Another very qualified candidate for worst ticket is a little hard to believe. The police didn’t. On a scale of slightly to most extreme, this was way beyond that. One night I had been working late and I drove home to look for a space, prepared for the worst, but, by the grace of the parking gods, I found one right across from my building. Many of us in the human race have experienced an incredibly unusual event, a relative overcoming a fatal diagnosis, a solar eclipse, the immaculate conception, but, after a long hard day’s night of work, this was truly wondrous!
Late the next morning when I came out on my stoop, ready to bask in the miracle of the night before, my car was missing (have that T-shirt!). Then just as I was leaping from the strategies of theft to the strategies of tow, I saw it. It was right there in front of me only not where I had left it, but one space back. It had a ticket on it. I looked at the sign towering ominously over the hood of the car and saw that instead of the legal space in front of that sign my car was now behind the sign and in a school zone. I walked disbelievingly to the car and saw something that if the possibility had ever even occurred to me I would have been absolutely positive that it would never happen.
The vent window had been smashed! Someone broke into my car, put it in neutral, and pushed it back so that they could take my space. This was possibly the most heinous parking crime ever committed. This could only have been the work of the Dark Lord himself, but actually he was not even in office then. Now, I had a broken window and a ticket. For those of you who are shaking their heads that there must be some other explanation, I assure you one look into my car would have discouraged any common thief. Nothing was taken (from inside anyway), nothing rummaged. Why else would they go to the trouble of moving the car back? They simply took my space, probably knew my schedule, and were gone by the time I woke up.
By a lucky coincidence a police car came down my block. I flagged the two officers and told them what had happened. They didn’t believe me, thought I was trying to get out of a parking ticket, REALLY didn’t want to do any paper work. I pointed out to the driver that my window was smashed, why would I want to do that, at the very least it was my right to report a break in, but he wasn’t interested and told me to report it to the prescint, but they weren’t going to believe it either. I showed him where my broken glass was forward, where it was legal to park. He started to pull away.
Just when I was starting to believe that all the negative publicity about New York is true, his partner spoke up and the driver stopped. His partner said why don’t they just write it up now and save me, the victim of a break in after all, the trouble of going into the station. (They really do take this Good Cop/Bad Cop thing seriously.) So the driver wrote it up and gave me a complaint number. The Good Cop told me to contest the ticket by using the complaint number and, as if two miracles weren’t enough, I beat the ticket. Anybody still want to claim that New York is not the toughest parking city in this country?
Showing posts with label Parking Tow New York City Fines Ticket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parking Tow New York City Fines Ticket. Show all posts
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Alternate Side Parking Rules Go Changing
If it’s not a record, it should be. For the past 6 or 7 weeks we haven’t had to move our cars for street sweeping. Sure you’ve had to put in some intense aerobic shoveling if you took your car anywhere and probably some intense aerobic shoveling when you came back. Or, if tunneling didn’t work, maybe you scaled the ice battlements and soared to new parking heights (Your wheels might not touch actual pavement until Spring.). But whether you cross train into a snow barricaded space or cross road your vehicle up to the top of an icy outpost, for the last 6 weeks, alternate side parking rules have been dead and it was good.
Which logically brings me to the subject of Int 0375-2010, the law the City council has been sitting on since last Fall that would allow cars to park in an alternate side restricted time and place if the driver remains in the vehicle or if the street sweeper has already passed. This goes to the heart of the whole purpose of Alternate Side restrictions. Is it really, as defined and intended, for street sweeping? A waiting driver can move for the sweeper or deserves a ticket. And a driver taking a space that has already been swept is no obstacle to cleaner streets or clearer storm drains. Or has Alt Side been government appropriated into a game of revenue tag where uniformed tax collectors that stalk our streets are always “it.”
Int 0375-2010 is an opportunity for our City Council to preserve the original intent of Alternate Side restrictions and to return the words that our government uses to their actual meaning. This is especially important now as soon this hardened snow will start to melt. Very soon after, a whim of our Mayor will determine that Alternate Side rules are back in effect. Even though the snow may not be soft enough for plowing, or the streets clear enough for sweeping, we better be out there digging, because this Mayoral directive will unleash a locust of ticket agents out to recoup whatever revenue our city government thinks it has lost. Int 0375-2010 will help preserve the meaning and purpose of the Alt Side laws which should simply mean that if the plows are not plowing or the sweepers not sweeping, then the posse of tax agents rounded up by the Mayor can not be out tagging and bagging.
