As if crashing your car isn’t bad enough, the Fire Department now wants to charge you for it.
The FDNY plans to bill drivers $490 to respond to a crash or car fire when someone is hurt, $415 for a car fire without injuries and $365 for a crash without injuries.
It says those fees cover the actual cost of responding to emergencies – everything from driving the fire trucks to paying fringe benefits for firefighters.
“We are in a tight budget situation,” said FDNY spokesman Steve Ritea. “We wanted to relieve pressure on the taxpayer and place it on those at fault and their insurance companies.”
The policy will raise an estimated $1 million a year for the FDNY’s budget – but that won’t affect the agency’s plan to close 20 fire companies at night to save $15 million.
“If there’s an act of God, if a tree falls on your car, the Fire Department has discretion,” Ritea said. “The intent here is to go after the insurance of motorists who are at fault.”
The FDNY expects most drivers will pass the bills on to their insurance companies, just as insurers already pick up the bill when FDNY ambulances respond to medical calls.
Uninsured drivers will still have to pay the fees, however.
It might not be that simple, though – one trade group says typical car insurance policies wouldn’t cover the fee.
“If insurers were to start providing coverage for additional accident response services, including police and fire, the cost of auto insurance would be likely to increase,” said Loretta Worters of the Insurance Information Instiatute.
The new policy is scheduled to take effect July 1, though it could change after a Jan. 14 public hearing.
The policy explicitly says the FDNY will respond to crashes and fires whether or not any bills have been paid.
(Source: NY Daily News)
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13 Responses
What’s next? Billing fire victims for their services? I thought that our taxes, which have more than doubled under Bloomberg, payed for emergency services.
other cities do this. some insurance companies pay and many do not.
Most cities charge for things like this. Given the desparate state of city finances it makes sense for NYC to do so as well.
Ok so this being the case what cities charge? Have not heard about charging for emergency services?
Though 2 and 3 you have a point, here is my problem. NYC tends to take everything from other states, cities and countries and implements them, because its a good idea. We pay 40 cents more for a gallon of gas then the national avg, our utilities are 39% higher than the national avg. Dont get our taxes are not cheap for the square footage you get. Our bridges are double triple than any other state.
And lets not forget about our car insuarnce just the borough of brooklyn alone is top 5 in the US. Lets not forget real estate. To rent in Mahattan the avg square foot is just under 1,600 the next closest is LA 950. So though everyhting is a good idea we dont make that much more money than any other states to continue to get tax after tax and hikes on eveything known to man kind.
tachlis #5:
real estate taxes in nyc are very low compared to other places.
car insurance rates and rent are set and charged by private industry, not government.
what will stop the fire department from showing up to every car accident, even when they are not needed, just to be able to charge this money. I see that happening now all the time.
New York City is one of the few municipalities that have an income tax. For most, the only source of revenue is property tax. While our city property tax is lower than other areas, they have been creeping up and are almost as high as other areas. Add that to the income tax and we are way overpaying. And then he decides to add “fees”, which would make the effective tax rate very lopsided compared to other. If he wants to use the “other cities do it too” defense, then we need to do it in other areas too.
Here’s an idea I’m sure billionaire Bloomberg will like in his quest to bleed every hard-working New Yorker of every penny he makes…
How about making everyone wear a mask with a meter that measures how much air you breath, and charge us for that TOO!!!
Is there no end to it…
Wheres all my tax money going to? what will happen is most ppl. wont end up paying so it will eventually fall through..
FDNY shows up because someone called. They don’t go riding around looking for accidents!
Lets say someone gets into a fender-bender, and some bystander calls 911. Why should the party involved in an accident have to pay because someone else called 911. It is fine when 911 is needed, but if they are not?
O so now whenever someone gets robbed the cops shud charge the one who was robbed for coming