The number of stop and frisks in the city may be soaring to record highs and we're still the marijuana arrest capital of the world, but other police stats are actually dropping at a surprising rate. Specifically, traffic and parking tickets. Today's Post points out that buried inside the city's budget is the fact that the NYPD is on pace to write nearly 269,597 fewer tickets for traffic violations this fiscal year than they did last year (which was already an eight-year low). That means potentially $9 million less in revenue for the city—unless they can make up the difference by ticketing cyclists?
If the current ticketing pace continues to the end of the fiscal year (that'd be June 30) that would put the city on pace to make about $16.5 million in ticket revenue, down from $25.6 million last fiscal year. And it isn't just moving violations where the number of tickets are down. Parking violations are down, too.
Still, don't think a 21 percent reduction in tickets means that cops aren't still writing them. We're currently on pace to have 992,988 tickets written this year, and that isn't something to sniff at.
As for what exactly has caused the slowdown, that isn't totally clear. The Post speculates the dip has to do with cops still bristling after last year's ticket fixing scandal while the city budget blames it on a "diversion of resources for traffic management and training." We'd like to think everybody has just gotten much better at driving.