To help make this happen, to learn more, or just to sign the petition in support of this new law, try www.nycparkingreform.org.
Which logically brings me to the subject of Int 0375-2010, the law the City council has been sitting on since last Fall that would allow cars to park in an alternate side restricted time and place if the driver remains in the vehicle or if the street sweeper has already passed. This goes to the heart of the whole purpose of Alternate Side restrictions. Is it really, as defined and intended, for street sweeping? A waiting driver can move for the sweeper or deserves a ticket. And a driver taking a space that has already been swept is no obstacle to cleaner streets or clearer storm drains. Or has Alt Side been government appropriated into a game of revenue tag where uniformed tax collectors that stalk our streets are always “it.”
Int 0375-2010 is an opportunity for our City Council to preserve the original intent of Alternate Side restrictions and to return the words that our government uses to their actual meaning. This is especially important now as soon this hardened snow will start to melt. Very soon after, a whim of our Mayor will determine that Alternate Side rules are back in effect. Even though the snow may not be soft enough for plowing, or the streets clear enough for sweeping, we better be out there digging, because this Mayoral directive will unleash a locust of ticket agents out to recoup whatever revenue our city government thinks it has lost. Int 0375-2010 will help preserve the meaning and purpose of the Alt Side laws which should simply mean that if the plows are not plowing or the sweepers not sweeping, then the posse of tax agents rounded up by the Mayor can not be out tagging and bagging.
To help make this happen, to learn more, or just to sign the petition in support of this new law, try www.nycparkingreform.org.
Monday, January 10, 2011
City takes visitor’s cars off streets - more spaces for us.
As of September 13, 2010, the city announced that the unpaid fines from a red light camera can get your car towed. To anyone unfamiliar with the red light camera program, it is a growing network of traffic light cameras stationed around the city. A camera, timed to the turning of a red light, photographs your license plate. A ticket for $50 is mailed to the vehicle's registration address. Resistance is futile. You can contest the ticket, but don’t stand much of a chance as cameras don’t lie, right?
Red light cameras are a bone of contention in many cities around the country. In DC, the AAA withdrew its support for these cameras when the Mayor admitted he looked at them as a source of revenue. Cities as large as Dallas have been found to shorten yellow lights on camera traffic lights to increase revenue from the increased volume of tickets. Some states have begun to outlaw them. Studies have shown right angle accidents are fewer at camera intersections but rear end collisions are up almost as much.
In addition to the fact that all of NYC is legally a tow-away zone, the city really prefers to tow people who have been ticketed and already owe outstanding fines and penalties of more than $101.00 or anyone who has outstanding tickets and late fees in excess of $350. Now that the city has decided to include fines from these camera violations, a person, especially a long-term visitor to this city, could have their car towed for tickets that they didn’t even know they had. It happened to a friend of mine from Florida who works as a distributor and comes to the city on sales trips. He never even knew he had received 2 red light camera tickets that had been mailed to his home in Florida. And once you’re towed, you’re no position to protest your innocence or demand your right to face your accuser, which is, after all, a piece of machinery. $500 in fees and surcharges later, and climbing, he was just glad to get his car back
So I decided to make a Freedom of Information Law request to the Dept of Transportation for the locations of the red light cameras in the city. The locations would be offered on this blog or added to the parking map. City representatives like to boast that these cameras are only placed at our most dangerous intersections, so a map of these intersections could be a great service to all of us who drive in the city. That kind of public information will only slow down the rate of red light running at these most dangerous intersections and will give anyone who even suspects that he or she (or someone who borrowed their car) may have run a light the chance to look up the intersection and look up any tickets online.
"Request denied... pursuant to FOIL § 87(2)(e). This section states, in part, that an agency may deny access to records or portions thereof that, are compiled for law enforcement purposes.” This is one of the few legitimate reasons that a FOIL request can be denied, but I was having trouble understanding to what kind of compilation for law enforcement purposes they referred. That section of the FOIL law states an agency may deny access to records or portions thereof that:
Still investigating I guess. But it’s not like you get a ticket or points on your license for these alleged investigations and the fines are less than if you are stopped by a police officer. Besides, what is the traffic enforcement advantage of keeping the information of dangerous intersections or camera locations that could deny us our basic right of due process a secret?
