paid, contract parking spot and the city wouldn't do shit to help me. I tried to report my car as stolen but the police would hear nothing of it. I had to pay a ransom to the thieves to get my car back, and the towing inspector refused to help as well. Being as the thieves had plenty of experience (and assistance) in the court system you can imagine how well that went as well...
Basically I would have much rather had a ticket. A ticket doesn't do front end damage to my car or force me to go through hell trying to pursue some semblance of justice. I've fought unjust traffic tickets before (and won) but the city wouldn't help me when my car was stolen by crooked bastards.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Which Republican was that? The same one that wanted to tax large bottles of soda, funds anti-gun legislation? That one? Yeah. Bloomberg is really popular among Republican circles.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
On the one hand, I kinda agree with you. Let the cops issue whatever tickets they want, and let it be hashed out in the courts. It's no different from letting anyone sue anyone else for anything, and letting it get hashed out in the courts.
The problem is that court costs (which, IIRC, were only assessed in the past if you LOST your hearing) are now assessed by many courts regardless of outcome. So you can go to court (time off work, misc expenses like fuel, parking, etc) and "win" your case and get the $50 ticket thrown out, and be assessed with $125 of court costs. You come out far worse off than had you just paid the phony ticket to begin with.
Note - all numbers above are rectally extracted, but do reflect relative reality in many municipalities.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Then the cop's probably don't either. They are not lawyers and the myriad of byzantine laws and exceptions in any jurisdiction can hardly be comprehended by the judges and lawyers whose job it is to adjudicate them. I would guess it would be a legitimate mistake with the only exception would be meter maids who are supposed to know the scope of parking laws they enforce.
If cops don't know what the law is, why would they be writing citations for claimed infractions? How about "If you don't know that something is illegal, you don't write tickets/arrest people for it?" Will society collapse because of that?
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
There will be no refund. There will be a lawsuit and the city will win. Their state reads more like "we know we were doing this, we got caught, we are sorry. we will do a better job of continuing to do this in a manner to not get caught."
In fairness, that law change looks absurd on the face of it and I'm not surprised the officers writing tickets - and the drivers who voluntarily paid the fines didn't realize this.
The fact both sides, drivers and police, thought a parking violation had been committed hints the law is actually wrong here and probably should be changed back.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As long as the car parks close enough that it can get to you within a few minutes, what's the problem?
"Off-street buffer lots" are what we call, today, parking lots, using that kind of definition. To replace the on-street parking, there will have to be a lot more of them, and where do you get the space? From further away from the city. My point still stands, people will just love standing around on the sidewalk waiting for their cars to come back from "resting".
And if you're not going to be there that long, just have the car drop you off and circle the block.
Sometimes you don't know how long you are going to be there, sometimes you think it will be "not that long" and you find out it will be an hour. If there is a "circle the block" option, then you'll create an endless parade of empty cars circling the block, creating traffic issues, and delaying those "few minutes" away resting cars from getting back.
As for handicapped people; there's no need for the *car* to park to help them.
Why no, of course not. Just stop in the middle of the street and vomit forth the paraplegic and his wheelchair and let him get to the curb on his own. And have the arthritic people standing on the curb for half an hour waiting for their cars to come back ...
I sense a lack of compassion here. Is your desire for a neat and tidy autonomous future that strong?
Same for deliveries, unless substantial unloading time is required, in which case the delivery vehicle will need a loading dock or other unloading zone, same as now.
So a parcel delivery man needs a special parking place ("loading zone") so he can go up thirty floors to deliver his package? And it's not "parking" when he leaves the vehicle, even though it meets all the legal definitions of parking? It's now some magical "unloading space" instead of "parking space"?
Sorry. Your optimism over the death of parking in the city is not justified. Even before the age of the automobile, there were "parking spaces" for horses on-street. Not everyone took their trusty steeds to the stable, and they certainly didn't allow them to "autonomously" wander around until called.
All I am ignoring is your assertion that you need to own a car.
I didn't make that assertion. I made the assertion that it is ignorant to claim that there is no need to own an autnomous verhicle, and I gave you examples of what I do today with my car that I could not do with an autonomous "service" car.
All the issues you mention can and will be solved.
No, I'm sorry, they won't. I can point to one very simple issue that you ignored: radios. No car service is going to allow me to install them in every one of the vehicles they might supply, I can't afford to do that, and the agencies whose frequencies I use wouldn't allow it if I could.
The vision that I am looking at (and is being seriously considered by some major cities) is one in which only autonomous vehicles are allowed in the city.
How sad. And it doesn't speak to the claim you made that it makes no sense to own an autonomous vehicle. That's what I replied to.
Once you have that restriction in place, many things are possible.
Yes, and none of them negate the reasons I gave for why it can, and does, make sense to own your own autonomous vehicle. You ignored every one of them and started on a tangent of how cities might prohibit non-autonomous vehicles in their city. How does that change the logic of owning your own?
For example, lots of space is freed up because there is no longer a need for people to park their cars.
Space that will be taken by the large number of autonomous vehicles as they "rest" between calls. You gain nothing with regard to space, you just move it around a little bit. Considering the "drive around the block until I need you" option, you don't save much at all.
I guess you could take the cop that gave you a ticket under false pretenses to small claims court to be reimbursed for your court costs. (Not the time off work obviously.)
I don't know, it's just a wild guess. ianal