Because of Error, New York City Has To Refund 18 Million Dollars In Parking Tickets
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — The city has dismissed or issued refunds for hundreds of thousands of parking tickets — and has lost millions of dollars — due to an error in how a violation code was printed. As 1010 WINS’ Carol D’Auria reported exclusively Monday, the New York City Department of Finance discovered earlier this year that a change in the parking ticket rule for failing to display a Muni Meter receipt, or having an expired receipt, had not been applied to the tickets that had been issued.
The violation code had changed by one number, from traffic rule section 4-08h10 to section 4-08h1. But since the wrong violation code appeared on the tickets, the tickets are “in effect,” defective, a department spokeswoman told 1010 WINS’ Juliet Papa.
To correct the error, all the drivers who had been ticketed with the wrong code were either refunded or had their tickets dismissed.
Finally! Finally, we’ve got some pure, 100 proof, legitimately good news this week.
No I’ve never aspired to make this blog one of those Buzzfeed clones that put out articles like “10 Parking Mistakes You’ll Make in New York”. No, I’m much more likely to write, “10 Reason Why Parking In New York Will Make You Kill Yourself”, but yeah, parking is terrible.
And it’s so much more terrible than people think. Between construction, buses, no-parking zones, and the fucking bloodthirsty agents of the New York Parking Division, it is impossible to park in New York legally. I worked for 6 months in a job that required me to drive for roughly eight hours a day. In all those months driving around the city, not once did I park legally. It’s a gamble every time you step out of the car, and not a cheap gamble either. There’s nothing like running into the bank to drop off a check, and then coming out to see that you can go ahead and kiss one hundred of those dear dollars goodbye.
It makes it all the sweeter when the criminals who enforce New York's parking fuck up. I love this mistake too, it’s such a classic government error. “Oh we misprinted one number on thousands of otherwise identical tickets, so they’re all void.” I live for that shit. Rejoice New Yorkers, it’s rare you can come out of this city with anything more tangible than a moral victory, and it deserves to be celebrated when you do.
Also, 18 MILLION DOLLARS. That’s so much free money out the window.But when you’ve got ticket agents putting slips under windshield like they’re the Jehovah’s Witnesses of the commuting world, I guess that’s money pretty easily made back.
Part of me thinks that this is an intentional move the city makes every once in a while to keep people from erupting in a full revolt. New York of all cities conditions you for revolt. When you see other people switching cars on the subway, you do the same. When folks step over the bodies of the homeless in the 34th street station, you do the same. When people flip a police car because this city has pushed them too far, you do it too. You can think you moved to the city to make it on your own, but really you’re just joining a massive, miserable herd. You know it, and the city knows it. But hey, intentional or not, money is money; which is exactly how they want us to think. Oh god, I've put myself in a pickle.
P.S. Good guys won, bad guys lost. Gotta keep it simple for sheeple like me.