What are they really investigating? On the DOT’s web site we are told:
Red light cameras are a bone of contention in many cities around the country. In DC, the AAA withdrew its support for these cameras when the Mayor admitted he looked at them as a source of revenue. Cities as large as Dallas have been found to shorten yellow lights on camera traffic lights to increase revenue from the increased volume of tickets. Some states have begun to outlaw them. Studies have shown right angle accidents are fewer at camera intersections but rear end collisions are up almost as much.
In addition to the fact that all of NYC is legally a tow-away zone, the city really prefers to tow people who have been ticketed and already owe outstanding fines and penalties of more than $101.00 or anyone who has outstanding tickets and late fees in excess of $350. Now that the city has decided to include fines from these camera violations, a person, especially a long-term visitor to this city, could have their car towed for tickets that they didn’t even know they had. It happened to a friend of mine from Florida who works as a distributor and comes to the city on sales trips. He never even knew he had received 2 red light camera tickets that had been mailed to his home in Florida. And once you’re towed, you’re no position to protest your innocence or demand your right to face your accuser, which is, after all, a piece of machinery. $500 in fees and surcharges later, and climbing, he was just glad to get his car back
So I decided to make a Freedom of Information Law request to the Dept of Transportation for the locations of the red light cameras in the city. The locations would be offered on this blog or added to the parking map. City representatives like to boast that these cameras are only placed at our most dangerous intersections, so a map of these intersections could be a great service to all of us who drive in the city. That kind of public information will only slow down the rate of red light running at these most dangerous intersections and will give anyone who even suspects that he or she (or someone who borrowed their car) may have run a light the chance to look up the intersection and look up any tickets online.
"Request denied... pursuant to FOIL § 87(2)(e). This section states, in part, that an agency may deny access to records or portions thereof that, are compiled for law enforcement purposes.” This is one of the few legitimate reasons that a FOIL request can be denied, but I was having trouble understanding to what kind of compilation for law enforcement purposes they referred. That section of the FOIL law states an agency may deny access to records or portions thereof that:
(e) are compiled for law enforcement purposes and which, if disclosed, would:This was no case of a fair or unfair trial and everything else (i, iii, iv) in FOIL § 87(2)(e) related to some kind of investigation, but what kind of investigation were they talking about. Investigation implies some kind of police activity, fact gathering, finally getting their man (or woman), but a beginning and an end, right? Red light cameras have been in NYC since 1993 so this must be one of those cold cases or what at news conferences are called an “ongoing investigation” which is usually just spin for we don’t know anything yet. So when does this investigation end? I decided to appeal their rejection. I cited the city’s new tow policy as a loophole to deny visitors or someone who’s ticket got “lost in the mail” their constitutional rights to protect and defend themselves; pointed out that this information was already public at web sites like photoenforced.com and Red Light Camera Locations; and asked expressly that if they were to deny this appeal to give a specific reason like an i, ii, iii, or iv. Denied – no additional wording.
i. interfere with law enforcement investigations or judicial proceedings;
ii. deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or impartial adjudication;
iii. identify a confidential source or disclose confidential information relating to a criminal investigation; or
iv. reveal criminal investigative techniques or procedures, except routine techniques and procedures;
Still investigating I guess. But it’s not like you get a ticket or points on your license for these alleged investigations and the fines are less than if you are stopped by a police officer. Besides, what is the traffic enforcement advantage of keeping the information of dangerous intersections or camera locations that could deny us our basic right of due process a secret?
What are they really investigating? On the DOT’s web site we are told:
The NYC Department of Finance is responsible for collecting and processing payments of these violations as well as holding hearings for drivers who wish to dispute the Notices of Liability they receive.The collection and hearings are handled by the Dept of Finance. Hmm. These cameras cost about $60,000 each and are a huge profit for their manufacturers (who, in some municipalities, actually operate the ticketing process). The city anticipates bringing in over $170 million from these cameras this year. Could it be that this top secret investigation of theirs is for that most elusive of criminals… revenue?
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Pay less for your parking tickets already!
A look at my blog stats recently made me realize that surprisingly few of you have clicked on the Apply for Online Reduction of Parking Fine Page (under Some Useful Links) that explains the city's reduction of parking fines program.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you've probably been overpaying your parking tickets by almost half. That means for the savings on one (1) ticket alone, you could be a high ranking member of the parallelspaces.com parking map web site and have all those Manhattan parking rules up on your computer screen or on your touch screen mobile whenever you feel like it for a year and still have plenty left over to wash that clunker of yours!
