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The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

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Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#131

Post by breakingcups »

fsaneq2 wrote: post #29
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its quite easy to leave SF via the GGB in the morning, reenter SF via any of a variety of different routes and get a ticket at 2pm, leave SF again, and reenter via the GGB in the evening. Now, if you had described evidence of the specific location your car was at the time of the ticket, and the appeal was still denied, that might be a different story.

Heh, please, don't defend these POS. They're cheating and they know it. I got a ticket for the car being "double parked"; I sent a picture of how it was parked (right next to the curb in a legal spot). It was a rainy day, so you could even see that the car must've been in that spot for a while -- it's not like I moved it there to take a picture. Later, I got a prewritten appeal denied notice -- it wasn't even specifi…

Here in the Netherlands, if a response to your appeal contains evidence that the handling officer hasn't read your appeal properly or does not give an appropriate answer to each of your objections, it is grounds to get the ticket thrown out in court EVEN if it was a legitimate ticket.

An example: If you object to the calibration of the SPECS camera (e.g camera's that track you over a longer piece of road to determine your average speed) and the officer responds saying that the radar equipment was properly calibrated, you can have the ticket thrown out as it was not radar equipment that ticketed you and thus proper care wasn't shown during the handling of your appeal.

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#133

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

lotharbot wrote: post #93
XaspR8d wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some beautiful self-referentiality. Here's a photo of your handbook, which contains a photo of this exact car. If only he could have made it appear recursive...

I wouldn't be surprised if he photographed the van with the photo in the window to submit to the police as an "updated" photo. He was a software engineer for a few decades and it would fit his sense of humor.

Sneaky/easy version, he'd just photoshop his displayed page to have that in the photo.

He'd be displaying a fake page, identical in all details, except for the recursion. "You won't believe the one difference in this ..."

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#134

Post by tomohawk »

It's not surprising that a small change like this could be enabled with open data, but big changes? There's been plenty of data related to medicare fraud, veteran's admin fraud, etc, but changing big things like that appears to be a no go even though the cost is tremendous in terms of affected lives and money.

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#135

Post by taejo »

tedmiston wrote: post #123

How do you know that these tickets, given at locations of pedestrian ramps, were not actually due to other things... like uncommon street sweeping hours or those pesky snow parking restrictions that are so hard to keep track of. Is the reason for citation available in the data?

> But thanks to NYC’s Open Data portal, I was able to look at the most common parking spots in the City where cars were ticketed for blocking pedestrian ramps.

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#136

Post by taejo »

rotrux wrote: post #122

Headline -- "The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It." Expanded & Explicit Translated Headline -- "Some NYPD Officers Were Cutting Corners in a Profession Where Cutting Corners is a Relatively Big Deal. Some People With Computers Did a Fancy Search and Now Those Cops Are Rightfully Getting in Trouble and the Shit Is Stopping" You're welcome.

Nobody's getting in trouble.

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#137

Post by shard972 »

gshulegaard wrote: post #13
parennoob wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they thanked him means exactly zero if they don't give back the money that they got from people who were lawfully parked, but still got erroneously fined by the department for reasons that directly contradict existing law . It is easy to give verbal apologies (especially using hedging words like “....recent, abstruse change in the parking rules.” If the police are so confused by abstruse changes in the…

I respectfully disagree. An error was identified, communicated, and acted upon as a result of open data. Specifically, it became known that due to inadequate training practices patrol officers were unawares of the change whereas parking enforcement were the only ones trained and therefore were not making the same mistake: > "When the rule changed in 2009 to allow for certain pedestrian ramps to be blocked by parked v…

It seems to me, if there was a bug in a company system that charged customers when they should not have, I don't think you can just say "sorry" and not pay the money back.

I would be appalled if people here on HN were applauding a company for apologizing for effectively stealing money and not returning it. What is the difference?

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#138

Post by sleepychu »

tomohawk wrote: post #134

It's not surprising that a small change like this could be enabled with open data, but big changes? There's been plenty of data related to medicare fraud, veteran's admin fraud, etc, but changing big things like that appears to be a no go even though the cost is tremendous in terms of affected lives and money.

Small steps. I think there's a knee-jerk reaction (and anecdotally I've found government organisations to be particularly guilty of this) of taking analysis like this as embarrassing criticism that needs to be rejected, not embraced.

EDIT: Sorry, my point there was - as more things like this happen we should see increased engagement from orgs.

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#139

Post by golergka »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #129
danso wrote: post #3

For people who skip straight to the comments: I couldn't fit it into the title, but the other half of the OP's title is that the author confronted the NYPD with his data analysis and they thanked him and spoke positively about the effect of open data: > “Mr. Wellington’s analysis identified errors the department made in issuing parking summonses. It appears to be a misunderstanding by officers on patrol of a recent,…

It's hard to read between the lines, especially from afar, but their motivation to put a positive spin on it could also be political. The phrase "a recent, abstruse change in the parking rules" caught my eye. Maybe they are using these revelations to support an ongoing spat over said rules.

Line between "putting a positive spin" and "doing a positive thing" can be quite blurry — in this case, I honestly think it's a combination of the two. Of course, beurocrats and politicians often act out of selfish motivations, thinking about public perception instead of public good — but if this motivation leads to them serving public good, what's the difference?

Re: The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It

#140

Post by aptwebapps »

colordrops wrote: post #118

An anecdot: when I lived in Manhattan in 2001, I parked near 61st and 1st, between two differing parking signs. I was clearly very close to one, and much further from another, by at least 50 yards. I got a ticket for illegal parking according to the further sign. Being a broke ex-dot-commer, I was furious, so I photographed and measured everything, and put together a seven page report. After a long while, I got a res…

Processing fee. Five bucks plus five per page they had to read.
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