View From The Porch: Being room temperature is no excuse for breaking the law.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Being room temperature is no excuse for breaking the law.

NYC issues parking tickets to dead guy. (Video.)

While he is cooling to ambient in the car.

For several weeks.

18 comments:

Turk Turon said...: That dead guy is going to need a good lawyer; being deceased is not an excuse for illegal parking in NYC.; 10:22 PM, June 05, 2009
Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...: Wait...didn't I see that at the beginning of a Castle episode a few weeks ago?

wv: diyed. Er, yep. He did.; 11:28 PM, June 05, 2009
OrangeNeckInNY said...: Having an IQ lower than lettuce is no excuse for being a NYC police officer either.; 4:49 AM, June 06, 2009
Robert Langham said...: While some of us might think that ticketing a car with a dead person inside...repeatedly...sounds like a marker that a certain policeman is not up to the task, most LEO agencies are looking for exactly this kind of person.
I assure you that the policeman who wrote these tickets is famous and envied inside the NYCPD.; 5:12 AM, June 06, 2009
staghounds said...: (I'm assuming the stiff was not visible from outside the car.)

It was probably several parking attendants, too.

And the car was still illegally parked. The PA/PO would be in trouble for walking by and NOT ticketing the car, NYC parking enforcement is very mechanical. The cost of illegal parking has to be more than the cost of legal parking. So every day, a ticket.

For the mockers, on what basis would you have the PA/PO stop ticketing the illegally parked car?

Once he has six tickets the rest are free? Because in a place where it costs so much to park a car, that would become a bargain PDQ.; 6:15 AM, June 06, 2009
staghounds said...: And RL is right, the ticketers are stars among their peers. And rightly so.; 6:16 AM, June 06, 2009
Tam said...: "For the mockers, on what basis would you have the PA/PO stop ticketing the illegally parked car?"

I don't see where anybody suggested that they stop.

Although I'll note that I get peek-in-the-windows nosy about any car on my daily rounds immobile for a week, and Indy is hardly Manhattan.; 6:46 AM, June 06, 2009
markm said...: The clip says the tickets were issued during the weekly street-sweeping, I assume for leaving the car in the way of street-sweeping. I'm nowhere near NYC (nor do I want to be), but don't they put cameras on the sweeper to record license numbers, and then a computer mails the tickets?

If someone actually sticks tickets under the wiper blade, and doesn't notice the dead guy in the front seat, there's a big problem. But from the driving seat of a street sweeper, you don't get a view through the windshield of a parked car, and it is likely that you won't see a slumped-down body through the rear and side windows. With computer-issued tickets, the first time a cop approaches the car on foot is when the computer finally flags it as abandoned and they send out a cop and a tow truck.

But it is odd that the car had to be immobile and ticketed several weeks running before the authorities did something. It also seems a little odd that no passerby noticed the smell and the bloating corpse and called it in - but I guess the bigger the city, the more people learn to ignore what's going on.

In other words, if it's possible to interpret the situation as "smelly homeless person sleeping in a car", in a small town you might knock on a window and tell him to move it along; in a city the size of Indianapolis, you'd call the cops to deliver the same message; but a New Yorker will figure that if he starts getting involved in that, he'll spend all his time involved in strangers' affairs.; 8:20 AM, June 06, 2009
Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...: They said the car had tinted windows, which made it hard to see in.

Still makes no sense that they'd ticket it for weeks and not TOW it.

Well, on the other hand, I guess it helps Bloomberg balance the budget.; 8:31 AM, June 06, 2009
Anonymous said...: His estate will still be liable, I'll bet.

Seriously, you die in a minivan with closed windows, under a drafty overpass ( suddenly dark, creepy, pedestrians move along), in the cool weather we've been having in the northeast... yeah, sounds about right.

Remember this is urban neighbourhood with LOTS of vehicles, unlike suburbia where a still car stands out and people "know" all the local transport in a busy city no one pays the slightest attention to the daily parade of parked cars - unless its a residential street and it's in "your" spot - even the ones with with loud security alarms blaring.

On the other hand, you'd think that after a couple of tickets that someone official would flag the vehicle or go find the owner.; 9:56 AM, June 06, 2009
Anonymous said...: Wow. I guess he didn't have anyone close enough to note his absence?

Jim; 12:09 PM, June 06, 2009
TJP said...: Carrying on in the fine tradition of US v. Miller, I presume.; 12:16 PM, June 06, 2009
BobG said...: I'm surprised they didn't try to taze him when they found him inside.; 12:21 PM, June 06, 2009
Gun Shy Tourist said...: If he had a "forbidden" handgun they would have been all over it in a "Noo Yawk Minute".; 9:36 PM, June 06, 2009
Vote For David said...: "That's some mighty fine detective work there, Lou!"; 1:12 AM, June 07, 2009
Dr. StrangeGun said...: I keep hearing these stories more and more... and I'm actually beginning to wonder if the cities aren't isntructing their officers to ignore situations like these on purpose, in order to increase the total fine, which the estate will be sued for?; 2:04 PM, June 07, 2009
Anonymous said...: I have to wonder who's more brain-dead? The dead man, or the NYC police "chosen ones"?

B Woodman
III; 9:33 PM, June 07, 2009
Matt G said...: "It's a sign of how wrapped up in our own worlds we are. I mean, you pass someone on the street, and even though that's a human being, you don't even say hi."

Said the man on the street.

Said the man on a street not my own.

Where I choose to live, people greet each other. Where I visit, people greet each other.

I've never been to NYC. I've met some extremely nice people from that city, who give lie to the claime that Noo Yawkers are rude. But if the place itself interferes with common kindness, I'd just as soon not go visit.

I would wager the cites were placed by a meter maid parker enforcement type, who never even considers looking in the car. I don't know a single cop who wouldn't look inside.; 4:32 PM, June 15, 2009