Still thinking about it?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you've probably been overpaying your parking tickets by almost half. That means for the savings on one (1) ticket alone, you could be a high ranking member of the parallelspaces.com parking map web site and have all those Manhattan parking rules up on your computer screen or on your touch screen mobile whenever you feel like it for a year and still have plenty left over to wash that clunker of yours!
Still thinking about it?
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The All time Worst Parking Tickets # 2
Another very qualified candidate for worst ticket is a little hard to believe. The police didn’t. On a scale of slightly to most extreme, this was way beyond that. One night I had been working late and I drove home to look for a space, prepared for the worst, but, by the grace of the parking gods, I found one right across from my building. Many of us in the human race have experienced an incredibly unusual event, a relative overcoming a fatal diagnosis, a solar eclipse, the immaculate conception, but, after a long hard day’s night of work, this was truly wondrous!
Late the next morning when I came out on my stoop, ready to bask in the miracle of the night before, my car was missing (have that T-shirt!). Then just as I was leaping from the strategies of theft to the strategies of tow, I saw it. It was right there in front of me only not where I had left it, but one space back. It had a ticket on it. I looked at the sign towering ominously over the hood of the car and saw that instead of the legal space in front of that sign my car was now behind the sign and in a school zone. I walked disbelievingly to the car and saw something that if the possibility had ever even occurred to me I would have been absolutely positive that it would never happen.
The vent window had been smashed! Someone broke into my car, put it in neutral, and pushed it back so that they could take my space. This was possibly the most heinous parking crime ever committed. This could only have been the work of the Dark Lord himself, but actually he was not even in office then. Now, I had a broken window and a ticket. For those of you who are shaking their heads that there must be some other explanation, I assure you one look into my car would have discouraged any common thief. Nothing was taken (from inside anyway), nothing rummaged. Why else would they go to the trouble of moving the car back? They simply took my space, probably knew my schedule, and were gone by the time I woke up.
By a lucky coincidence a police car came down my block. I flagged the two officers and told them what had happened. They didn’t believe me, thought I was trying to get out of a parking ticket, REALLY didn’t want to do any paper work. I pointed out to the driver that my window was smashed, why would I want to do that, at the very least it was my right to report a break in, but he wasn’t interested and told me to report it to the prescint, but they weren’t going to believe it either. I showed him where my broken glass was forward, where it was legal to park. He started to pull away.
Just when I was starting to believe that all the negative publicity about New York is true, his partner spoke up and the driver stopped. His partner said why don’t they just write it up now and save me, the victim of a break in after all, the trouble of going into the station. (They really do take this Good Cop/Bad Cop thing seriously.) So the driver wrote it up and gave me a complaint number. The Good Cop told me to contest the ticket by using the complaint number and, as if two miracles weren’t enough, I beat the ticket. Anybody still want to claim that New York is not the toughest parking city in this country?
Late the next morning when I came out on my stoop, ready to bask in the miracle of the night before, my car was missing (have that T-shirt!). Then just as I was leaping from the strategies of theft to the strategies of tow, I saw it. It was right there in front of me only not where I had left it, but one space back. It had a ticket on it. I looked at the sign towering ominously over the hood of the car and saw that instead of the legal space in front of that sign my car was now behind the sign and in a school zone. I walked disbelievingly to the car and saw something that if the possibility had ever even occurred to me I would have been absolutely positive that it would never happen.
The vent window had been smashed! Someone broke into my car, put it in neutral, and pushed it back so that they could take my space. This was possibly the most heinous parking crime ever committed. This could only have been the work of the Dark Lord himself, but actually he was not even in office then. Now, I had a broken window and a ticket. For those of you who are shaking their heads that there must be some other explanation, I assure you one look into my car would have discouraged any common thief. Nothing was taken (from inside anyway), nothing rummaged. Why else would they go to the trouble of moving the car back? They simply took my space, probably knew my schedule, and were gone by the time I woke up.
By a lucky coincidence a police car came down my block. I flagged the two officers and told them what had happened. They didn’t believe me, thought I was trying to get out of a parking ticket, REALLY didn’t want to do any paper work. I pointed out to the driver that my window was smashed, why would I want to do that, at the very least it was my right to report a break in, but he wasn’t interested and told me to report it to the prescint, but they weren’t going to believe it either. I showed him where my broken glass was forward, where it was legal to park. He started to pull away.
