Truck drivers and owners took the fight against New York City's Citizens Air Complaint Program, which pays citizens to report idling trucks to the city, to City Hall on Wednesday, Sept. 18, with a rally that attacked the program as a "scam" during Truck Driver Appreciation Week.
The rally, organized on by the Trucking Association of New York took place ahead of an oversight hearing for the New York City Council Committee on Environmental Protection, Resiliency and Waterfronts, which oversees the "air complaint" program.
"The Citizens Air Complaint Program allows individuals to report trucks idling for anywhere between one and three minutes," the Association wrote in a press release announcing the rally. "In turn, these self-appointed emissions police receive a 25% commission on each reported violation."
New Yorkers can earn almost $90 in just a few minutes, with some telling CNBC they have made thousands just by reporting trucks.
[Related: Trump endorses trucker's 'boycott' of NYC -- but what's really going on?]
The rally sought to "to call attention to how this punitive program kneecaps our industry," TANY said, "harms our logistics systems and fails to consider the myriad steps the industry has taken and continues to take to move to zero emissions."
“This program is punitive not reformative by encouraging freelance ‘bounty hunters’ to target trucking companies without introducing long-term solutions to prevent idling or protect the cleaner, more efficient trucks that are currently on the road,” said Kendra Hems, TANY president. “The city should work on collaborating with the trucking industry to create truly effective solutions that will both support our hardworking truck drivers and improve air quality, while incentivizing continued investments in zero and near zero emission vehicles”.
Drivers are "targeted, stalked and harassed," while working essential, hard jobs by citizens looking to collect on the bounty, one speaker said. Others pointed out that it can take 9 to 18 months for the driver to get a summons for idling, which infringes on their right to due process.
Attorney Arthur Miller, who works with trucking companies in the city, said he like others admired the goal of reducing emissions, but brought up constitutional concerns with the program and its lack of consideration of newer trucks' cleaner emissions.
"This program is established and run for profit and for greed," said Miller. The program "gives us little opportunity to settle. It's difficult to get information, it's difficult to settle," unlike for instance the city's process for disputing parking tickets, he said.
Overdrive contacted NYC for information on the program as part of previous reporting and never heard back after multiple attempts.
Individuals seeking to make cash off the violations do "stealth" operations, even hiding cameras in baby carriages to report trucks, Miller noted. Often enough, "the summonses are issued a year or two after the observation, and the hearing may be a year or two after the observation. Who can go back and check the records? The driver may have left [his/her company]. They're often citing a truck leasing company" as violating the idling law, too, rather than the actual truck's operator.
Larry Zogby, who runs RDS Delivery Services, also attacked the lengthy summons process and a lack of transparency threatening due process. Zogby pointed out legitimate reasons a truck might need to idle, too.
"There's some nuances that happen on a day to day," he said. "Think about drivers delivering a medical specimen. Think about the medical community, think about pharmaceuticals, think about all these deliveries that need refrigeration. Drivers face weather-related challenges. Think about the cold, the heat, the rain, the snow."
Rocco Lacertosa, CEO of the New York State Energy Coalition, said his trucks have been hit with idling fines. "The problem with us is that we have to have our trucks running to make deliveries. That pump has to be running, that engine has to be engaged."
Lacertosa also mentioned the industry's efforts to cut emissions with renewable and biodiesel.
Zogby believed idling in many instances -- especially when "safety systems such as AC, heat, defrost" are involved -- could be in the interest of public safety. He urged the city to place public safety priorities foremost "over rigid time limits."
For more information on the Trucking Association of New York, visit their website.
[Related: New Yorkers paid to hunt down and report idling trucks]
