New York police afraid of writing traffic tickets

A meeting among senior traffic cops to encourage more ticket writing backfired yesterday when a Queens lieutenant boldly told top brass that officers won’t comply because they’re “afraid” of getting caught in the fallout of the Bronx ticket-fixing scandal, a source told The Post.

NYPD Transportation Chief James Tuller summoned traffic supervisors in Queens South — which comprises eight precincts — to a “TrafficStat” meeting to discuss the steep decline in summons writing.

At one point during the heated police headquarters powwow, Tuller showed a video of an accident-prone intersection where cars sped through red lights and cops on the scene did nothing about it, the source said.

That’s when a brave lieutenant told Tuller about how worried his subordinates are about the probe.Cops all around the city don’t want to go to traffic court where they’ll be monitored by the IAB and sanctioned for honest bookkeeping mistakes, he said.The IAB has already docked 10 vacation days from as many as 100 cops for relatively minor inconsistencies in their tickets or memo books.

Tuller grew “agitated” at the lieutenant’s response, one source said, and demanded to know if other officers felt that way.No one backed up the lieutenant, sources said.But one cop who spoke to The Post agreed, saying he’s issuing fewer tickets because: “They don’t want cops to be cops.”

As The Post first reported, tickets have plunged 37.6 percent citywide last week compared to the same seven days last year.”Summonses are issued based on observed violations and may be influenced by any number of factors, including the NYPD head count, which is currently 6,000 lower than it was in [fiscal year] 2001,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne. But, the difference between NYPD manpower this year compared to last year is less than 2,000 officers.

As many as 40 officers could be indicted and a 100 more face departmental discipline in the Bronx ticket-fixing probe that is focusing on the widespread practice of cops making tickets disappear for friends and family.