By Yardena Schwartz
Special to DNAinfo
MANHATTAN — For New Yorkers with parking tickets, time's running out to get a discounted fine.
At midnight Monday, the city will say goodbye to its discount parking ticket rule, which has allowed car owners to slash $22 off of $65 fines by pleading guilty to parking violations on the Department of Finance's website.
Millions of drivers have taken advantage of the reduced fees since the law went into effect in 2007 to save people money in tough times, and to help speed up the sluggish processing of the millions of parking tickets doled out each year.
The discount rate was great for disgruntled drivers, but the city’s finances suffered, and in November 2010 the Department of Finance announced it would end the policy.
New York Councilman David G. Greenfield (D-Brooklyn) criticized the finance department for ending the discount program, saying it helped the city collect fines "because of how effective it was in providing incentive for drivers to immediately pay their tickets."
The city stands to lose out, Greenfield said, by removing incentives for drivers to plead guilty to settle their tickets — and motivating them to challenge the tickets in court instead.
He noted that drivers win approximately 50 percent of the time when they challenge a ticket.
"During a recession, we should make it easier, not more difficult, for residents to pay their bills,” Greenfield said.
