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Probably helps to have a paramilitarized police force with an annual budget of $5.6 billion and nearly as many employees as there are active personnel in the Ca

Probably helps to have a paramilitarized police force with an annual budget of $5.6 billion and nearly as many employees as there are active personnel in the Canadian Armed Forces. :)

VBprogrammer 8y ago
Your comment got me wondering about the NYPD. Specifically, when I visited New York last March I was struck by the number of police vehicles visible on the street. It felt like there was barely a block which didn't have one or two police cruisers parked on it. I live in London and by comparison it feels rare to see a police vehicle at all. Nevermind just parked along a random street. I guess this was mostly due to timing; it was just after a major snow storm. Comparing the budget and number of officers it's not that different £3.2B and 30000 officers vs $5.6B and 40000 officers.
- Scipio_Afri 8y ago
  Nice, evidence and fact based opinions!
- trothamel 8y ago
  I suspect visible presence would be a bit higher for the NYPD, just because NYC has more officers in an area that's half the size of London.
  - VBprogrammer 8y ago
    Ah yes! That would do it. So they have more officers (though not drastically more) and quite a bit smaller area to cover. That probably goes some way to explaining what I observed.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Some of those are the meter maids. The traffic enforcement cars don't look very different from the patrol units at a quick glance.
cimmanom 8y ago
The NYPD is fairly useless when it comes to traffic enforcement other than ticketing cyclists. They'll ignore trucks blocking crosswalks (and endangering pedestrians). Double parking in bus and bike lanes. Tractor-trailers (which are technically illegal to drive through the city at all without a special permit for each delivery, but that's never enforced) blocking both crosswalks and the entire intersection because they didn't wait for the street ahead to have room, and making blind turns where they come within inches of mowing down pedestrians crossing with the light (whom they couldn't see because their cab and hood are too high, which is part of why they're illegal). Heck, police cruisers are some of the worst offenders when it comes to blocking crosswalks; parking on sidewalks (thus forcing pedestrians into the street), and other such obnoxious behavior. And when a driver crushes or kills a pedestrian or cyclist, the NYPD goes out of their way to defend instead of prosecuting the driver. Even when eyewitness accounts and video evidence show the driver at fault. Even when the driver was driving without a license or under the influence.
Eric_WVGG 8y ago
No, it doesn’t. The police around here generally ignore traffic violations unless they are specifically conducting a “sting”. I recently was told that this is actually a matter of policy, because someone discovered that cops were using traffic violations as an excuse to disproportionally target minorities, like the old “broken windows” policing days. Honestly, it even makes a bit of sense... traffic is so dense now and violations so frequent that even the minimal effort of enforcement would shut down entire arteries. How do you pull over a bad driver when there’s no space to pull them over? There’s no way out of this mess except for fixing the subway and congestion pricing.
- dajohnson89 8y ago
  >There’s no way out of this mess except for fixing the subway and congestion pricing. Good luck with that. Politicians have private drivers shuttle them everywhere -- If they took the subway into work, we'd have a much better state of affairs.
- cozzyd 8y ago
  Easy, automatic enforcement by cameras. No pulling over necessary, fine comes in the mail.
  - Eric_WVGG 8y ago
    Sounds great to me. The other day I was wondering why they don't mount traffic cameras on MTA busses for massive city coverage… but the short version is that traffic laws are determined by the state, not NYC, and the rest of the state is ruled by automobile drivers who don't want to vote themselves into traffic tickets. [edit] btw, I was referring to issues like "blocking the box," double parking, parking in bike lanes, generally unsafe driving. Cameras track speeding, which (I believe) is actually the least of the problems we have around here. Generally traffic is so terrible that speeding is impossible.
    - cozzyd 8y ago
      No reason the cameras couldn't fine all those things. Should be "easy" for today's "AI" to flag these and have a human review.
CPLX 8y ago
The NYPD doesn't give a shit about traffic violations, and is very heavily on the side of drivers. This is a longstanding cultural thing, certainly affected by the fact that nearly all NYPD officers themselves commute to work by car.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  It’s more about money. If you did the type of heavy traffic enforcement that you see on Long Island or in some upstate places, the overtime and adjudication would cost many millions of dollars. NYPD in my observation tends to focus mostly on keeping things moving.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    That’s definitely not it. Writing traffic tickets would almost certainly be a revenue positive move.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      Depends on who gets the money. Ticket revenue is split between fine and surcharge. 100% of the surcharge goes to the state. In NYC, the DMV (State) adjudicates traffic matters and presumably shares the revenue. Counties/boroughs probably get a piece of the action too. Meanwhile, NYC via NYPD gets the rage and vitriol from all of the traffic jams and general griping from the tickets. They also need to pay for overtime for testimony -- which NYPD prefers to use to flood public events with cops, etc.
      - bogomipz 8y ago
        >"Meanwhile, NYC via NYPD gets the rage and vitriol from all of the traffic jams and general griping from the tickets." You don't need officers to write tickets at all you just put up cameras to pick off the low hanging fruit - speeding, blocking the intersections and blocking the cross walk. The only reason that speeding cameras were taken down was b/c the state failed to reauthorize them in time. >"Depends on who gets the money." It's safe to say that NYC gets that money. Upwards of billion dollars of it anyway: >"The city collected $957 million in fines in fiscal year 2015, an increase of 7.5 percent from the previous year and a 12 percent increase since 2012." "Red light camera revenue, which has been on the decline since 2012, jumped $1 million to $29 million in fiscal year 2015. Meanwhile, bus lane camera revenue increased to $17 million from $12 million the year before and speed camera violations increased to $31 million from $2 million" [1] [1] https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160324/civic-center/new-york-city-collects-record-19-billion-fines-fees/ https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160324/civic-center/new-y...
astura 8y ago
Found the person whose never been to New York City. Traffic laws are largely unenforced in New York City.

