A code error has lead to half-million traffic violation tickets in NYC being refunded or dismissed. The mistake has cost the city 26 million dollars. Was your ticket refunded? Here’s everything you need to know:
We’ve all made mistakes at work. When it’s us, it’s generally a typo, and it doesn’t cost NYC a dime. When it’s a city employee those mistakes come at a cost to us, the taxpayer. Mistakes are inevitable, but even the tiniest error can reverberate across departments leading at a real cost to the city. In the case of this blunder, that dollar value is around $26m million.
Earlier this year, New York City’s Department of Finance discovered a code changed for a certain traffic violation had not been rolled out to around half a million tickets. The code number for the violation was changed from 4-08h10 to 4-08h1, never made it to half-million tickets given out by traffic agents. Given that the wrong code technically invalidates the tickets, The city of New York had no option but to refund and dismiss the violation tickets.
In total, the city issued $18 million in refunds for the tickets to over 400,860 drivers. They then dismissed another 100,000 which would have been worth around $8 million.
What were the tickets for? Failing to display muni-meter receipts correctly in your windshield window… yeah… and that has led to a 26 million dollar loss.
It’s good news for New York’s drivers, particularly those who were refunded, but bad news for the city’s coffers.
Featured image source [Wikimedia Commons]