Every day, thousands of straphangers are violating New York City Transit’s Rules of Conduct. I’ve done it; I’m sure you, dear reader, have done it too. Sometimes, you just have to get away from that un-air conditioned car with the stinky homeless guy in it. But by moving from one subway car to another, we are in clear violation of Rule 1050.9 (d).
Oops. That’s all I have to say.
For the most part, I believe riders don’t realize they’re breaking the law, and it’s an unlucky S.O.B. who gets tagged by a transit cop and handed a ticket. In 2006, according to The Daily News, transit cops handed out 3600 tickets or fewer than 10 a day. The cops must be catching, oh, 0.1 percent of all of New York City’s hardened criminals who move between subway cars.
Interestingly, though, as the The News reported, about 60 percent of those given tickets had outstanding warrants. What did the MTA have to say about this?
Of the 88 straphangers who got summonses in Brooklyn so far this year, 51 had outstanding warrants, Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said.
Two had loaded handguns, and two others were found to have knives. Ten had committed crimes or offenses in the subways before, and 26 refused to identify themselves, Browne said…
Paul Fleuranges, a spokesman for the MTA’s rail and bus division, said he wasn’t surprised that “among those who would move from car to car there are individuals who had more than an empty seat in mind.”
And that, folks, might just be the best quotation from an MTA official ever. Fleuranges seems to think that those shifty-eyed folks moving from car to car just might be trying to evade someone or something in their criminal past.
Of course, that just ignores the idea that maybe, just maybe, police will be a little discriminating in their enforcement of Rule 1050.9 (d). Maybe a transit cop won’t give out tickets to 15 people who are trying to hide from a bad odor. Maybe the transit cop will give out a summons to those folks who already look suspicious. And nevermind the racial aspects to these findings (and Fleuranges’ statement).
Just remember, every time you move between cars of the subway, you are breaking the law. Criminals, all of us. Guilty as charged.
Image of the oh-so-effective sign warning against moving in between cars comes courtesy of flickr user Paula Ramírez.
5 comments
I confess. I have moved between cars. I will be joining a 12-step program soon to kick the habit.
I wonder if many people even know this law exists and is being enforced. I see so many people on the L line do this.
[…] Did you know that the police will ticket you for this offense? Well, if you were a reader of mine on March 5, you knew […]
what’s really funny is how they enable the so called “crime” on the l train for example by continuing to leave the door unlocked. but they’re right, the pigs, because they have the freaking guns…bastards, all of them. the only good one is a dead one.
and we’re seriously retarded for tolerating it. between the crap law enforcement pulls and the crap politicians and the privately owned international bank that calls itself the federal reserve and the illegal, unconstitutional 16th amendment that illegally reverses the constitutionally required apportionment of federal taxation, and the gold seizure of 1933, and the patriot act and the dhs, irs, fbi, cia, dea, atf, and, hell, you get the idea…
whatever. i hope the world of hu-man comes to its speedy and inevitable end soon. wake up, world, or one day, you’ll wake up with damned rfid chips in your arms.
I had my daughter who was sick on teh train to go throw between the cars and not in the train and when a cop seen her come back in the car after trhrow up he ask her to come off the train and gave my daughter a ticket for going between cars in fact she had not gone from one car to another and she should not have got a ticket she isn’t a crimnal and has no record what so ever he could have just given her a warning but he didn’t and so right now i am fight for my 15 yrs daughter’s rights. I just hope that in the end there will be justice for all who are doing this for either being sick and just need air or throw up or to just get away from a person who smells really bad.