Just when I was starting to believe that all the negative publicity about New York is true, his partner spoke up and the driver stopped. His partner said why don’t they just write it up now and save me, the victim of a break in after all, the trouble of going into the station. (They really do take this Good Cop/Bad Cop thing seriously.) So the driver wrote it up and gave me a complaint number. The Good Cop told me to contest the ticket by using the complaint number and, as if two miracles weren’t enough, I beat the ticket. Anybody still want to claim that New York is not the toughest parking city in this country?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Towed 3 times In One Week (a personal best)
If you responded to this title, it’s probably because you are either relieved to find someone dumber than yourself or are a true believer that we can learn from other people’s misfortunes. I had been a visitor to NYC a number of times, but my first week driving in NYC was a parking crash course, more crash than course. After college, I lived in California for a while exploring those open spaces I mentioned earlier while a handful of my college friends had moved to the city. I had always promised to take up one of the many invites to the Emerald City and having just arrived on the East coast from driving cross country, I steered south towards Oz. My graduating class all seemed to have relocated to various corners of Greenwich Village and my first adult experiences of NY were of the I’m OK, You’re OK, anything goes, but always quaint and unthreatening Village. The string of friends’ apartments, each island more tropically friendly, always assured me a place to crash and I traveled back and forth for a week.
I’m not sure exactly when this lovechild was conceived, but this week gave birth to a long life of parking on the mean streets of New York, and it was only natural that it would howl with its first breath. The morning after a night of basking in the glow of our college reunion, when I went to get my car, I found my first New York reality check. There I was, thinking how much I belonged, but instead of my car I found first hand the pain of belonging. I had been ripped off, snared in that TV Nightly News segment on urban crime and New York City lawlessness so often acted out in the California film industry.
You know this road movie: It’s your first visit to the urban jungle. You are starting to get the hang of the sudden lane changes, the streets reversing direction, your cherished red 63 Karmann Ghia bucking, like a spaceship on reentry, over the cobblestones that your friends tell you are so picturesque, and you park it next to a Free Parking sign (OK, no such thing, but at this point in the movie, life still seemed like a friendly Monopoly game.). You come out the next day and your beautifully preserved California car is stolen! Of course it was spotted. 20 year old cars just don’t look that good in NYC.
I probably don’t have to tell the hard-core New York drivers that it wasn’t actually stolen. And it wasn’t Free Parking either. And the friend who warned me that they will really tow you in this city so you have to read the signs in front and in back of your car before you leave it was not just showing off her new, New York skills. I was PVB punked, but it took me a lot of years to figure out just how bad. I was towed for being “partially” in a Bus Stop Zone. My relief when I found out that my car was just hanging out somewhere by the scenic Hudson River, kept safely dry and scratch free by the NYPD on some exotic, far away pier, quickly turned to shock when I found out the cost of the tow! (and storage charges were already climbing!) Following the NYPD directions, which included subways, buses and hoofing it through desolate street blocks that looked like a scene from West Side Story, was its own saga of survival and is a whole other blog post, but I made it and stood before the man.
The gruff voice behind the massively scratched (fingernails?) bulletproof window through which I could barely see a hulking figure barked that I had to pay the tow and there was no discussion. But in a flashback to that more innocent time, they took a check. And another officer, seeing I was a visitor from CA, kindly pointed out that I don’t have to pay the ticket “right away” (a wink) to get my car because tickets have a 7-day response period (in those days) and if I was leaving in a week to go back to CA… “Who knows when you would be able to pay?”
So, I got my car the Hell out of there and enjoyed a lot more great NY moments until a couple of days later when I found my car was stolen again. Now, I don’t want to seem overly dense. I did read every parking sign carefully after that and when I just couldn’t translate the geometric, counteracting forces of circles, squares and other lingo mounted on a single signpost, I just moved on. But when I found a block that had no parking signs on it at all, and a nice sized space right between two other cars, I thought I even saw that the curb had been painted gold. Imagining a plain yellow would have made more sense. The gruff voice told me if there is no sign on a block, I had to look at the previous block’s signs. This either was not ever true or, at least, is not true today and, many years later, I quote the actual law in the Miscellaneous Info page at the back of the published book of my map.
