To whom it may concern,
I have just returned to Florida from New York City. This was my fourth trip to the wonderful city that I have grown to love as a tourist.
As we have previously, my wife and I stayed with her brother in his house in Queens and even though the weather was way colder than we are used to, we had a really good time. Most of the time at least.
You see, one of the reasons for this trip was to meet up with a friend who was staying in the city from abroad for a business engagement. Luckily for me, through the kindness of my brother-in-law, he let me use his car for the day on Saturday 31st January.
Coming from the wide open roads of Orlando (read no potholes) I was a little nervous to be taking on the less than polite cab drivers, jay walkers and mounds of slushy snow pushed up against the curbs.
But I managed, slowly, and with the aid of a GPS to get to my friends hotel and make our way a few extra blocks to the statue of liberty. Of course, I had heard all about the difficulty in parking, so I paid very careful attention to where the no-parking signs were and more importantly where I saw other citizens being towed away.
And after a reasonably short half an hour, I found a great spot right next to a parking meter – what are the odds!
$5 for two hours and a very cold view on the 86th floor I made it back to where I had parked.
NYPD Tow Truck
But by now, you will guess that the car was no longer there. A very kind gentleman who was unloading his truck told me that I had been towed and that I shouldn’t park in commercial parking on Saturday mornings. If only he had told me when I arrived and parked right behind him earlier that day.
So frantically I looked for evidence that I was not wrong. Of course there was none, because the parking ticket I had printed from the meter was still in the car.
There was, however, a sign half a block away with a note about “no commercial” parking except on Sundays, tied up with the other guy’s story.
Question 1. Why is the sign so far away from the meter?
Question 2. Why does the meter even work, and not have a note on it letting me know I should not be wasting my money?
So after a few phone calls and advice from cab drivers, I made my way down to the impound lot.
Interesting place you have there, one information window and one cashier – but at least 20 cars on the back of tow trucks waiting to get inside the garage.
The queue to get inside was longer than the queue to get to the observation deck at the Empire State building, and being 20F in the sun I was becoming quite upset.
You know the procedure from here, one and a half hours and $185 later (plus a $115 fine) I drove out with a car, luckily, intact.
Question 3. Is it a coincidence that over 75% of the people in the impound lot waiting for their cars were not from New York at all and a large majority of them had rental cars?
Question 4. Is $115 a reasonable fine for a Saturday morning when there are no other cars on the road and I am not blocking traffic, nor business entrances?
At this stage, you are probably getting ready to deny my request to have the fine reduced or squashed altogether, but I don’t want that. I made my decision to visit a complicated city and I am prepared to pay for my mistake. Ignorance of the law is no excuse!
But what I would like back is a refund for the $5 I put into the parking meter. Considering that fact that I have admitted and paid for my mistakes already, and that I was not supposed to put any money in the meter in the first place, I think it’s the least you could do.