Probably helps to have a paramilitarized police force with an annual budget of $5.6 billion and nearly as many employees as there are active personnel in the Canadian Armed Forces. :)

VBprogrammer 8y ago

Your comment got me wondering about the NYPD. Specifically, when I visited New York last March I was struck by the number of police vehicles visible on the street. It felt like there was barely a block which didn't have one or two police cruisers parked on it. I live in London and by comparison it feels rare to see a police vehicle at all. Nevermind just parked along a random street. I guess this was mostly due to timing; it was just after a major snow storm. Comparing the budget and number of officers it's not that different £3.2B and 30000 officers vs $5.6B and 40000 officers.

Scipio_Afri 8y ago
Nice, evidence and fact based opinions!
trothamel 8y ago
I suspect visible presence would be a bit higher for the NYPD, just because NYC has more officers in an area that's half the size of London.
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  Ah yes! That would do it. So they have more officers (though not drastically more) and quite a bit smaller area to cover. That probably goes some way to explaining what I observed.
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Some of those are the meter maids. The traffic enforcement cars don't look very different from the patrol units at a quick glance.

cimmanom 8y ago

The NYPD is fairly useless when it comes to traffic enforcement other than ticketing cyclists. They'll ignore trucks blocking crosswalks (and endangering pedestrians). Double parking in bus and bike lanes. Tractor-trailers (which are technically illegal to drive through the city at all without a special permit for each delivery, but that's never enforced) blocking both crosswalks and the entire intersection because they didn't wait for the street ahead to have room, and making blind turns where they come within inches of mowing down pedestrians crossing with the light (whom they couldn't see because their cab and hood are too high, which is part of why they're illegal). Heck, police cruisers are some of the worst offenders when it comes to blocking crosswalks; parking on sidewalks (thus forcing pedestrians into the street), and other such obnoxious behavior. And when a driver crushes or kills a pedestrian or cyclist, the NYPD goes out of their way to defend instead of prosecuting the driver. Even when eyewitness accounts and video evidence show the driver at fault. Even when the driver was driving without a license or under the influence.

Eric_WVGG 8y ago

No, it doesn’t. The police around here generally ignore traffic violations unless they are specifically conducting a “sting”. I recently was told that this is actually a matter of policy, because someone discovered that cops were using traffic violations as an excuse to disproportionally target minorities, like the old “broken windows” policing days. Honestly, it even makes a bit of sense... traffic is so dense now and violations so frequent that even the minimal effort of enforcement would shut down entire arteries. How do you pull over a bad driver when there’s no space to pull them over? There’s no way out of this mess except for fixing the subway and congestion pricing.

dajohnson89 8y ago
>There’s no way out of this mess except for fixing the subway and congestion pricing. Good luck with that. Politicians have private drivers shuttle them everywhere -- If they took the subway into work, we'd have a much better state of affairs.
cozzyd 8y ago
Easy, automatic enforcement by cameras. No pulling over necessary, fine comes in the mail.
- Eric_WVGG 8y ago
  Sounds great to me. The other day I was wondering why they don't mount traffic cameras on MTA busses for massive city coverage… but the short version is that traffic laws are determined by the state, not NYC, and the rest of the state is ruled by automobile drivers who don't want to vote themselves into traffic tickets. [edit] btw, I was referring to issues like "blocking the box," double parking, parking in bike lanes, generally unsafe driving. Cameras track speeding, which (I believe) is actually the least of the problems we have around here. Generally traffic is so terrible that speeding is impossible.
  - cozzyd 8y ago
    No reason the cameras couldn't fine all those things. Should be "easy" for today's "AI" to flag these and have a human review.

CPLX 8y ago

The NYPD doesn't give a shit about traffic violations, and is very heavily on the side of drivers. This is a longstanding cultural thing, certainly affected by the fact that nearly all NYPD officers themselves commute to work by car.

Spooky23 8y ago
It’s more about money. If you did the type of heavy traffic enforcement that you see on Long Island or in some upstate places, the overtime and adjudication would cost many millions of dollars. NYPD in my observation tends to focus mostly on keeping things moving.
- CPLX 8y ago
  That’s definitely not it. Writing traffic tickets would almost certainly be a revenue positive move.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Depends on who gets the money. Ticket revenue is split between fine and surcharge. 100% of the surcharge goes to the state. In NYC, the DMV (State) adjudicates traffic matters and presumably shares the revenue. Counties/boroughs probably get a piece of the action too. Meanwhile, NYC via NYPD gets the rage and vitriol from all of the traffic jams and general griping from the tickets. They also need to pay for overtime for testimony -- which NYPD prefers to use to flood public events with cops, etc.
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      >"Meanwhile, NYC via NYPD gets the rage and vitriol from all of the traffic jams and general griping from the tickets." You don't need officers to write tickets at all you just put up cameras to pick off the low hanging fruit - speeding, blocking the intersections and blocking the cross walk. The only reason that speeding cameras were taken down was b/c the state failed to reauthorize them in time. >"Depends on who gets the money." It's safe to say that NYC gets that money. Upwards of billion dollars of it anyway: >"The city collected $957 million in fines in fiscal year 2015, an increase of 7.5 percent from the previous year and a 12 percent increase since 2012." "Red light camera revenue, which has been on the decline since 2012, jumped $1 million to $29 million in fiscal year 2015. Meanwhile, bus lane camera revenue increased to $17 million from $12 million the year before and speed camera violations increased to $31 million from $2 million" [1] [1] https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160324/civic-center/new-york-city-collects-record-19-billion-fines-fees/ https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160324/civic-center/new-y...

astura 8y ago

Found the person whose never been to New York City. Traffic laws are largely unenforced in New York City.