8 ms·

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 erroneousl

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 parking rules, how are normal people supposed to understand and obey them?). Monetary ones are more difficult to come by. [EDIT: To make it clear, I'm not saying the work of 'iquantny hasn't resulted in positive change. It obviously has. Just that the department's response is, in my opinion, not positive enough.]

danso 10y ago
Definitely...it's easy for a bureaucrat to say "Thanks for the help, we'll do better next time!" if no one's getting fired.
- parennoob 10y ago
  Yeah. I see what you're saying in the parent comment – even getting this much of a response is a positive thing compared to existing practice, but it's not an overall positive. I suspect they want to avoid a possible lawsuit for unlawfully ticketing legally parked people and hope this blows over because they "gracefully addressed" their (illegal) practices. A really great response would have been, ”Thanks for contacting us. We realize that we were wrong for issuing these tickets. We will now put in place a program to refund the people who were wrongly issued tickets.”
  - iquantny 10y ago
    OP Here. This is an amazing response from a city agency. In the end of the day, agencies rarely interact directly with citizens. The normal response to someone analyzing your data is to close up and have no comment. The fact that they admit the mistake is huge, and big step forward for Open Data and agency interaction.
    - parennoob 10y ago
      I hope I'm not trivializing the value of your work. You have done the general public a great service by finding these erroneous citations. Thank you for that! All I was saying is that there is a strong moral case for people who were wrongly fined in this manner to receive refunds on their fines, and I think the city agency should do that (but almost certainly won't).
      - eggy 10y ago
        I think it is a very positive thing that the OP accomplished. And yes, I think the city should pay back for the wrongly issued parking tickets. The official admits there was an error and defines why it happened. This in itself opens the door for the wrongly ticketed parties to claim a refund, since their is the admission by the city official. Now, who's going to inform those wrongly-ticketed citizens? Certainly not the city. It will cost more for them to re-analyze, and contact all of those people. They should, but it will not happen. Great work by the OP! Glad to see NYPD in a positive light. Slightly OT: I was born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and I remember people used to double-park, or do whatever they pleased, and rack up hundreds of dollars (thousands today) in parking tickets, and then bargain the total fine down to a fraction of the fines. It was cheaper than legally paying monthly parking rates!
        LanceH 10y ago
        I don't know about the specifics, but they should get the administrative "fees" back, which are typically claimed even when someone is not guilty.
        developer2 10y ago
        The city certainly won't come forward and dish out the cash voluntarily. It would take a class action to accomplish the task. We'll see in the coming weeks/months if such an action takes form.
        peterwwillis 10y ago
  - lazaroclapp 10y ago
    Sure. Which means that, similarly, a really great response from the public would be along the lines of "We greatly appreciate the data transparency program, the NYPD's responsiveness and the steps being taken to correct this going forward. We understand that any large organization dealing with literally millions of cases of parking violations is bound to make mistakes. All the same, we believe that people who were ticketed in error should be refunded. If there is no budget in place for the overhead of correcting this error, then perhaps a budget to that effect can be passed by the city. We will gladly put the extra few tax cents per person this year to see this corrected, if you will put the organizational effort to make it so and the process in place so that this will not easily repeat in the future." One can imagine a stronger version of the above in which the agency is asked to find funds within their existing budget to redress the mistake. However, "thieves! they must be fired!" is not the correct response to public servants making an honest mistake (as opposed to dishonest mistakes, of course, but that doesn't seem to be the case at hand).
newman314 10y ago
Exactly, the proof in the pudding is if the author reruns his analysis a few years down the road with the expected outcome of a dramatic drop in tickets issued in those locations. Anything else is just blowing smoke (EDIT: on the part of the government agencies)
- iquantny 10y ago
  OP Here. If you go through my blog, you'll see that I have pushed for change from many agencies. Scroll to bottom of article for list. And yes, I will be rechecking.
gshulegaard 10y ago
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 vehicles, the department focused training on traffic agents, who write the majority of summonses." > "Yet, the majority of summonses written for this code violation were written by police officers. As a result, the department sent a training message to all officers clarifying the rule change and has communicated to commanders of precincts with the highest number of summonses, informing them of the issues within their command." So the issue isn't that police were confused so much as their training wasn't updated because of a system failure (training only traffic agents and not patrol officers). Further they are taking action to monitor the open data themselves to detect future anomalies themselves: > "Thanks to this analysis and the availability of this open data, the department is also taking steps to digitally monitor these types of summonses to ensure that they are being issued correctly." This is a great step forward regardless of whether or not en-mass refund occur. To me, a refund would be icing on the cake. And perhaps one will happen (hopefully) this post was published today (May 11, 2016) after all. As an aside, there is also something to be said about the fact citizens should be aware of their own rights and laws. Any citizen could and should have contested wrongly issued tickets.
- iquantny 10y ago
  Thanks for this.
  - gohrt 10y ago
    Please coordinate with http://www.donotpay.co.uk http://www.donotpay.co.uk to help citizens challenge these illegal tickets.
- deleted 10y ago
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- gohrt 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kriro 10y ago
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.

