The FDNY needs to put the brakes on a proposal to slap drivers with hefty fees for emergency response to accidents, motorists and insurance carriers said yesterday after the first public hearing on the issue.
At the lightly attended hearing in downtown Brooklyn, the FDNY discussed billing drivers $490 for responding to an accident with injuries; $415 for a car fire without injuries; or $365 for a crash without injuries.
Bills would go out to all parties involved in an accident, with the expectation that the at-fault driver’s insurance company will ultimately pay. That determination would be made by the insurance companies, using police, DMV reports or “other information obtained from the motorists.”
But the information has been confusing.
At its public hearing, the department said the bill would only go to the motorist who needed ambulance assistance. There was no explanation about non-injury crashes. Later, the FDNY insisted the bill would only get paid by the at-fault driver, and that firefighters would not assign fault at the accident scene.
“The intention here is to take the burden off of taxpayers and make the parties responsible for accidents pay for the services,” said FDNY spokesman Steve Ritea.
Nonsense, insurers said.
Paul Tretrault, of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, told the hearing that similar programs are “both unpopular and ineffective, with programs generating negative review from residents while generating far less revenues than projected.
“A recent initiative in the city of Quincy, Mass., that was intended to raise $250,000 resulted in just $27,000 in collections halfway through the fiscal year.”
Outside the hearing, drivers fumed about the scheme.
“This is the first thing I heard about [the hearing],” fumed Nereida Camacho, 23, a security guard in downtown Brooklyn. “It should have been better announced . . . so we could be heard. ”
Scott Williams, 32, an insurance-claims examiner who lives in Mastic Beach, LI, but works in downtown Brooklyn, griped, “Nobody has the money. You have to pay $490 if you get into an accident, and it is out of your control? It’s an accident! It’s double taxation, if you think about it.”
FDNY counsel Julian Bazel said there was no specific time frame on the proposed rule.
“I would expect sometime in the next few weeks, or month or two,” he said.
(Source: NY Post)
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I think their crazy it should never pass but…..in this crappy city everything is possible well maybe then they should have a price list. Police $300 to take a report. Police $500 to make a arrest. Ambulance $300 just to response if they have to get out of the ambulance $500 – $10,000. Fire$365 -$490. Now sanitation
to plow $5000. Garbage $300 boxes $300. Bottles we don’t pick that up we will send you the chinese ppl