New York City: Film an idling vehicle, get paid

If you see something, they'll pay something.

Two city lawmakers want to recruit everyday New Yorkers to help battle the scourge of idling vehicles by paying them for video footage that results in fines.

City Council members Helen Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) and Donovan Richards (D-Queens) will introduce a bill Wednesday that would give citizens up to 50 percent of the summons revenue if they catch someone breaking the idling law, take a video and submit it to the Department of Environmental Protection.

The exact cut for videographers would be determined by the DEP, they said. But citizen enforcers could makes hundreds — even thousands — of dollars.

The bill would keep first-time idling violations punishable by just a warning, but would boost fines for second offenses to between $350 and $1,500.

Any subsequent violations within a two-year period would yield even heftier fines of between $440 and $2,000.

Citizens seeking to cash in on their videos would first have to undergo training by the DEP, which would be offered five days per year under current plans.

"On my block alone, I could produce 20 tickets a day, easily," said banker George Pakenham, an anti-idling advocate who made a documentary on the issue called "Idle Threat" in 2012.

He says that he has documented his own encounters with roughly 2,900 idlers over a five-year period, and that he was successful in getting 80 percent of them to turn off their engines by pointing out the environmental impact and the city laws.

"This is going to be the thing that makes the entire difference," Pakenham said of the bill. "This will be just the tonic to have people engaged and earn a great deal of money along the way."

According to council documents, idling limits of three minutes have been in place in the city since 1971. The restrictions were recently shortened to just one minute for vehicles standing in front of schools.

But data show that despite repeated efforts by lawmakers to toughen the law, enforcement has remained sporadic at best.

In 2002, 325 idling violations were issued by three city agencies combined, while 526 violations were issued in 2007, according to council records.

Last year, just 209 violations were issued — yielding a paltry $93,010 in total fines, according to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.

"We can pass these laws, we've strengthened the fines . . . but the real problem is enforcement," said Rosenthal. "You're obviously upping the interest by having people share in the fine."

She said her office has fielded hordes of complaints about tour buses that linger in front of the Upper West Side's Dakota Building, where John Lennon was killed.

"It's been such a challenge to get police or DEP enforcement out there," Rosenthal said.