Thanks for your constructive comments BlueTrumpet.

This is a fire hydrant. If the building catches on fire, the fire department will need to align their ladder truck with the fire hydrant. The fire hydrant produces water which will then be used to douse the fire. When we park ON TOP OF a fire hydrant we are risking the lives of inhabitants of the buildings around that fire hydrant. That is why it is always and everywhere, in 50 states and everywhere in the enlightened world, to do so.

BlueTrumpet, what's so funny about your posts is that you say the same thing all the time, yet you say nothing. You do absolutely nothing to defend your stance that officers should be permitted to park wherever they want. "That's the way it is" is just childish.

And now you're daring civilians to discuss their concerns with the precinct? Are you insinuating that the police will do something nasty to us? Or yell at us? Or disregard us? You have a very negative view of your brothers in arms, don't you Mr. Trumpet?

Go read my response to your post in "They Call That a Bike Lane?" The 84 is already doing something about your kind. They, along with the 77 and 73 and 5 have been extremely helpful with this issue. And this is in the experience of a single New Yorker making a few phone calls. NYPD has been great. It's unfortunate that you're inadvertently scumming its name thorough your mindlessness.

Come on, Mr. Trumpet, say something worth while. Try to use your mind. You can do it! If you know how to use the internet, and you know how to type, you must be capable of mustering a shred of mental energy, however fleeting it may be. Everyone please remember, Mr. Trumpet's stupidity in no way reflects NYPD as a whole. Happy Holidays Mr. Trumpet!

Mr. Blue, again, you've failed to read my posts, and in doing so, have put words into my mouth. When did I say SEZs should be outlawed? I really want to know where you saw me say that.

You did the exact same thing in another post in response to mine in which you said the NYPD will never issue itself summonses. I couldn't give a crap about summonses. You do realize that you're inventing opposition where it doesn't exist and then attacking it, right? Aren't rabid animals supposed to see things where they don't exist? Stay on topic, Mr. Blue. It would behoove your credibility to stop making a mockery of yourself.

I've said on numerous occasions that NYPD SHOULD have their own special spots, but not on top of hydrants or in crosswalks or bike lanes.

You help destroy the public relations efforts of your agency, and the public's view of the NYPD with your blissfully ignorant remarks (and actions, I assume). How can any upstanding officer say that it's ok to park at a hydrant or in a crosswalk, and that it's too bad if your actions contribute to a disaster? It's sad to say, but your comments contribute to the phenomenon of people referring to officers as "pigs". Say whatever you want, but this contributes to it. It's really sad, Mr. Blue. I'm sure you don't care, but the public reeeeealy does. It's these little things that kill the public's perception of the force, no matter how many lives you save. Ask some New Yorkers what they think of NYPD. This counts as police corruption in the minds of the public. It's things like this that get at people. Why have you never addressed this issue when I've mentioned it before? You've never said a single thing about it.

This has nothing to do with political bent. It's about public safety, the neglect of which you, a police officer, actively support. A proactive officer would realize for himself, without his boss having to tell him, that parking on a HYDRANT or in a BIKE LANE or in a CROSSWALK or on the SIDEWALK is wrong. An upstanding, proactive officer would start a petition within the force to get more legal parking for officers, which would go to reducing the public's negative perception of the force.

I'm done. It was fun playing.

Blue Trumpet,

My neighbors and I have tried to talk the driver and have written letters to the agency. You are correct, we have been ignored, probably laughed at. That is why I am hoping this site can help solve the problem. The whole purpose of this site is not to think that a post or two about a specific problem is going to result in a miracle cure for said specific problem. The purpose of this site is to collect data. Hopefully, after a critical mass of data is collected and after the ongoing dialogue gets loud enough (thank you for your help on this), the politicians might finally take up the torch and make an improvement to the overall situation of illegal parking. At that point, maybe this blue van will stop parking at the hydrant. It's a round about method, but who knows, maybe this method will actually work. Because you are right, I'm tired of getting laughed at.

etan2r

And what the heck is a SEZ anyway?

etan2r--

SEZ == Self-Enforcement Zone. SEZs are mysterious creatures, and we are not really sure how they are authorized or what their scope is (but we're sure enough working on it). Basically they are areas around facilities (generally PD, but also apparently courts and Sanitation have limited SEZs) where, despite a lack of relevant signage, TEAs (Traffic Enforcement Agents) don't ticket, and it is theoretically the responsibility of the C.O. (Commanding Officer) of the facility to make sure that some sort of order is preserved (e.g. no safety issues caused by parking -- that is no hydrant parking, no sidewalk parking, no crosswalk blocking, no parking in no standing/no stopping, etc.). This works about as well as you might imagine.

While their boundaries are hard to determine with precision, just look for a grim-looking city building surrounded by third-world caliber parking (that is, cars on sidewalks, blocking hydrants, triple parked cars, etc.) Just add large piles of confiscated goods & gambling machines on the sidewalk, and it would remind me of early 90's Taipei. But I digress -- it's not my job to provide decorating tips, although there's nothing that says "tough on crime" like a 10-foot high pile of smashed slot machines.

Even though the boundaries don't seem to be especially well defined, they seem to loosely follow the adjacency rules for other types of permit, described here: http://www.uncivilservants.org/how_can_i_tell

I've noticed an amusing tendency among the moderators here to start using police jargon. We should probably have a glossary -- it's natural that as visitors to the strange world of city government and the NYPD that we'd start to pick up useful terms, but we run the risk of becoming linguistically isolated from less frequent particpants... :-)

Cop Speak by Tom Philbin... found it for 7.98 at B&N over the weekend in their Bargain HC section... not all is relevant to the NYPD but still very interesting ;)

Salgoud - where did you find a 10' tall pile of smashed joker-poker machines? I believe the rule is to smash at the location and only an identifying piece is vouchered - (i will work on the assumption that 10' is an exaggeration)

oh, and we rarely use SEZ in regular speak... heck, it isn't even listed in the book...

When I lived in Taipei in the early 90s, the local precinct-equivalent entity near where I lived would drag back stuff from raids, smash it in front of the precinct house for the cameras, and built giant piles out of them along the sidewalk. Maybe not 10' but built to loom. Weird.

Also, illegally parked scooters would get snagged by a truck/crane combo and would also be chained up on the other side of the wall of smashed gambling machines. It definitely created a don't-mess-with-us ambiance. :-)