danso 10y ago

Definitely...it's easy for a bureaucrat to say "Thanks for the help, we'll do better next time!" if no one's getting fired.

parennoob 10y ago
Yeah. I see what you're saying in the parent comment – even getting this much of a response is a positive thing compared to existing practice, but it's not an overall positive. I suspect they want to avoid a possible lawsuit for unlawfully ticketing legally parked people and hope this blows over because they "gracefully addressed" their (illegal) practices. A really great response would have been, ”Thanks for contacting us. We realize that we were wrong for issuing these tickets. We will now put in place a program to refund the people who were wrongly issued tickets.”
- iquantny 10y ago
  OP Here. This is an amazing response from a city agency. In the end of the day, agencies rarely interact directly with citizens. The normal response to someone analyzing your data is to close up and have no comment. The fact that they admit the mistake is huge, and big step forward for Open Data and agency interaction.
  - parennoob 10y ago
    I hope I'm not trivializing the value of your work. You have done the general public a great service by finding these erroneous citations. Thank you for that! All I was saying is that there is a strong moral case for people who were wrongly fined in this manner to receive refunds on their fines, and I think the city agency should do that (but almost certainly won't).
    - eggy 10y ago
      I think it is a very positive thing that the OP accomplished. And yes, I think the city should pay back for the wrongly issued parking tickets. The official admits there was an error and defines why it happened. This in itself opens the door for the wrongly ticketed parties to claim a refund, since their is the admission by the city official. Now, who's going to inform those wrongly-ticketed citizens? Certainly not the city. It will cost more for them to re-analyze, and contact all of those people. They should, but it will not happen. Great work by the OP! Glad to see NYPD in a positive light. Slightly OT: I was born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and I remember people used to double-park, or do whatever they pleased, and rack up hundreds of dollars (thousands today) in parking tickets, and then bargain the total fine down to a fraction of the fines. It was cheaper than legally paying monthly parking rates!
      - LanceH 10y ago
        I don't know about the specifics, but they should get the administrative "fees" back, which are typically claimed even when someone is not guilty.
      - developer2 10y ago
        The city certainly won't come forward and dish out the cash voluntarily. It would take a class action to accomplish the task. We'll see in the coming weeks/months if such an action takes form.
        peterwwillis 10y ago
- lazaroclapp 10y ago
  Sure. Which means that, similarly, a really great response from the public would be along the lines of "We greatly appreciate the data transparency program, the NYPD's responsiveness and the steps being taken to correct this going forward. We understand that any large organization dealing with literally millions of cases of parking violations is bound to make mistakes. All the same, we believe that people who were ticketed in error should be refunded. If there is no budget in place for the overhead of correcting this error, then perhaps a budget to that effect can be passed by the city. We will gladly put the extra few tax cents per person this year to see this corrected, if you will put the organizational effort to make it so and the process in place so that this will not easily repeat in the future." One can imagine a stronger version of the above in which the agency is asked to find funds within their existing budget to redress the mistake. However, "thieves! they must be fired!" is not the correct response to public servants making an honest mistake (as opposed to dishonest mistakes, of course, but that doesn't seem to be the case at hand).

newman314 10y ago

Exactly, the proof in the pudding is if the author reruns his analysis a few years down the road with the expected outcome of a dramatic drop in tickets issued in those locations. Anything else is just blowing smoke (EDIT: on the part of the government agencies)

iquantny 10y ago
OP Here. If you go through my blog, you'll see that I have pushed for change from many agencies. Scroll to bottom of article for list. And yes, I will be rechecking.

gshulegaard 10y ago

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 vehicles, the department focused training on traffic agents, who write the majority of summonses." > "Yet, the majority of summonses written for this code violation were written by police officers. As a result, the department sent a training message to all officers clarifying the rule change and has communicated to commanders of precincts with the highest number of summonses, informing them of the issues within their command." So the issue isn't that police were confused so much as their training wasn't updated because of a system failure (training only traffic agents and not patrol officers). Further they are taking action to monitor the open data themselves to detect future anomalies themselves: > "Thanks to this analysis and the availability of this open data, the department is also taking steps to digitally monitor these types of summonses to ensure that they are being issued correctly." This is a great step forward regardless of whether or not en-mass refund occur. To me, a refund would be icing on the cake. And perhaps one will happen (hopefully) this post was published today (May 11, 2016) after all. As an aside, there is also something to be said about the fact citizens should be aware of their own rights and laws. Any citizen could and should have contested wrongly issued tickets.

iquantny 10y ago
Thanks for this.
- gohrt 10y ago
  Please coordinate with http://www.donotpay.co.uk http://www.donotpay.co.uk to help citizens challenge these illegal tickets.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gohrt 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kriro 10y ago

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.