Every once in a while, the little guy wins.
In December, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a bill, which takes effect in March, that will protect drivers who park at broken parking meters. Most drivers assume that if they find a broken parking meter, it is their lucky day. But in recent years, aggressive parking enforcement agents have been ticketing these cars.
The new law would allow drivers to park at a broken meter for as long as the maximum time a driver could park if the meter was working. This is only common sense. Without the protection of the new law, these spaces became unavailable.
There is some fear that drivers may be purposely breaking meters. If that happens, those people should be arrested and punished. But most drivers do not break meters and are happy to find an open meter broken or not.
The news gets better. Last week, the City Council passed legislation that would automatically suspend alternate side of the street parking rules when the city starts cleaning the streets before and after a snowstorm. Since street cleaning stops during a snowstorm, this only makes sense.
