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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
by 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 agoThanks for this.
- gohrt 10y agoPlease 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 agoHave you memorized the entirety of the law? http://www.amlegal.com/codes/client/new-york-city_ny/ 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.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoI've always thought it was odd that ignorance of the law is no excuse for civilians breaking it, but is an excuse for police breaking it.
- greglindahl 10y agoDid the person you're responding to delete the word "solely" from their comment?
- ssalazar 10y ago> In a city where disagreeing with law enforcement's wrong or illegal activity risks violent reaction or death People challenge infractions in court all the time. Theyre not in much danger. There is a process for this that involves courts and sometimes a lawyer. You're conflating the judicial system with street interactions with the police, where contesting the NYPD is indeed a risky proposition.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago> 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. As gohrt points out, this cannot be done. Being aware of the laws that apply to you in the US is far beyond any human capacity.
- rsp1984 10y agoAnd 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...
- klean92 10y agoI am afraid it would cost $2M to try to pay back $1.7M... i think they should first spend their time and $$ in making sure they fix the issues going forward.
- michaelmrose 10y agoNobody cares how much more it costs you to do the right thing after the fact. Example paying a parking meter.
- newjersey 10y agoFind the money somewhere. Take it out of the police chief's pay for all I care. In fact, I don't think just returning the money is enough. The money should be returned with interest as if it were put into a municipal bond. The worst part is that every time this happens, the taxpayers are on the hook. I think nothing will change as long as wrong decisions doesn't hurt the decision-makers. I don't know how to implement this but something has to give. When in doubt, officers should err on the side of not writing tickets. Unrelated but our police officers need stronger protection from the insanity of things like quotas. Make it immensely profitable for an officer to whistleblow situations where they are required to collect $n in fines or write n tickets. Make it a federal law and take that money ($10MM per incidence per officer sounds like a good start, the point is it has to be high enough that there won't be peer pressure for an officer to "get in line") from the department. If they can't pay, too bad. The municipality/county doesn't deserve a police force.
- RealGeek 10y ago> I am afraid it would cost $2M to try to pay back $1.7M How much did it cost them to issue tickets and collect that $1.7 million? Do they use the same logic while issuing tickets and collecting fines?
- lotharbot 10y agoMy dad went through something similar, though on a smaller scale. His van had a folding wheelchair lift on the back, which would block the view of the license plate from a distance but not from up close. Based on current law, this was perfectly legal, but some police officers had been trained otherwise in the past and hadn't received updated training like traffic agents had. Eventually, after he successfully contested a few tickets, the police department used a picture of his van in their training manuals -- and he put that picture in his back window, with a label for what page of the manual it was in, and stopped getting tickets.
- XaspR8d 10y agoThat'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...
- lotharbot 10y agoI 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.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y agoSneaky/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 ..."
- rahimnathwani 10y agoIf a lack of training is the reason for these erroneous tickets, perhaps the parking regulations are not simple enough or communicated well enough. If a patrol officer requires training to intepret the regulations, what level of understanding can we expect from a driver?
- shard972 10y agoIt 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?
- darpa_escapee 10y agoWhat's the point of open data if there is no accountability? So far a blogger received an email with an apology. That's not much to get excited about. What's to stop them from carrying on as usual if there are no repercussions and only millions in revenue for them to collect?