Reply With QuoteAnd start with the fire department, they blast through streets at all hours of the night even when they have green lights, and it's 99% sure to be a false alarmOriginally Posted by MidtownGuy
Did the Judge address you as Mr. Badger?
And start with the fire department, they blast through streets at all hours of the night even when they have green lights, and it's 99% sure to be a false alarm
Last edited by GordonGecko; September 9th, 2009 at 02:14 PM. Reason: typo
Gordon, take a chill pill. Thanks.
And you know what Gordon?
Those firefighters that you put down wouldn't care that you insulted them when they pull your sorry arse out of a burning building.
So what, having an FDNY badge shouldn't be a license to do whatever you want. I call 311 with a noise complaint every time they blare their sirens past my apartment after 11pm and encourage everyone else to do the same.
A guy returns to follow-up on a six month old thread, and we're off talking about firefighters blaring their horns.
Gordon have you ever spent any time with firefighters?
Have you, anyone in your family, or any friend been in any of the uniformed emergency services?
Do you even have any idea of the stats on false alarms?
Any idea how many runs there are of a company?
You say it that with most runs "it's 99% sure to be a false alarm." That is not true.
Here are the citywide fire incident stats for July 2008:
Structural Fires: 2,002
Non-Structural: 1,645
Non-Fire Emergencies: 16,448
Medical Emergencies: 19,614
Malicious False Alarms: 2,748
Here are the citywide fire incident stats for June 2008:
Structural Fires: 2,063
Non-Structural: 1,558
Non-Fire Emergencies: 17,399
Medical Emergencies: 19,023
Malicious False Alarms: 2,800
Here are the citywide fire incident stats for 2007:
Structural Fires: 28,004
Non-Structural: 19,388
Non-Fire Emergencies: 209,943
Medical Emergencies: 207,677
Malicious False Alarms: 25,755
None of the above stats include FDNY Bureau of EMS responses.
Glossary
Structural Fires - fires that occur in structures.
Non-Structural Fires - examples are brush, rubbish or automobile fires.
Non-Fire Emergencies - utility emergencies, and other emergencies that are not fire or medical related.
Medical Emergencies - are selected life-threatening emergencies that engine companies respond to as first responders.
Malicious False Alarms - are calls that units respond to where there was no one who reported an emergency.
The lights and sirens are on for a damn good reason!
Not to encourage the lizard, but ...
GG (or is it GiGi?): How do you know that there are no cars or pedestrians up ahead of that fire truck? They just might appreciate the warning honks & sirens as the truck approaches.
And are you now the arbiter who will decide which calls to 911 / FDNY should be answered and which should be ignored?
If you do accept that responsibility then please leave your phone number here so that everyone can call you first when a potential emergency arises.
Not to condone his hatred for the sirens, but I can see the frustration he may be experiencing.
Hoboken is like that with cops. The firemen only use the sirens when they need to, but the cops use them when they do not want to wait for a light, or want to pull a U-turn in traffic.
I have not seen is that bad in the city, but then again, I rarely see cops driving in the city, so....
As for the firemen in the city? complaining about their sirens and some perceived wanton destruction at the scene of a fire is complaining with no real base. they don't go smashing in windows of the building next door to a fire call just because they like smashing windows.
I can see where they can be a little excessive, but it is better to be excessive and make sure the fire is out rather than over-cautious and have to come back later because there was a spot they missed.
As for the curfew/court case, although it was a PITA, it looks like it got the message across. Don't stay there after hours.
If you did not show up, they probably would have mailed you a fine or forced you to come in on more serious charges (like not coming to court!) or both. So whatever. Big waste of time, but no charges and no fines.
Count your mixed blessing. I hear they go great with roasted garlic.
The punishment was the waste of a day in court.
>Ding<
Here's your prize!
*hands stache a copy of Barry Manilows "how to win it with the ladies over 60" Time-life collection*
Why, thank you!
I will cherish it always...
FDNY is great. They have a firehouse up my block and I hear them all the time but I love them. Their sirens are the sound of safety. NYPD are bullies with badges, a pack of a-holes.
New York Observed
Busted in the Park
Josh Haner/The New York Times
By DANIEL KRIEGER
Published: October 31, 2008
RIDING my bike through Central Park late one night during the summer, I was stopped by the police. The fresh-faced officer behind the wheel of the blue-and-white cruiser scrutinized my license and then quizzed me on my address. I told her where I lived.
“That is incorrect,” she said, reading the right answer to me before I could try again.