Irrational fear is never a good thing, but it could be if it prevented me from being towed a third time. My stay in NY was still a lot of fun, but now I approached every car park with the caution and paranoia of a Vietnam suicide squad entering a booby-trapped jungle. Just get out alive was my mantra. But when I parked on a legal block, getting out of the car (engine still running) to make sure that I was clear of the white crosswalk, I could almost have predicted that my car would be stolen again. The gruff voice, a woman this time, told me that regardless of the crosswalk, you had to park behind the “building line.” I had parked on a block where the building was set back further than usual from the street making the building line further back than the crosswalk. It would not be manly of me to describe my reaction.
OK, I did suggest there might be a kernel of useful information somewhere in this Blog, but I did not mean because you would learn that I may hold the record for parking idiocy. I have to admit that it was mostly beginner’s luck anyway. Still, I did learn a number of things from this experience. I learned to listen more carefully to my friends, even if they don’t drive. Why couldn’t she have picked up a few survival tricks about the city she chose to live in? Years later, when I came to NY to live, I made a point to learn that the rule is when there are no signs on the block, there are no parking restrictions on that block, no matter what the signs on the previous block say! I haven’t yet learned if that bit about the building line is true. I have looked for it in the parking laws of NYC, asked police and parking police, but still don’t have a reliable answer and still park behind the building line to this day, sometimes to the angry protests of other drivers. Maybe someone reading this will comment on once and for all the legal truth or falsehood of this one. Lastly, I know that somewhere buried but not forgotten in the vast files of the Parking Violations Bureau, a California license for a red 63 Karmann Ghia still has three outstanding parking tickets! (which with interest and penalties…)
Epilogue
For anyone foolish enough to think they might have bested my record, I have to mention that after I fled NYC, I went to visit some other friends in Washington, DC. While there I had always wanted to see the Capitol Building, so on a free afternoon, I drove in from my friend’s apartment in Alexandria and found a great parking space right next to the Mall. The walk down the middle of the beautifully tended Mall that leads up to the Capitol Building was even more majestic than all the television and newspaper pictures of my youth. The walk back was a little stranger. The first thing I noticed was a couple of crazies had actually driven up onto the grass of the Mall about midway between me and the Washington Monument at the other end. As I walked closer, I realized they weren’t driving, they were stopped there right in the middle of the green lawns, like it was their own private parking space right next to the great old trees and pouring fountains. As I got closer, I noticed one of the cars was a Karmann Ghia. Hah! What are the chances of that!
Turns out, parking next to the Mall is prohibited during the 4pm to 7pm rush hour, but because I had an out-of-state license, they just towed my car up onto the grass so that it wouldn’t interfere with the traffic flow. There was no ticket, just me, a little winded, as I drove my car off the grassy curb to the street and made my getaway. Later, after telling the story to my friend, I learned that our nation’s capital is a welcoming place. Hmmm.
I’m not sure exactly when this lovechild was conceived, but this week gave birth to a long life of parking on the mean streets of New York, and it was only natural that it would howl with its first breath. The morning after a night of basking in the glow of our college reunion, when I went to get my car, I found my first New York reality check. There I was, thinking how much I belonged, but instead of my car I found first hand the pain of belonging. I had been ripped off, snared in that TV Nightly News segment on urban crime and New York City lawlessness so often acted out in the California film industry.
You know this road movie: It’s your first visit to the urban jungle. You are starting to get the hang of the sudden lane changes, the streets reversing direction, your cherished red 63 Karmann Ghia bucking, like a spaceship on reentry, over the cobblestones that your friends tell you are so picturesque, and you park it next to a Free Parking sign (OK, no such thing, but at this point in the movie, life still seemed like a friendly Monopoly game.). You come out the next day and your beautifully preserved California car is stolen! Of course it was spotted. 20 year old cars just don’t look that good in NYC.
I probably don’t have to tell the hard-core New York drivers that it wasn’t actually stolen. And it wasn’t Free Parking either. And the friend who warned me that they will really tow you in this city so you have to read the signs in front and in back of your car before you leave it was not just showing off her new, New York skills. I was PVB punked, but it took me a lot of years to figure out just how bad. I was towed for being “partially” in a Bus Stop Zone. My relief when I found out that my car was just hanging out somewhere by the scenic Hudson River, kept safely dry and scratch free by the NYPD on some exotic, far away pier, quickly turned to shock when I found out the cost of the tow! (and storage charges were already climbing!) Following the NYPD directions, which included subways, buses and hoofing it through desolate street blocks that looked like a scene from West Side Story, was its own saga of survival and is a whole other blog post, but I made it and stood before the man.
