7th Avenue Meter Maids on a Rampage

Or maybe Obama will help you. He's getting ready to solve everything.

"The most-ticketed block in New York City is 14th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues."

"Since Mr. Bloomberg took office, the city has hired 793 more traffic enforcement agents and doubled some penalties, collecting 64 percent more in fines in the 2008 fiscal year than it did in 2002. During the last fiscal year, it collected more than $624 million in parking fines — more than the city spends to run the Department of Transportation."

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/parking-tickets-a-growing-source-of-city-revenue/

"At a time when an average traffic enforcement agent writes 24 tickets a day, and an energetic one writes 50, Andre T. Strothers blazed an orange trail into the record books last year, writing 227 tickets in just one five-hour tour of Brooklyn in his city vehicle."

“I wrote them up in the car, out the car and leaning on the car,” he said of the method that enabled him to set the record on Nov. 23, 2007, for the most tickets in a shift.

Indeed, Mr. Strothers issued nearly a ticket a minute during his tour — 59 in his last 59 minutes on duty — and 34 times wrote two tickets within the same minute, a pace that far exceeded the Police Department’s most optimistic projections.

“An agent may produce up to 120 tickets per shift,” police officials said several years ago in soliciting bids for a computerized handheld ticket-writing device. They hoped to find a machine capable of generating 200 tickets in a 10-hour period.

In Mr. Strothers, they found a man who bested that number, and did it in half the time, twice depleting the batteries in the device he used.

“I’m not scared of writing people up,” said Mr. Strothers, 23, who left his ticket-writing position in June to train as an emergency medical technician but is now looking to be rehired.

Level One traffic agents like Mr. Strothers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are often harassed — or worse — by motorists, a reaction common enough to prompt state lawmakers to pass a law this year that made it a felony to assault a traffic agent.

So what motivates an agent to perform so far above the norm?

“I’m one of those rare people who loved the job,” Mr. Strothers said.

Though Mr. Strothers earned an extra $12,000 in overtime last year, he said he was not aware of any policy that has supervisors steering overtime to their best producers. He said his only rewards from the city were a pat on the back and the assignment of a new Chevy Impala for his patrols.

Chief Michael Collins, a police spokesman, said, “All agents are eligible for overtime.”

Unlike in the old days of written tickets, agents using the handheld devices now scan data off a vehicle’s registration sticker. But they still must use a stylus to enter up to seven screens of information on the violation.

Marvin Robbins, a union delegate for Local 983 of District Council 37, which covers traffic agents who drive tow trucks, said that while supervisors never dictate ticket quotas, agents who want to patrol in a car, instead of on foot, had better issue 40 tickets or more each shift.

Could an agent looking to make that number write two tickets within a minute?

“No, impossible,” Mr. Robbins said. “I don’t see anybody doing two tickets a minute.”

Told that an agent had done it 34 times in one day, Mr. Robbins said it might be possible “if all the information is there and you’re only changing the plate and if the next vehicle is in line.”

Mr. Strothers said it was clearly possible to write two tickets a minute.

What about three?

“It can be done,” he said.

Actually, Mr. Strothers said he easily could have written more tickets — perhaps 300 — on his record-setting tour.

“I didn’t try that hard,” he said, noting that he did not even bother to ticket at expired meters that day, the day after Thanksgiving, which was the most-ticketed day of the year. People assume it is a holiday, Mr. Strothers said, and even he was so stunned at the number of illegally parked cars he had to call the office to make sure he could issue tickets.

Mr. Strothers began his record-setting day at 7:50 a.m., using his handheld ticket writer to cite an Acura in a no-parking zone.

The O’Neil printer on his belt spat out a $60 summons, and he tucked it into an orange envelope and stuck it under the windshield wiper.

The car was also missing an inspection sticker, and he zapped it with a second ticket, for $65, one minute later.

Over the next five hours and nine minutes, city records showed, he issued 225 more parking tickets — an average of almost one a minute. Then, he said, “I took a break.”

Most of the tickets, 206, were for violating alternate side of the street parking regulations.

Mr. Strothers said he honored a five-minute grace period before issuing tickets at the expiration of legal parking, a discretionary leniency that once was city policy. But the records show that 20 of his tickets were written within two minutes of the time when cars had to switch sides of the street. That kind of exactitude — the aggrieved would call it zealotry — has led to hot words between motorists and the people who write tickets. But not in Mr. Strothers’s case.

“I know how to talk to people and explain what I did, while they may not like it,” he said.

On his record-setting day, when he holstered his ticket writer at 1 p.m., Mr. Strothers still had more than an hour left in his shift and he had enriched the city’s coffers by $10,670 (assuming all fines were paid in full). None of this productivity came at the expense of his integrity, Mr. Strothers said. He had set a record, yes, but not by cheating.

