Overdone and overlooked, NYC’s visual chaos.
There’s a reason why so many New Yorkers don’t own a car. Cars spell trouble here because there are just so many parking spaces to go around. And every one of them is subject to regulations that impose stiff fines, and worse, as punishment for the unwary and unheeding.
Park in the wrong place and you might find your vehicle missing when you come back. Not stolen, probably. Worse. Chances are it was towed to a NYC tow pound (for the locations of the neighborhood tow pound nearest you go to http://www.parkingpal.com/cc_towed.html). Which means you’ll have to shlepp there with $150 IN CASH to bail it out (that’s IF you don’t have any outstanding tickets). Don’t bother to bring a check or a credit card. The kind folks at your local tow pound will only accept cash on the barrelhead for your trusty steed.
Last year, NYC issued a staggering 9.1-million parking tickets. It’s anyone’s guess how many the city towed. Not exactly small change.
So how could that many people screw up? I mean this ticket-and-tow scheme is not exactly a new thing.
More likely the fault could lie in NYC’s cacaphony of signs—official and otherwise—that clutter our streets. And the jumble of regulations that govern who and what can and can’t park and when.
Cynics among us probably assume the signs are designed to be confusing. After all, just try to figure out whether Alternate Side Parking Regulations are on, or off.
You could go to the website (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/scrintro.html#calendar2005) for the official word. Unfortunately, if you think signs are confusing, wait till you see this website. Where you’ll find this classic bureaucratic goobledygook:
The City suspends alternate side parking regulations, for both street cleaning purposes and traffic flow, on the 32 legal and religious holidays listed below. This includes suspension of street cleaning regulations at metered spaces. This policy is implemented jointly by the Department of Transportation, the Department of Sanitation, and the Police Department. On major legal holidays, No Stopping, No Standing, and No Parking regulations are suspended, except where those regulations are normally in effect 7 days a week. On all other holidays, only Street Cleaning Rules are suspended. All other regulations remain in effect. Parking meter regulations will be suspended on major legal holidays.
Got that?
Amazingly, according to the city, ONE TRAFFIC SIGN PER BLOCK is considered sufficiently informative for drivers.
New York City Traffic Rules state that one sign per block is sufficient. Please check the entire block and read all signs carefully before you park.
If there is more than one sign posted for the same area, the more restrictive one is the one in effect. If a sign is missing on a block, the remaining posted regulations are the ones that are in effect.
Now it doesn’t take long to figure out that most blocks in NYC have at least 30 signs posted. Some being more restrictive than others. Just to make the game a little challenging. No wonder people are confused.
Are we New Yorkers dumb, illiterate or just willing to push our luck?
According to transportation experts, NYC drivers just have too much to read. We’ve got a bad case of sensory overload. There’s so much visual information coming at us, from every direction, the really important stuff gets lost in the clutter. The messages are not getting through.
Just check out some of the signs and posters we photographed around town. It’s not just the official signs that people have to deal with. There’s all that other stuff, too. The commercial signs and posters and billboards and flashing lights that scream for attention. Multiple signs on the same pole, often with conflicting messages. Wildposting that fills up whole walls creating a background that official signs get totally lost in. Signs in foreign languages. Erdu anyone?
It’s a wonder NYC manages to function as well as it does.
But clutter and sensory whatever aren’t the only problems. Even if people notice a sign, there’s a good chance that after they’ve seen it a bunch of times, they’ll no longer pay attention to it. Psychologists call this “Habituation”.
Now that term may sound good—in academia. But NYC traffic court is a whole different arena. So if you want to be the first on your block to try habituation as an excuse for getting a dumb ticket, (even though there are 30, count ’em, 30 signs advising you NOT to do what you did) hey, be our guest. Just don’t forget to let the rest of us know how you make out. It might come in handy some day.
