The New York Post published an interesting news story about how a defendant was guilty of parking in a non-existent bicycle lane and was denied justice upon appeal. The URL to the article is http://www.nypost.com/p/news/
How do things get this out of hand? Phyllis Cannon was issued a bike lane ticket. The problem was, there is no bike lane where the parking ticket was issued. The folks in charge of Parking Ticket Issuance, Parking Ticket Adjudications, and Parking Ticket Collections, the New York City Department of Finance, apparently upheld the ticket due to insufficient evidence. Where does the burden of proof lay? Should Ms. Cannon have provided photos, maps, and what ever else she could conjure up? Perhaps the Administrative Law Judge could have taken a moment to check out the existence of a bike lane. Bike lane data and maps are available on line. A quick look at Google Street View would have shown no evidence of a bike lane ever being there. It sounds like Ms. Cannon appealed the decision, and that the decision was upheld. Usually a panel of 3 administrative law judges conduct the appeals proceedings. I am very surprised that not one of them bothered to check for the existence of a bike lane prior to making the decision. The New York Post provided excellent coverage in a July 5 article by By Liz Sadler and Jennifer Fermino. I do not believe the parking ticket was purposely issued as a bike lane. Nor do I believe that the ALJ’s upheld a bad decision out of malice. Could it be that their hands were tied by the respondent’s lack of evidence? What do you think?
[UPDATE: July 30th, 2012] We were pleased to read that the city has issued a refund in this case since our original post. For the full story see the NY Post article on beating NYC Parking Tickets