{"id":402,"date":"2005-09-27T09:46:04","date_gmt":"2005-09-27T17:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/09\/the_shakedown.html"},"modified":"2005-09-27T09:46:04","modified_gmt":"2005-09-27T17:46:04","slug":"the_shakedown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/09\/the_shakedown.html","title":{"rendered":"The Shakedown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Times profiles one of the Department of Finance’s parking ticket adjudicators<\/a>, whose job is to help you avoid your day — er, a<\/strong> day in court:<\/p>\n

Mr. [William] Beaman works for the city’s Department of Finance as part of its parking settlement program, which was started this year in all five boroughs as a service to parking ticket recipients waiting to contest their summonses. Mr. Beaman offers a driver the option of pleading guilty immediately and paying a reduced fine – avoiding the wait for a hearing and the risk of a guilty ruling from the judge followed by the full fine.<\/p>\n

Mr. Beaman offers a deal prescribed by the city for each violation. For example, the $115 penalty for double-parking or parking at a bus stop would be reduced to $95, he said, and the $35 for an expired parking meter would become $26. Some offenses, such as parking in front of a fire hydrant, in a crosswalk or on a pedestrian ramp, are not eligible for a deal.<\/p>\n

“It’s a set price,” Mr. Beaman said. “If I could negotiate, I’d be here all day.” He estimates he sees about 100 tickets an hour. “It gets crazy out here and I’m sort of the triage,” he said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The pitch is simple — you won’t win and you should quit wasting everyone’s time, including your own:<\/p>\n

“Here’s the deal,” he told a woman wearing a “I Met My Sweetie in Tahiti” T-shirt and holding a double-parking summons. “You see the judge and win? You walk away owing nothing. You lose? You owe $115. I’m offering you $95 right here, right now. You with it? You feeling me?”<\/p>\n

She paused and Mr. Beaman said, “Think about it, you got till 5 p.m.” She wound up accepting.<\/p>\n

Often, people are geared up for a showdown with the judge and scoff at first at Mr. Beaman’s offer. He might nod and say something innocuous: “Well, if you think you can convince the judge . . .,” his voice trailing off. A woman walked up armed with a packet of photos and documents atop a thick law book. She sniffed at Mr. Beaman’s offer and strode into the hearing area. “Some people have stronger cases than others, but whether you are a contender or a pretender, I have to offer you a deal whether you want it or not,” he said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Times profiles one of the Department of Finance’s parking ticket adjudicators, whose job is to help you avoid your day — er, a day in court: Mr. [William] Beaman works for the city’s Department of Finance as part of its parking settlement program, which was started this year in all five boroughs as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grrr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}