City Council Members Want Parking Ticket Grace Period

Council Members Davide Weprin, Simcha Felder and Vincent Gentile ripped up mock parking tickets in front of City Hall yesterday to protest what Gentile calls "a ticketing blitz, with New Yorkers being treated as revenue sources instead of residents, targets instead of partners." The Councilmen have introduced a bill that would require a five-minute "grace period" for certain parking violations, including no parking zones (such as alternate side) and expired Muni-Meters.

A five-minute grace period was previously part of the city's traffic enforcement policy, but has since been replaced with a suggestion to agents that they use common sense when doling out violations. Many drivers mistakenly believe the grace period is still policy, but the Councilmen say more than 276,000 were ticketed for alternate side violations within five minutes of the rule taking effect last fiscal year. Of those, 28,000 were written at the exact moment the rules took effect, according to an extensive analysis reported in the Times last year.

The Bloomberg administration insists that the city does not view parking tickets as a revenue generator, but over the last fiscal year, the city collected more than $620 million in parking fines; during the 2003 fiscal year, the city collected $429 million. "Enough is enough," Felder told reporters yesterday. "Tickets should be issued to encourage compliance, not to generate revenue for the City! ‘Gotcha’ tickets fly in the face of that philosophy." It's now up to the Council Transportation Committee, chaired by John C. Liu of Queens, to consider the bill.

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By John Del Signore in News on January 12, 2009 9:23 AM

Comments [rss]

MrManhattan

How about a five toke grace period for pot smoking ???

handsomedevil

Incidentally, you know who I hate WAAAAY more than TEA agents? Those jackass Sanitation guys who run around putting stickers on people's cars. Not only is it redundant, but it's juvenile, and it creates needless ill will toward sanitation.

Unlike this stupid proposal, which is just grandstanding that will not pass, you could actually make a legitimate argument for getting rid of the stickers.

ides_of_march

Well somebody has to clear a path for those great big machines with the rotating brushes that scatter the litter around and eat up small dogs.

woodendesigner

So now people are going to push the time they think they have back another five minutes. This is not going to reduce the number of tickets and if your time has run out and you can't manage your time well enough to not get a ticket then maybe you should not be using your car that day. I have owned a car for years and deal with alternate side parking, meters, no standing zones and the temptation of double parking. Somehow I have managed to avoid tickets because I follow the very clear rules about where my car can be parked and at what times. I don't feel sorry for the people that constantly get tickets. The city should write more..... a lot more. There are too many people that think they are special and can do whatever they want, whenever they want. If you have to park a couple blocks away to avoid double parking and a ticket then maybe that is what you should do.

Steven

True. A lot of people are too lazy to walk the couple of blocks. They want a parking spot right in front on where they need to be.

Head to any shopping center with a parking lot and you know what I mean. There are tons of spots in the back, but everyone is always looking in the front.

wowthatsucks

Next thing you know, they'll complain and want a 5 minute grace period for the 5 minute grace period, and so on...

lostwallet

Instead of giving out five-minute grace periods, why not allow parking meters to accept an additional coin for an extra five minutes?

I never trust the time on the meters -- instead of giving me a license to bend the law, why not allow me to purchase my five minute grace period?

(For the record, I own a car but also pay for a garage for it. I chalk up the occasional ticket is the cost of having a car in NYC.)

ohhleary

The headline should be "City Council Members Want to Let Their Constituents Break The Law."

I don't own a car. Can I get a free pass on turnstile-jumping?

UnrepentantFenian

It's not always about you, dipshit.

MrManhattan

Exactly, its not about sensible considerate New Yorkers. It's all about sefish, obnoxious, entitled car owners.

Isn't it always ?

I say move all the traffic agents to manhattan and let the car drivers rot in their congestion and litter out in (what they wish was) the suburbs.

handsomedevil

"Gentile is the one with the Yarmulke right?"

No, he's the short guy on the right.

I've heard that it's easy to beat an alternate side ticket written right at the turnover time - just say "It was 10:58 by my watch" or whatever time you need it to be. If you are really there when the ticket is being written, snapping a photo of the agent would help prove that.

On one hand I agree that the TEA agents act like evil drones, but OTOH Gentile is a moron. He previously avocated for a five-minute rule for double-parking, which (in commercial areas) is pretty much never OK in my book.

My idea has always been to release a database of all the tickets written to each local CB, and make some poor fucker meet with the people and discuss whether the enforcement pattern is commonsensical and matches what is needed.

goodcow

Where do these assholes expect to come up with the lost revenue by implementing this?

citizenerased

Gentile is the one with the Yarmulke right?

$620 million in a year is ridiculous

UnrepentantFenian

No, he's the chipmunky looking one to the right.

CR

Is five minutes really going to make a difference?

lushintransit

As someone whose gotten a ticket for an alternative sides parking violation for parking at 1:01PM and the area meter saying their clock read 12:59....I get feeling I'm not the only one. They're especially vigilant in my area and I've seen people running out at 11:30 to move their cars and instead fight with the meter maid.

JenChungsBaby

Yeah, so instead of having 28,000 tickets written at the exact time that the regulation starts you'll have 27,990 written five minutes after the regulation starts. Either way, just move your damned car.

UnrepentantFenian

"the Councilmen say more than 276,000 were ticketed for alternate side violations within five minutes of the rule taking effect last fiscal year. Of those, 28,000 were written at the exact moment the rules took effect, according to an extensive analysis reported in the Times last year."

Reading comprehension - you lack it.

kane

But how many of those ticketed would have avoided a ticket had the five minute grace period been in effect? Just because these tickets were written at the moment of violation does not meant that the ticketed persons were out moving their cars within five minutes.