Record Trip

[Wonderboy]

My car used ZERO gas for a 3 mile trip - from a full stop to a full stop. A hill? nope. Pushing? none.

Here's how I did it:
Step 1: Park at 64 w 3rd st NYC.
Step 2: NYPD courteously moves car to Pier 76 on 511 12th av NYC.

This however yielded the cars worst distance/$ ratio, costing about $98/mi. Bulldozers eat your heart out.

Towing fee: $185
Parking in a (hidden) no-standing zone: $110
Whining about it later and bragging about the mileage the car got on its trip:
PRICELESS

BTW its nearly impossible to employ any good techniques in New York without compromising the law or your own safety. This was my first trip to the city as a hypermiler, and my mileage didn't do badly at all, but still - it's a jungle down there.

[SVOboy]

Wow, that sucks.

Any chance of fighting it?

[Wonderboy]

Not really... NYC is brutal. I've been parked legitimately far enough away from a fire hydrant with 3 testimonies, and a photo and still had to pay. This time it was legitimate too, I just didn't see the No Standing sign, which was not close at all to where I parked. Even then, I wasn't really sure EXACTLY what No Standing means. I looked it up to remind everyone (at least in New York State):

A NO PARKING sign means you may stop only temporarily to load or unload merchandise or passengers.

A NO STANDING sign means you may stop only temporarily to load or unload passengers.

A NO STOPPING sign means you may stop only in order to obey a traffic sign, signal or officer, or to avoid conflicts with other vehicles.

The BS part of it is that you get towed - obviously you were doing something wrong. Then you go to the pound to get your car out and pay them the towing fee. You walk out to your car and it has a ticket on the windshield. I ask the guy "Oh, isn't that a pleasant surprise - I have to take care of this too?" he says "within 30 days". What I don't understand is

1. Couldn't they tow you for just about any parking related offense, legitimate or not just to fill the city's coffers with towing fees? I wouldn't trust many cops to make that distinction when their orders are often quota-based.

2.If you claim innocence, how (short of taking a picture of your car right after you park it - which, from now on I will be doing in NYC) do you prove it without taking photos/measurements of the car where the offense occurred if the car is gone from that spot?

which brings me to:
3.If you are in obvious offense of a parking law which deems it eligible for towing, sure, pleading not guilty should be an option, but hell... shouldn't the towing expense optionally include the fine for the parking offense? Usually your car is towed for a reason, right? They wouldn't let me pay for the ticket there too.

[brucepick]

I'm an old NYC boy. Yeah, it's a tough place. To borrow a phrase from an old friend of mine now departed, there's "no forgiveness".

I drove a taxi there in '79-80 and piled up a bunch of tickets. I didn't pay them, but eventually I had to cough it up. Ya can't keep a taxi license if you have unpaid violations on your driver's license!

Then there's the story of my then gf and her ex - they still owned a car together becaue the divorce wasn't final yet. The ex had the use of the car but left it parked on the street in NYC. NYC has "alternate side of street parking" which means M-W-F you can park on one side of the street and Tu-Th-Sat you can park on the other side. So they can sweep the street, otherwise it looks like a trash barrel after a few days. Well, he didn't move the car so it got towed to Pier 76. Tow plus fine plus weeks and weeks on the pier totaled about $400. We paid it, and got the use of the car for maybe a year. Not a bad deal, even back then.

Oh, btw, the gf and I got married 25 years ago. Still married. Car is long gone. Early '70's Nova with straight six and three-on-the tree. That's a 3-spd manual with shifter on the column. PITA. The clutch had a bracket or lever called a Z-bar that kept breaking. Was still a good deal though, at $400.

The gf was a much better deal. I kept her.