fdxbusdriver

FedEx Paid $10.7M in NYC Tickets

Think you've got parking ticket problems?

Federal Express paid a whopping $10.7 million in parking and traffic ticket expenses to New York City in the fiscal year ending May 31, 2008, according to FedEx media relations spokesperson Sally Davenport.

"We try to observe traffic rules when possible, but at times it's extremely hard to do, especially in a time-definite service," she said. FedEx and other express-service drivers are often forced to park illegally or block traffic in order to make a delivery on time.

New York City has a program in place to handle such situations. According to Davenport, the city can supply FedEx with a weekly report of towed delivery trucks and other traffic violations and offer a penalty-free period to address the offenses. The city's alternative, said Davenport, is allowing FedEx to waive the right to contest the tickets and pay a reduced fine instead.

The substantial traffic fines are "a recognized cost of doing business," said Davenport. "It's not a new problem. And it's not particular to FedEx. In order to offer this service in large congested areas, it's a problem we have to deal with."

When asked about the possibility of designated street parking spots for express couriers, Davenport said, "That's an interesting idea. If [the city of New York] came to us with that idea, it's something to consider."

Jessica Binns

Welcome To Air Cargo World -- Breaking News

sloflier

Frankly, I am surprised it is not more - NY is good at taxing people, writing tickets, assessing fees, charging extra for everything, and doing it with that fantastic NY attitude. Gotta Love it!

Jetjok

Fact is, it's a cost of doing business in the City. If you've ever been there during a weekday, all you see are the FedEx and DHL trucks and the UPS package cars double parked on every street. It's the only way they can get their overnight letters and packages delivered in a timely manner. If they had to actually find a parking space, they'd be screwed. That, or they would have to park on 11th avenue and walk over to midtown. Hell, when I lived in the City, I had $50,000 in parking tickets. The good news is that they don't even come after you until you've built up a quarter-million dollars in parking tickets, and then, only if they don't like you.

JJ

ewrbasedpilot

This is SOOOOOO ridiculous it's not even funny. I'd like to see the district attorney's face if he was told his "overnight evidence" for a big case didn't make it on time due to the package deliveryman not being able to park outside his office for fear of getting a ticket. You just gotta love having a business in an "anti business" climate. Funny thing is though, is that in the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, half the cars on the street are double parked, but they ALL have their "get out of jail card free" badge hung on their windshield. What a joke...........

f10a

Sounds like they needed Jimmy Justice (YouTube - Fox 5 Report - Jimmy Justice) to go after all the corrupt NYPD parking officers! NYC has the most confusing regulations for a reason!

Busboy

You could hire quite few "ride along" couriers for $10million. I mean have 2 guys, 1 that drives and 1(or more) that delivers. You'd still need to stop, for a moment...But, not park.

Jetjok

Not even close. The couriers could load up a dolly or hand truck and disappear into some 75 story building for a good long time. You just couldn't have someone else "driving around the block" waiting for the other guy to come out of the building. It really just wouldn't work. Just delivering to Manhattan addresses costs a bunch, and that's why the flights from Memphis up to Newark are so time sensitive. Imagine if we had to refund the cost of 200,000 overnight packages, just because the drivers couldn't find a parking space and therefore couldn't deliver their envelopes by 10:30 A.M. Now imagine if that happened on a daily basis. The 10 million dollars is cheap.

JJ

Check 6

You could take NYC out of the above statement and insert any of the passenger carriers names and the sentence still works!

FliFast

I wonder if we could payoff the NYPD $9 million dollars and get a red, Starsky and Hutch light so we can park anywhere, anytime.

They'd still get their money and maybe their packages on-time and we'd save a cool million.

I think JJ, has it right, 10 big bones is cheap compared to late delivieries.

FF

PastV1

US Post Office vehicles park anywhere anytime with no tickets....