“Oh, that’s right!” I replied, smiling weakly. “That’s actually my parents’ address. I guess I put that one instead. Go figure.”
She stared at me, brow furrowed, and asked, “Why did you put an address that’s not your address?”
“Oh, yeah, well, because I’m not, or I wasn’t, sure how long I’d be staying at the place I’m living now. After I came back from California, my license expired, so I got a New York one, and I guess I thought I should kind of put a more, you know, lasting address and stuff.”
I fleetingly considered sharing the full story of my rather amusing interview at the Department of Motor Vehicles a few months earlier, but a glance at her stern expression made me change my mind.
She asked me to step aside while she checked to see if I was wanted for anything other than the offense she had stopped me for: trespassing. You see, the park is closed from 1 to 6 a.m., and violators of the curfew face arrest. But since there was no warrant out for me, and I didn’t appear to be breaking any other laws, not to mention the fact that I came off as genuinely clueless, she sent me on my way with only two summonses: for unlawful park entry and for disobeying signs.
“What signs was I disobeying?” I asked.
“The ones on lampposts,” she replied. “Six feet above ground level. You can find them all over the park.”
“Really?” I said.
“The judge wants to see you,” she told me. “And should you fail to appear in court on the date given, there’ll be a warrant out for your arrest.”
I’d gone into the dark woods of Central Park on the well-lighted 72nd Street Park Drive an upstanding citizen, trying to reduce my carbon footprint while getting some exercise and saving a few dollars. Next thing I knew, one of New York’s finest was threatening arrest, drawing me into the labyrinth of the city’s criminal justice system.
According to the city’s annual criminal court report, more than half a million summonses are issued in New York each year. From 2004 to 2007, the most generously bestowed pink slips went to those cited for having open containers of alcohol. Disorderly conduct came in a close second, while unlawful park entry and disobeying signs placed among the top 10, with nearly 20,000 summonses handed out yearly for each.
But there are offenses and there are offenses. And in New York, there’s no shortage of signs spelling them out — telling New Yorkers to clean up after their dogs, to go easy on the honking and, posted conspicuously in every subway car, to refrain from assaulting subway personnel — “a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.”
Though I found a “Park Closes at 1 a.m.” sign in the vicinity of most entrances of Central Park, these forest-green, Frisbee-sized disks would score embarrassingly low under the category of “eye catchingness” in a signage contest. Gecko-like, they are camouflaged in daylight, and at night under the glare from lampposts, they’re barely silhouettes, which is why almost everyone in the 20/20 community I asked about the signs had never taken note — a testament to the shortcoming of the signs that I felt quite sure the judge would be eager to hear about.
For two months I pictured my date with the judge and how I would make my case. When the day came, I bounded up the marble courthouse steps at 346 Broadway, signed in, and was sent to a room filled with crowded pews facing the judge’s chair, behind which the gold-lettered words “In God We Trust” sparkled brightly. (Now here was a sign no one could miss.)
The 100 or so unsmiling offenders represented just about every ethnicity and race — a kind of United Nations of the innocent-until-proven-guilty. I wondered what their stories were.
Then in came the judge, along with an attorney and a court officer. The officer instructed all to rise when she introduced his honor and ordered us to stop talking and remove all hats in a tone reminiscent of after-school detention.
She then began her routine of calling out each offender’s name, followed by a code number and the offense itself, so that all present knew why everyone else had been summoned. The offenses cited included reckless driving, unreasonable noise, bike on sidewalk, unlawful possession of marijuana and unauthorized presence.
Finally, I heard my name. But the judge, who at that point was engrossed in some reading material, didn’t seem particularly eager to see me after all. Instead of the high-level meeting of minds I had imagined, an event for which I had donned a jacket and tie, the attorney at my side told me I was dismissed. (Was it my air of innocence or just the ho-humness of my case?)
TAKING that to mean I was free to go, I began walking toward the door, abandoning the cause of clearer signage in the interest of a quick getaway. But the lawyer summoned me back.
“Not so fast,” he said. “Your case is A.C.D.” — adjournment in contemplation of dismissal — “and if you don’t get in trouble for six months, it’ll be dropped. So be careful with those signs, O.K.?”
I said I would be careful with the signs. Now, whenever I make a late-night cross-town journey on my bike, I ride on the transverse road with all the cars whizzing past, content knowing that, dangerous though it may be, I am obeying the law of this particular land.
Daniel Krieger teaches English as a second language at Columbia University and La Guardia Community College.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/ny...ml?ref=thecity
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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