The gruff voice behind the massively scratched (fingernails?) bulletproof window through which I could barely see a hulking figure barked that I had to pay the tow and there was no discussion. But in a flashback to that more innocent time, they took a check. And another officer, seeing I was a visitor from CA, kindly pointed out that I don’t have to pay the ticket “right away” (a wink) to get my car because tickets have a 7-day response period (in those days) and if I was leaving in a week to go back to CA… “Who knows when you would be able to pay?”
So, I got my car the Hell out of there and enjoyed a lot more great NY moments until a couple of days later when I found my car was stolen again. Now, I don’t want to seem overly dense. I did read every parking sign carefully after that and when I just couldn’t translate the geometric, counteracting forces of circles, squares and other lingo mounted on a single signpost, I just moved on. But when I found a block that had no parking signs on it at all, and a nice sized space right between two other cars, I thought I even saw that the curb had been painted gold. Imagining a plain yellow would have made more sense. The gruff voice told me if there is no sign on a block, I had to look at the previous block’s signs. This either was not ever true or, at least, is not true today and, many years later, I quote the actual law in the Miscellaneous Info page at the back of the published book of my map.
Irrational fear is never a good thing, but it could be if it prevented me from being towed a third time. My stay in NY was still a lot of fun, but now I approached every car park with the caution and paranoia of a Vietnam suicide squad entering a booby-trapped jungle. Just get out alive was my mantra. But when I parked on a legal block, getting out of the car (engine still running) to make sure that I was clear of the white crosswalk, I could almost have predicted that my car would be stolen again. The gruff voice, a woman this time, told me that regardless of the crosswalk, you had to park behind the “building line.” I had parked on a block where the building was set back further than usual from the street making the building line further back than the crosswalk. It would not be manly of me to describe my reaction.
OK, I did suggest there might be a kernel of useful information somewhere in this Blog, but I did not mean because you would learn that I may hold the record for parking idiocy. I have to admit that it was mostly beginner’s luck anyway. Still, I did learn a number of things from this experience. I learned to listen more carefully to my friends, even if they don’t drive. Why couldn’t she have picked up a few survival tricks about the city she chose to live in? Years later, when I came to NY to live, I made a point to learn that the rule is when there are no signs on the block, there are no parking restrictions on that block, no matter what the signs on the previous block say! I haven’t yet learned if that bit about the building line is true. I have looked for it in the parking laws of NYC, asked police and parking police, but still don’t have a reliable answer and still park behind the building line to this day, sometimes to the angry protests of other drivers. Maybe someone reading this will comment on once and for all the legal truth or falsehood of this one. Lastly, I know that somewhere buried but not forgotten in the vast files of the Parking Violations Bureau, a California license for a red 63 Karmann Ghia still has three outstanding parking tickets! (which with interest and penalties…)
Epilogue
For anyone foolish enough to think they might have bested my record, I have to mention that after I fled NYC, I went to visit some other friends in Washington, DC. While there I had always wanted to see the Capitol Building, so on a free afternoon, I drove in from my friend’s apartment in Alexandria and found a great parking space right next to the Mall. The walk down the middle of the beautifully tended Mall that leads up to the Capitol Building was even more majestic than all the television and newspaper pictures of my youth. The walk back was a little stranger. The first thing I noticed was a couple of crazies had actually driven up onto the grass of the Mall about midway between me and the Washington Monument at the other end. As I walked closer, I realized they weren’t driving, they were stopped there right in the middle of the green lawns, like it was their own private parking space right next to the great old trees and pouring fountains. As I got closer, I noticed one of the cars was a Karmann Ghia. Hah! What are the chances of that!
Turns out, parking next to the Mall is prohibited during the 4pm to 7pm rush hour, but because I had an out-of-state license, they just towed my car up onto the grass so that it wouldn’t interfere with the traffic flow. There was no ticket, just me, a little winded, as I drove my car off the grassy curb to the street and made my getaway. Later, after telling the story to my friend, I learned that our nation’s capital is a welcoming place. Hmmm.
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