The Consumerist has a fascinating video of the New York Parking Enforcement at work.
Cars parked along one side of the street shown in the video are parked legally when the video begins. But this stretch of road will soon be home to one of NYC’s new bike-share program, meaning there can be no parking in front of the large bike rack to be installed. And so, as you can see on the video, a city employee comes in and installs a new No Standing Anytime sign.
And within 25 minutes of that sign going up, a parking enforcement officer is swooping in to issue tickets — $115 each — to cars that had been legally parked before the sign was changed.
Even at their worst, the New York mafia had honor. This is about as underhanded as it gets. How’d you like to go in for lunch legally parked and come out with a ticket because they changed the sign?
This is the kicker:
When contacted by CBS 2, a rep for the Department of Transportation simply said that “any motorist who believes they received a ticket in error can contest it through the Department of Finance, which adjudicates violations.”
In LA, the city was convicted of wrongly issuing tickets at broken meters, shutting down appeals, and not issuing refunds. On a $40 million scale.
What’s the chance the appeal to this gets through the NY parking system?
