97% of NYC fire hydrant tickets are issued within 7 feet (despite law requiring parking 15 feet away)

Posted by Locksmith_Usual

11 comments

  2. i got 2 tickets in one week. one ticket said i was within 5ft the other said 7ft. i measured 10ft which is still less than the 15ft legal limit so i ate both but was sour.

  4. The intent of the law is to enable access to the hydrant by a firetruck. The ticketing pattern supports that. 15′ would likely take away 2-3 parking spots vs 1-2.

  5. As a New Yorker, I’ve never once seen a parking cop measure the distance from a car to a fire hydrant.

  6. Interesting, but worth noting that the “0” bin accounts for far more actual space than any other. A car could park anywhere within 1 car length of the hydrant (~15 feet) and still be considered 0 feet away and blocking it. All the other bins represent exactly 2 feet of actual space (1 in front and 1 behind).

    If you parked randomly on the street with completely uniform enforcement within the 15 foot limit, you’d *still* be much more likely to get a ticket for parking 0 feet away, than for parking 1 foot away, just by the simple fact that “blocking the hydrant” is a much bigger space than “between 1-2 feet from the hydrant”.

    The “tickets per foot of curb” statistic would be quite a bit closer (ballpark 1/7th of what’s shown here for “0”) but I expect would still show selective enforcement.

  7. Family member’s a firefighter; 15 feet would be great, but not really necessary. Like everybody’s seen, they’ll just route around/through cars.

    The biggest issue around here is they won’t write tickets at all, even for completely blocked hydrants, in a neighbourhood full of old wooden houses. The usual “determined police action was not necessary,” or “we didn’t see anything.” NYPD = lazyasses.

  8. ***TL;DR Article Summary***

    * 97% of tickets were written within 7 feet, even though the the law requires 15ft; if you park 7ft+, you’re very unlikely to get a ticket
    * 62% of tickets were written for cars that were directly blocking the hydrant
    * The furthest ticket written was 11 feet – not a single ticket further than 11 feet! 
    * Parking tickets in NYC must show how far away the car was parked from the hydrant—or at least, valid tickets do. 

    The most common distance from the hydrant was zero feet—as in, the car was fully blocking the hydrant. Needless to say, this is not a good place to park if you’re hoping to avoid a ticket, plus it’s an undeniable fire hazard. 62% of tickets were written for cars fully blocking a hydrant, and the remaining 38% of tickets were for cars parked a lot closer to hydrants than the mandatory 15 feet.

    It turns out that fewer than one in ten tickets (9.2%) went to cars that were more than five feet from a hydrant. Fewer than one in thirty (3.0%) was for parking beyond seven feet, and only one out of every hundred (0.7%) went to cars more than eight feet out. 

    Among the 72 handwritten tickets in our dataset, eight omitted the distance from the hydrant, two were illegible, two said “in front of,” and one eyebrow-raising ticket said “on it.” At least 10 of these 72 would have been dismissed had they been challenged (only one was challenged it was dismissed.

    [https://paynycfines.com/articles/avoiding-parking-tickets/how-far-away-from-a-nyc-hydrant-do-you-really-need-to-park-](https://paynycfines.com/articles/avoiding-parking-tickets/how-far-away-from-a-nyc-hydrant-do-you-really-need-to-park-)

  9. A ticket is the best case. If they need the hydrant they smash your windows and run the hose through it. Generally it’s not just broken glass but water damage (spray from hydrant). Basically your car is never the same.

    Dont park in front of hydrants.

  10. About two years ago , I got a ticket that said I was 7 feet from the hydrant when I was actually 11 feet .
    I took photos and fought the ticket online , saying I was more than seven feet away , one of the photos was a measuring tape that focused in on the 7 feet spot on the tape laying by the curb with the hydrant in the background. I didn’t show exactly how far my car was from the hydrant just that my car was significantly more than 7 feet .
    Whatever administrative judge read it , dismissed the ticket .

    I blame the quota that the meter maids have because the ticket was written on November 29th or 30th , end of the month. The meter maids know not to write 10+ feet away. It’s better to write 7 feet for the judge to decide in their favor. They never measure with a tape . I have seen them sometimes measure walking it off with their shoes which is not an accurate way to collect $115.

    I don’t condone parking within 10 feet of a hydrate … but 10 feet is plenty enough space on both sides for nyfd to do their thing . Anything less than 5 is you’re being a dick. Parking directly next to and blocking a hydrate should be an immediate tow and $500 fine.

    Back in the day , the city did contract out or it was the job of the department of transportation, to paint yellow the 15 feet of curb on either side of the hydrant.
    But that was done away with because of 1970s financial difficulties, or people getting tickets saying the yellow line wasnt there ,washed away by the weather or scrubbed away on purpose by some one living or working nearby to get the parking space.
    So the city and DoT decided, we’re just not going to paint at all.

  11. This is well known scam in NYC. Majority of the time, there is no marking within any distance of the hydrant. Some private areas or towns will paint the area in yellow or red to indicate the distance people should not park, but no such a rule seems to exist in majority of NYC. If they really wanted to deter people, they could simply mark the distance from hydrant, but they want to penalize people who do not have a tape measure to check the distance. No fire truck will ever park into the space anyway, they will block the road and use the hydrant.

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