“It’s so easy to write a real ticket,” he said. “Why fake it?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/nyregion/28agent.html?ref=nyregion

eggcream wrote: [quote=vidro3]parking fine revenue is about $500m of a $45 billion budget, fwiw

Liu Decries 'City Gone Wild With Parking Tickets'
November 28, 2008

Councilman John Liu, chair of the Transportation Committee and recent addition to the ever-growing field of 2009 public advocate candidates, issued an outraged statement in response to this morning's Times report on the Bloomberg administration's love of parking tickets.

"The City is losing credibility trying to justify that issuing all these parking summonses are intended only to keep traffic moving and people safe.The bottom line is that parking ticket revenue has indeed multiplied in just the last few years and will soon approach $1 billion annually."


http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2008/11/liu-decries-city-gone-wild-wit.html

yea i was wrong, it's $624Million of a $59Billion budget.

meh.

eggcream wrote: "The most-ticketed block in New York City is 14th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues."

"Since Mr. Bloomberg took office, the city has hired 793 more traffic enforcement agents and doubled some penalties, collecting 64 percent more in fines in the 2008 fiscal year than it did in 2002. During the last fiscal year, it collected more than $624 million in parking fines — more than the city spends to run the Department of Transportation."

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/parking-tickets-a-growing-source-of-city-revenue/

"At a time when an average traffic enforcement agent writes 24 tickets a day, and an energetic one writes 50, Andre T. Strothers blazed an orange trail into the record books last year, writing 227 tickets in just one five-hour tour of Brooklyn in his city vehicle."

Mr. Strothers should be given a medal and the city should hire 50 more people just like him. While the city is at it, they should double or triple the number of traffic cameras and automatically ticket people for running red lights and speeding. Those damn car service cars go down my block doing 50 mph. I am sure the city could raise a lot of money this way. I don't even care if I get a tax cut - put the money towards schools or parks.

Retag wrote: I wish they would start ticketing all the alt-side double parkers. Millions to be made for doing something simple as enforcing the law. Win-win situation.

Not so win-win.... We would all be driving around in circles for 2 hours once or twice a week. Lots of gas burned, lots of pollution, lots of local gridlock.

Flexichick wrote: spending a few thousand dollars on tickets a year is just fucking stupid. You can hire somebody to move your car for ASS parking for a lot less $

It is pretty stupid...although getting a ticket once a week might be cheaper than paying for garage space...probably not by much.

Obamanut wrote: [quote=vidro3]

or eventually 50% of people would give up their cars

Doubtful. I have heard of many people in our lovely neighborhood, many of whom don't even bother to move their cars for alternate side, who consider regular parking tickets to be simply another tax for living in the city. I particularly remember hearing one north Slope resident bragging about how she pays several thousands of dollars a year in parking tickets for her Audi station wagon.

If multi-million dollar rises in property value, astronomical rents, high taxes, price-gouging 'gourmet' grocers, etc., haven't forced our fellow Slopers to reassess their priorities, I seriously doubt a few dozen more parking tickets will make them give up their imported station wagons. Remember, we're talking about a group of people who will pay any amount of money necessary to live the superficial 'lifestyle' they have envisioned.

So having a car and living in Park Slope is living superficial lifestyle?

Kramer. I doubt that story anyway. Their car would be covered in those sanitation stickers.

Flexichick wrote: I bet you could pay an enterprising young adult or neighbor $15-20 per move and spend much less than a garage or tickets

eggcream wrote: Kramer. I doubt that story anyway. Their car would be covered in those sanitation stickers.

[quote=Flexichick]I bet you could pay an enterprising young adult or neighbor $15-20 per move and spend much less than a garage or tickets

Nah. First sticker = no more money for car mover.

street cleaning tickets are $45 BUT they can technically tow you, which is $45+$185 (towing fee) if you get it the first day. That being said I've banked on a few street cleaning tickets to avoid long-term parking at airports. Its an expensive game to play, but I love my car.

Subject: double-parking is *never* legal.

Double-parking is never legal, even for alternate-side. The NYPD is simply looking the other way. Don't believe me? Read the city codes - there's no exception for alternate-side double-parking (ASDP). The city/NYPD effectively accept it as a necessary evil to keep the streets clean.

Agents have all the discretion here. I once got a ticket in Cobble Hill for ASDP because I hadn't left my phone # in my front window (a common courtesy, heavily enforced in CH, apparently). Agents ticketed entire blocks on the UWS a couple of years ago for a few days (end of month quotas, perhaps?), causing a near-revolution among the yuppie/entitlement class.

In the end, if you don't like the ticket you got, fight it. Otherwise, consider it part of the cost of enjoying a luxury in NYC. Nothing is free in this town, and that goes double for car ownership.

eggcream wrote: They are allowed to double park. I say ticket bike riders who never obey the rules. Make them have a license plate on their
bikes and ticket them for going the wrong way, going through red lights etc.


[quote=Retag]I wish they would start ticketing all the alt-side double parkers. Millions to be made for doing something simple as enforcing the law. Win-win situation.

i've heard that tickets in different parts of the city are different amounts--same violation, lower or higher prices. don't know if this is true.