NYPD retrains cops to avoid parking ticket mistakes

June 3, 2016 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The corner of Ovington Avenue and Bay Ridge Place is one of many T-intersections in Brooklyn. Eagle file photo by Paula Katinas

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The NYPD has started a rigorous program to retrain cops on parking regulations to avoid wrongly ticketing drivers, according to Councilmember Vincent Gentile, who had been urging police brass to educate officers in the wake of incidents in which motorists were hit with summonses for parking in legal spaces.

Gentile said he was particularly concerned about drivers receiving tickets for parking at T-intersections. Drivers who park at certain T-intersections are not subject to fines, thanks to a Department of Transportation (DOT) regulation change in 2009.

A T-intersection can be defined as a three-way junction consisting of a long street that meets a shorter, one-way street.

The city’s traffic rules allow parking at T-intersections if the intersections do not have traffic signals, all-way stop signs or crosswalk markings, even if there is a curb cut at that location.

But after large numbers of motorists complained that they were being unfairly ticketed, Gentile (D-Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-Bensonhurst) wrote to NYPD Chief of Transportation Thomas M. Chan requesting that cops be retrained.

On June 2, Gentile said Chan informed him that police were indeed undergoing retraining.

In a letter to Gentile, Chan wrote that he met with “subordinate parking enforcement executives” and that “rigorous retraining is currently being delivered to enforcement personnel.”

In addition, Chan told Gentile that police supervisors are being directed to conduct “spot checks” to identify and reinstruct any cop or traffic enforcement agent wrongly giving a ticket for a T-intersection violation.

“I appreciate NYPD Chief of Transportation Chan’s response and I am glad to see he and the department have been proactive in remedying this situation and seek to eliminate this error from recurring,” Gentile said in a statement.

“If drivers have been wrongly ticketed for parking legally at T-intersection pedestrian ramps and have paid their summons, I encourage them to submit a refund request through the Department of Finance. In addition, if you have received this type of ticket recently, I encourage drivers to dispute it immediately,” Gentile said.

Department of Finance (DOF) officials told Gentile that they will review T-intersection tickets going back more than a year. If it is discovered that the driver got the ticket wrongfully and paid the ticket, the DOF will issue a refund.

Drivers who believe they were unfairly ticketed should visit the DOF website at www.nyc.gov/dof and type Pedestrian Ramp Ticket Issue in the subject heading. Motorists need to provide the summons number or their license plate number so the DOF can accurately search for the ticket in their system.

Drivers who have recently received this type of ticket but who have yet to dispute it can also visit the DOF website for more information.

The T-intersection ticket error came to light when the Village Voice reported on research conducted by Professor Ben Wellington of Pratt Institute showing that T-intersection summonses have cost New York City drivers nearly $6 million since 2013.