NY Daily News

Getting a parking ticket in NYC.

NEW YORK, NY — Believe it or not, fewer car windshields got slapped with parking tickets in Brooklyn last year.

Overall, cops wrote 59,589 less tickets in 2007, an 11% drop from 2006, preliminary city records show.

Stats in the Extended Article.

Tickets and Car Thefts on the Decline

NY Daily News

Getting a parking ticket in NYC.

NEW YORK, NY — Believe it or not, fewer car windshields got slapped with parking tickets in Brooklyn last year.

Overall, cops wrote 59,589 less tickets in 2007, an 11% drop from 2006, preliminary city records show.

Stats in the Extended Article.

“If that means enforcement officers are finally getting the message to exercise some discretion and not to boost numbers, then it’s a good thing,” said Councilman Vincent Gentile (D-Bay Ridge), whose neighborhood saw a slight decline in tickets.

Robberies and burglaries in Brooklyn were down by nearly 8%. Car theft also saw a 17% decrease boroughwide, though car owners in East New York and East Flatbush might feel otherwise – those nabes had the most cars stolen last year.

But it’s parking tickets that really get Brooklynites up in arms.

Bay Ridge residents often complain about excessive ticketing in the area.

“It’s one thing to enforce the rules, but to harass people and give tickets unfairly – it’s almost the NYPD traffic enforcement’s way of saying ‘gotcha,’” said Gentile.

Midwood and Flatbush residents are seeing orange from the 44,911 tickets issued in the police precinct covering those neighborhoods last year – more than in any other Brooklyn precinct, although it was a 9% decrease from 2006.

Residents of Brooklyn Heights, which ranked second-highest in the number of parking tickets, say that cops are all too eager to pull out their pads.

“[Traffic agents] are overly diligent about ticketing as many cars as they can,” said Judy Stanton, long-time resident and executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association.

“If you come back from shopping, and park in front of the house and put your blinkers on and run inside with multiple loads, you’ll get a ticket.”

Over in Sheepshead Bay, residents had to fend off 8% fewer tickets than in 2006 – but that wasn’t the case for Zhanna Strakhan, 27.

“The cops are brutal,” she said. “I parked at a meter and before I was able to get out of my car, this guy was already writing me a ticket.

”I ‘politely’ told him that I can’t pay [the meter] telepathically, that I have to get out of my car to pay it first. … He agreed that it probably made sense that I couldn’t put coins in the meter without parking first.”

Farther north, the number of issued parking tickets in Sunset Park shot up by more than 25% from 2006, and moving violations increased by almost 16%. On the upside, car thefts in the area plummeted by 26%.

Police Department officials did not return calls for comment on the latest figures.

See your neighborhood’s stats

Numbers don’t lie. Graph at right breaks down, precinct by precinct, the amount of tickets for parking illegally.

THE BROOKLYN PRECINCTS WITH THE MOST PARKING TICKETS IN 2007

1. 70th PRECINCT, MIDWOOD, FLATBUSH 44,911
2. 84th PRECINCT, BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 44,044
3. 75th PRECINCT, EAST NEW YORK 37,798
4. 67th PRECINCT, EAST FLATBUSH 23,821
5. 61st PRECINCT, SHEEPSHEAD BAY 23,097

THE BROOKLYN PRECINCTS WITH THE LEAST PARKING TICKETS IN 2007

1. 90th PRECINCT, WILLIAMSBURG 9,479
2. 81st PRECINCT, BEDFORD-STUYVESANT 9,971
3. 94th PRECINCT, GREENPOINT 10,499
4. 77th PRECINCT, CROWN HEIGHTS 12,530
5. 88th PRECINCT, CLINTON HILL, FT. GREENE 12,543

7 Comments

  • Less Tickets??? Not in CH

    it is hard to believe that the 71pct din’t make it to the top of the list… in CH you have some cops that are there (ask them they will confirm that) to write tickets… like the one cop who walks the streets every day. don’t try to stay double parked longer than 1 minute after alternate side, or you will get a ticket… and for some reason officer Morgan of the Traffic police, has something with writing tickets and not leaving them on your car… i logged online to http://www.nyc.gov/finance to find that i had 2 tickets past due, and i never saw those tickets… see for yourself, log online and check your plate number, any ticket past due for a while can get your car seized by the city…

  • boruch ben tzvi(A H)hakohaiine hoffinger

    Overall, cops wrote 59,589 less tickets in 2007

    Should be:
    Overall,….59,589 fewer tickets

    less is used for liquid measure.

  • not a believer

    Apart from the grammar errors, I think there’s more than a slight error in the information. In fact, I’d like to bet these statistics are “altered” – at least in Crown Heights there don’t seem to be any fewer tickets lately, esp. on Anash-owned vehicles. Maybe in East Flatbush, Brownsville & Bushwick? If so, that’s probably because the ticketers are afraid for their lives. Hmmmm.

  • jimbo

    shows how dumb people in the shchunah can be with their narrow minded myopic world view. We are fairly inconsequential in the bigger picture and despite what you may think as you see midwood blew us and everyone else away. Midwood is flatbush for those of you who dont venture past montgomery. Imagine if people were to double park even more on kingston. cars can barely get by as it is. People would not get tickets if they did not break the law period

  • ticket blitz

    don’t worry, the 71 will almost certainly try to make the top 5 in 2008. Beware, Be warned, be happy.

  • Half-Truth

    These numbers don’t tell you the percentage of people getting tickets. The 71st precinct covers one of the smallest areas in brooklyn along with the 81st and the 88th. The 70th precinct covers a huge area as does the 61st, and 75th.