The NYPD has slapped more than $4 million in tickets on hapless drivers who parked in front of curb cuts — even though the city made those spots legal in 2009, it was revealed on Wednesday.
In some of the hardest-hit spots — where sidewalks are sloped down to the street — cops handed out tens of thousands in erroneous parking fines. One Brooklyn address that was targeted for more than $48,000, according to an I Quant NY study of police tickets issued between August 2013 and March of this year.
Big Apple drivers whose vehicles were hit with the $165 fines said the city is scamming its citizens.
“This happened to me uptown,” said frustrated diver Fonzie Madrid. “It is unfair that with the limited parking space in the city, the cops are taking away more space and making money off it.”
In 2009, City Councilman Vincent Gentile helped legalize parking near pedestrian curb cuts that are in the middle of the block and not near a driveway. He argued that people for whom the inclines had been meant, such as the wheelchair-bound, shouldn’t be entering the street mid-block anyway.
It’s now legal to park in front of them even if there is no crosswalk. It seems, though, that the NYPD hasn’t gotten the message.
During the period studied by I Quant NY, cops and traffic agents handed out wrongful tickets at a rate of $1.7 million a year at 1,966 spots.
More than $48,675 in tickets were given to cars parked in front of 575 Ocean Ave. in Flatbush. Another spot nearby, at 1705 Caton Ave., drew more than $45,000 in fines.
Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct had the most cars wrongly ticketed, with over $107,000 a year. Second was the 77th Precinct, with more than $101,000.
“It’s a waste of everybody’s time, and most people don’t realize that what they are doing isn’t illegal, so they don’t bother to fight it and they pay,” said I Quant NY founder Ben Wellington, who crunched the numbers.
NYPD officials called the tickets an anomaly, even though there have been $4 million worth of them.
City Council members said they would hold the NYPD to its promise of reeducating its cops.
“We will push the NYPD to live up to their commitment that officers know the rules,” said Councilman Dan Garodnick.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Rosner