The NYPD Was Ticketing Legally Parked Cars; Open Data Put an End to It • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by RadioAndrea » Thu, May 12, 2016, 12:18 PM UTC

esbranson wrote: post #72

gohrt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you memorized the entirety of the law? http://www.amlegal.com/codes/client/new-york-city_ny/ In a city where disagreeing with law enforcement's wrong or illegal activity risks violent reaction or death, it is not solely the citizen's obligation to correct law enforcement's mistakes. Law enforcement tax the citizens to pay professionals to enforce laws. Those professionals have a duty to do their job properly.

> Have you memorized the entirety of the law? The answer to that question is also the answer to the questions: * Can you checkout the book of laws out of the library? * Can you buy the book of laws on Amazon? Can you even afford to buy the book of laws?

Most law libraries do not let you check out their copies of the legal code. Also most law libraries tend to be in court buildings, and not at public library branches. My public library has lots of hours outside the normal 0900 to 1700, my city's law library is open from 0800 to 1700.

Your point about purchasing a paper copy of the legal code is spot on. In my state, I asked my local government workers (clerks, law librarians, etc) where to buy a copy of my state's code. There seems to be only one source and it costs more than 700 USD.

For someone who lives on the opposite side of town from the courthouse, or spends more on rent than a potential law book, reading law on paper can be impossible.

There are online versions, but somehow I think that most people wouldn't be willing to suffer through the mountains of legal text on their phones. The interfaces I've seen sometimes even break tab navigation by using javascript references to each item, making them a pain to use on a big screen.

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

#152

Post by ComteDeLaFere » Thu, May 12, 2016, 12:57 PM UTC

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.

Yeah, this. NYC issues ~$500 mil in parking tickets per year. If this were a rational issue, someone would look at that and say "Wow. We must be doing something wrong, this is way too many tickets written. Are the street signs clear enough?"

I'm kind of making fun, but they don't want to fix the problem because those tickets are a genuine revenue stream for the city. When the revenue from parking tickets goes down, everyone panics.

See http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/06/news/economy/nypd-tickets/

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

#153

Post by cunac » Thu, May 12, 2016, 12:58 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #130

nhaehnle wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy doesn't really work because while there is all this outrage by some people here, I haven't actually seen evidence so far of the NYPD refusing to issue refunds. The thing is, there doesn't seem to be a cheap and automatic way to (a) accurately filter out all incorrect tickets and (b) track the people down who were wrongfully ticketed. (Yes, analyzing the thousands of different parking spots where tickets…

It's not difficult to pinpoint blame and there is no scapegoat. "Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct seems to have the most cars wrongly ticketed, bringing in over $100,000 in fines a year. The 77th, also in Brooklyn, comes in second:" That's not an oversight. That's a systematic abuse of the public trust. How about people that didn't know they were wrongfully ticketed and fined? How about people that couldn't take the time off…

that is one conclusion , other is that those two have the most parking spots affected by the change of the law so proportionally they made more mistakes

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

#154

Post by kriro » Thu, May 12, 2016, 1:05 PM UTC

parennoob wrote: post #7

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,…

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…

Two things. Firstly I am pretty impressed that they thanked him and see the work as positive (sadly, that is not the typical reaction) and secondly I'm pretty sure refunds will happen because that was their response. The typical response leaves plausible deniability this answer does not imo. Anything police related is usually keenly aware of the legal ramifications of such statements thus I believe the intention is to pay up.

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

#155

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, May 12, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

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 also substantial that this was all done from a database of tickets that the NYPD made available. It's easy to say "Oh sure, they talk a good game after the fact", but the decision to make the data publicly available in the first place seems like a serious show of good faith.

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

#156

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, May 12, 2016, 1:46 PM UTC

bobbles wrote: post #47

rsp1984 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I respectfully disagree with you. Money has been taken from citizens by the authorities in an unlawful manner. Money has to be given back. I don't know what more to say about this matter. If I steal 200$ out of your pocket and you find out, my feeling is you would want your money back, not an apology and my heartfelt assurance that it won't happen again...

Wow I can't believe all the people disagreeing with you. They unlawfully issued tickets, were made aware that they were unlawful, and don't want to refund the money ??? I must be taking crazy pills for people to think this is ok.

Do people think it's ok, or are we just at a point where "at least the theft stopped" is pretty much the most we expect?

I can absolutely believe that this happened by accident (it is a pretty subtle rule change), but that doesn't justify pocketing all of the cash it produced.

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

#157

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, May 12, 2016, 1:53 PM UTC

tbyehl wrote: post #147

themartorana wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't up vote this enough."Ignorance of the law is not an excuse" is played out on the citizens of NYC (and elsewhere) on the daily. Don't let authority off so easy. Hold those that would hold you liable, liable.

> Ignorance of the law is not an excuse Supreme Court says otherwise, if you're a cop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heien_v._North_Carolina

While that's an interesting (and somewhat concerning) result, it doesn't go as far as this case.

Heien was about meeting 4th Amendment probable cause standards to prosecute a different crime. This is about ticketing people over the non-criminal act out of ignorance. It's like if Heien had been fined over the brake lights even though they were legal.

As is, the NYC statue of limitations will strip most of these people of the right to contest tickets that were given for non-crimes.

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

#158

Post by jo6gwb » Thu, May 12, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

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.

Here is the actual rule: §4-08(f)(7) Pedestrian ramps. Alongside or in a manner which obstructs a curb area which has been cut down, lowered or otherwise constructed or altered to provide access for persons with disabilities at a marked or unmarked crosswalk as defined in subdivision (b) of §4-01 of this chapter. A person may stop, stand or park a vehicle alongside or in a manner which obstructs a pedestrian ramp not located within such crosswalk, unless otherwise prohibited.

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

#159

Post by tibbon » Thu, May 12, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

Dozens of motorcyclists in downtown Boston recently had a problem like this. There are 12-hour motorcycle meters (25 cents an hour, woo!), but a parking cop kept issuing tickets for "Over 2 hour parking" at those meters. They assumed they were like the car meters.

I challenged my stack of them, and they relented, but refused to actually write me back with how/why this was happening, and how they were upgrading their training.

What gets me, is that I doubt they did a search through their system for all such tickets, and then immediately issued refunds- or put through a software patch on their ticketing system to disallow those tickets at motorcycle meters.

Refunding can't be that hard.

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

#160

Post by eric_h » Thu, May 12, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

rsp1984 wrote: post #34

gshulegaard wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And I respectfully disagree with you. Money has been taken from citizens by the authorities in an unlawful manner. Money has to be given back. I don't know what more to say about this matter. If I steal 200$ out of your pocket and you find out, my feeling is you would want your money back, not an apology and my heartfelt assurance that it won't happen again...

It can be argued that money was freely given by people who were issued tickets because they didn't want to deal with challenging the ticket in court.

I've done the same (got an open container ticket on the boardwalk in coney island, where they sell beer. the cop said you have to drink it within 20ft of the establishment that sold it). Admittedly, in that particular case they dismissed the fine and sent me my check back.