There's No Such Thing as a Golden Ticket

Having a car in NYC is by all standards, a luxury. I would venture to say having a car in general these days is a luxury, as only the well-to-do seem to be able to afford to fill the tank on a regular basis. (Is it just me, or our lives becoming more and more expensive, while our paychecks are staying the absolute same?)

In any case, we joined the ranks of the spoiled last fall when we bought our Subaru Outback. We consider this the best NE car one can drive. 4 Wheel Drive for crazy NE winter trips to Vermont and other Northern climbs, and plenty of space in back for the tent, sleeping bags and car camping if it comes to it. Rack on top for bikes if we get around to buying them…all this and it insures like a car, not an SUV. I think filling our tank costs us half as much as our SUV driving amigos pay.

Our little luxury hasn’t caused us much angst, and no regret. We have parking in front of our building, and it’s been no trouble dealing with alternate side street parking. The only problem with having something you care about that is “expensive” is that other people don’t value it as much as you, and think nothing about leaving a ding in your door, scrapes on the sides, and near-misses on the highway. We have learned that cab drivers aren’t afraid to nudge your car out of the way using their car, because in a city of “no fault accidents”, they aren’t responsible for any damage they may cause to your car. As if we needed more reasons to hate on Taxis and their drivers.

Well, other than a major fender bender (read: fender removal) caused by a FED EX driver backing into our parked car (insurance dealt with this nicely) the only other set back our Outback has caused would be parking tickets. These are par for the course here in New York – unclear street signage combined with the car population and limited space just means that it’s inevitable that you’ll be paying “the man” a little extra every couple of months.
My suggestion to car owners in NYC, just pay the tickets – no matter how unjustly they were doled out. Pay them immediately. Or the following could happen to you:

The Mr. came home early on Monday, and sent me a text asking “did you move the car this morning? It’s not where I remember it being.” No, I hadn’t moved the car, and after a call to our local precinct, we determined that the City Marshall had moved our car, on the back of a tow truck. Because of 3 outstanding parking tickets. The City Marshall apparently periodically makes the rounds, street by street, running plates looking for delinquencies. All this to show there is a “Zero Tolerance” for unpaid parking tickets. (I wont get into my thoughts on this, and the countless moving violations I see on a regular basis in this city, which could ultimately cause harm or take a life. I wont get into that.)

Let me just skip to the part where I tell you about our amazing day yesterday.

The three outstanding tickets, after accumulating interest and being “settled upon” by the city amounted to about $350. The towing fee another $200. Now tack on another $200 in surcharges, daily storage fees (even though our car wasn’t held for even 24 hours, it counted as two days – the day they towed it, and the day we picked it up), operation fees, and sales tax (were we sold something?) and you have the grand total that we had to pay in order to get our car back; about $750.

What we found out was that even if we HAD paid our tickets within the last month, it would fail to show up in the records. So the car would have been towed anyway, and we would have to pay the “settlement” fee again. Yes, we would be reimbursed, but only after a court hearing. We also found out that if we had been on vacation, say for 3 weeks, when the car was towed, we not only would have come home to find our car removed, but also sold – as any car left over 3 weeks is auctioned off…

So first, we took a 30 minute train ride to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to the City Marshall’s office to give them our blood money.

Then we went from Bay Ridge to Williamsburg – 2 trains, and about 3 additional walking miles away to pick up the car. It was raining all day yesterday. That made the walking extra fun.

Once we retrieved the car, and luckily found it in the condition we left it in, we were given a sheet of paper to put on the dash for the next month that tells any City Marshall happening by that our car has already been towed. The reason we have to leave it there for a month is because that’s apparently how long it takes for them to process our payment.

By day’s end, the Mr. and I both felt prison-raped, and cast aside as worthless, and felt the need to get tetanus shots and AIDS tests.

While the ultimate lesson in all of this is obvious (pay the stupid tickets when you get them) I think the real message is this: This city will try to “f” you up the “a” every chance it gets, so maybe we should all just go live off the grid in a lean-to with a stockpile of guns, in New Hampshire where we can “Live Free or Die”, and we can be buddies with the Sherriff and the Marshall and they wont punish us for the luxury of owning a car.