New York, NY – $624 Million in Parking Ticket Fines, Fighting Them Gets Tougher

New York, NY – Since New York City introduced a settlement program in 2005 to speed up the resolution of parking tickets, drivers who fight tickets are finding it easier to get their fines reduced but harder to get a ticket dismissed, according to statistics from the Department of Finance.

Four years ago, 39 percent of the drivers who challenged their tickets were able to convince the city the summonses should be dismissed and paid nothing. Last year, the proportion of challengers whose tickets were dismissed had dropped to 22 percent.

At the same time, 56 percent of drivers who challenge tickets now secure some kind of reduced fine, up from 44 percent four years ago.

The settlement program, which has helped increase the city’s revenue from parking fines as well as streamline the adjudication process, was introduced gradually, beginning in 2005. Under the program, people who challenge most tickets are automatically offered a chance to settle the ticket by paying a reduced fine. Many take the offer, the figures show.

But the statistics also show that drivers who insist they are innocent, refuse to settle and want the tickets dismissed are discovering that administrative law judges are more likely to find them guilty these days.

Under the new system, people who challenge most tickets are offered a reduced fine at the outset of their appeal by a Department of Finance clerk. But if they turn the offer down and take their case to court, the judge is no longer able to reduce their fine. The judge can only uphold the ticket or dismiss it.

The new system has rankled some judges, who argue that the city has taken away some of their discretion and transferred some of their power to settlement clerks untrained in the law.

“It certainly sounds to me like their independence has been stymied,” said Catherine M. Bennett, an administrative law judge for the New York State Division of Tax Appeals, in Troy.

Judge Bennett, a past president of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary and of the New York State Administrative Law Judges Association, said the city’s measures suggested that “the pressure is on” to collect revenue and move cases through the system. The statistics indicate that in cases where judges once thought there were grounds to offer the motorist some leniency, they are now finding the motorist guilty.

Asked why judges appear to be tougher these days, a Finance Department spokesman, Owen Stone, said: “Judges are responsible for determining whether or not a violation has occurred, which wasn’t the case before when judges were taking into account the various excuses people had for parking illegally. They were dismissing tickets, they were offering large reductions. It was really varied. We’ve been able to create one standard.”

Even with the settlement program, which has not been widely publicized, some 80 percent of people still pay their tickets in full without ever challenging. Over all, New York City collected some $624 million in fines last year.

For those who do challenge a ticket, the settlement program has been an easy way to win a fine reduction.

But several motorists in Manhattan who took their case to a judge on Friday, after refusing a settlement offer, said they were disappointed at how arbitrary the process seemed to be.

“It’s so unfair the way they treat people,” said Missy Carrol, 51, a college professor in Manhattan, after she unsuccessfully challenged a $115 ticket at the hearing office at 66 John Street.

Ms. Carrol said she had been charged on Dec. 7 with parking in a crosswalk at 48th Street and Madison Avenue while attending church at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. On Jan. 7, she arrived with cellphone pictures of the scene and turned down a settlement offer, and came back Friday to show a judge additional photos of a parking sign and a crosswalk, intending to show that her car had been parked legally.

“The judge didn’t understand my argument,” Ms. Carrol said. “She even yelled at me when I tried to discuss it. She misquoted me in the report and said I had less pictures than I did. Within one six-minute decision, she made two mistakes because she wasn’t listening and was in a hurry to get me out of there.”

Because so many drivers are opting to take the reduced fine settlement, the city has been able to sharply reduce the number of hearings.
In 2008, some 422,000 drivers had hearings before a judge, roughly half as many as in 2005. As a result, the city has been able to save $2 million a year in administrative costs by reducing the number of hearing judges by half.

When a driver is interested in a settlement, a clerk offers one according to a strict schedule. The most generous reductions knock about a third off the base fine. The clerks may even dismiss a ticket, although parking judges say the clerks sometimes make errors: for example, they may offer a reduction on a ticket that should be dismissed. But their decisions are final; a parking judge cannot dismiss a faulty ticket after a driver has accepted the offer of a reduced fine from a clerk.

And if a driver opts to forgo a reduction and insists on a hearing before a judge, the clerks make it clear that the driver is forfeiting the possibility of paying a reduced fine.

Most drivers – more than half – respond by accepting the offer.