Ticketed for Double Parking
Hello. On my Carroll Gardens block, people regularly double park during street cleaning hours. Twice, however, I have ticketed for double parking. However, my car has been the only one to receive a ticket! I realize that the practice is illegal, but has been tolerated by the precincts, but if the police are now enforcing…
Hello. On my Carroll Gardens block, people regularly double park during street cleaning hours. Twice, however, I have ticketed for double parking. However, my car has been the only one to receive a ticket! I realize that the practice is illegal, but has been tolerated by the precincts, but if the police are now enforcing the rule, why not ticket all the offenders? I am curious to know if any of Brownstoner’s readers have also been the victim of this selective enforcement and, if so, has anyone successfully fought the ticket?
For what its worth, if you send a letter to:
NYC Department of Finance
Hearing By Mail Unit
PO Box 29021
Brooklyn, NY 11202
They will always reduce the ticket.
I own a Plumbing and Heating Service Company and we need to Double Park in the area daily in order to get any work done. We’ve received many tickets for Double Parking during street cleaning hours when everyone on the block was Double Parked. We were the only vehicles to receive the tickets and I was puzzled. I fight every ticket as a Commercial vehicle and tried to use the defense that “everyone was doing it”. I was told, in no uncertain terms, DOUBLE PARKING IS ILLEGAL no matter when or why it’s done. It is at the ticketing officer’s discretion on who to ticket. I guess it just depends on their mood on that day. As for leaving a note on you car, it may not help with a ticket, but it will help to make peace with your neighbors.
The law is not to double park. There is no fast and hard rule on whether to issue a summons or not. NYPD officers have discretion and can use it at will in these circumstances unless they were given specific orders. As far as traffic agents are concerned, they are more likely to issue summones to everyone, as that is the main focus of their job. A cop could easily explain not ticketing all of the cars, if the owner of the lone car ticketed decided to fight it in court. The cops excuse is “I got a call.”
When someone phoned the cops about being “parked in” on our block, everyone who was double-parked got a ticket. The cop said that’s the law because once their attention is called to it, technically, everyone is breaking the same law.
However, if you’re on a block w/ a bike lane, it could also be that yours is the only car with a tire on the line – that happened here too. The second time the owner saw the agent & asked & he told her that not even an inch of tire can encroach on the paint of the bike lane.
The traffic enforcement agent more than likely ticketed your car alone because you blocked someone in who called to complain. The callers/complainers rarely stick around to confront the offending party.
I wish they would ticket people for not leaving information on their windshield!!
I live on what is otherwise a great block, but getting people to leave contact information when double parking is impossible.
in my 30+ years of alternate side parking experience in Brooklyn, the police will not ticket. (school streets are an exception)
There was the time when a neighbor repeatedly shouted racial slurs at the traffic cop – then for about 2 months everyone got ticketed! — Maybe that’s what it takes to get my car out from being blocked in . . .
Are you sure the ticket was for double parking and not some other infraction, expired registration, expired inspection, broken taillight etc…?
This seems highly unlikely, if they were going to ticket people for revenue, they would hit everyone on the block.
That’s very strange, Do you post your address or phone number on your dashboard when you double park or otherwise remain available should someone you’ve “parked in” need to move? If not, perhaps someone complained.
IMO the informal tolerance of double-parking during street-cleaning hours is one of the most civilized things about living in Brooklyn, but you still have to be considerate of others.
If you HAVE been considerate and still been ticketed, I’m at a loss to explain it.s
Yeah. I got one. I went inside to get some paper towels and windex on a Saturday so I could get the snow and mud off my windshield — for 1 minute — and I got one. On a quiet Ft. Greene st. I couldn’t believe how I flipped out at the cops — “Go to Fulton St! Go to Flatbush avenue!, Go to Myrtle! – have a $5,000 dollar day! And if you are going to give me a ticket, hurry up because I have somewhere to go.” They must have been told to ticket everyone. Finally, one of the cops told me I was being selfish — and you are NUTS, I fired back. Amazing I wasn’t arrested. But that is one expensive ticket.