Send in Your Photos of Street Cheats and Help Us Map Placard Abuse in NYC

Streetsblog is launching a series of posts targeting serial placard abusers and their favored illegal parking spots — Street Cheats — and we need your contributions to hold them accountable.

Here’s one example to get the ball rolling.

In December, the city’s Human Resources Administration told Streetsblog it had revoked an employee’s fleet vehicle privileges, after we presented the agency with evidence that the staffer was repeatedly stowing the car in no parking and no standing zones in Inwood.

One of those spots was a no standing zone striped by DOT to daylight a new crosswalk at Seaman Avenue at W. 214th Street. And since Street Cheats abhor a vacuum, once the HRA vehicle was gone, others swooped in to steal the space. To wit:

These photos were taken on consecutive days last week. There’s no placard on the dashboard, but the driver knows the vehicle’s city plates will deter traffic enforcement agents just the same.

While Streetsblog tracks down the agency responsible for this car, we want to know where Street Cheats are claiming public space in your part of town.

Here’s how it works: We’re looking for photographic evidence of serial parking abuse by placard holders, government officials, and other who illegally cheat the city out of street space. It could be multiple instances of the same government employee parked illegally in the same location, or multiple photos of an area where Street Cheats are known to congregate.

To make the case, it’s best that photos are tight enough to read plate numbers and wide enough to show that vehicles are illegally parked. A clear shot of a placard, when there is one, will make it much easier to identify vehicle operators and the agencies they work for.

Send your pics to tips@streetsblog.org. We’ll plot locations on a Google map and, when possible, bring individual cheats to the attention of their employers.