Earlier this week, the City Council passed a bill to add a five-minute grace period for drivers in certain no parking zones, such as alternate side parking regulations and expired Muni-Meters. Amid debate about the bill's worthiness, Mayor Bloomberg vowed to veto the legislation, saying 'The five-minute grace period is only going to lead to chaos and enormous increases in the number of contested tickets, and in argument. Whose watch are you going to use?' Well, based on one Daily News reporter's experience, maybe it doesn't matter at all!
Reporter Kate Nocera parked her 'battered Honda Civic' in six different locations across the city: 'My first stop was Atlantic Ave. in downtown Brooklyn, where I imagined ticket agents would swoop down like pigeons on a discarded sandwich. My muni-meter expired at 1:48. It wasn't until an hour later that I got a ticket. Dumb luck, I thought - until it kept happening.'
Indeed—Nocera managed to escape without tickets for 30 minutes to an hour in Bushwick and downtown Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Only the traffic enforcement agent in the Bronx ticketed her 4 minutes after the Muni-Meter expired. She decided after this assignment, "I'm going to be extra vigilant about feeding meters and switching sides. After this run of luck, I'm pretty sure my parking karma has totally run out."
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