One New York City bicyclist says he's tired of United Parcel Service trucks getting in his way, and he hopes the courts will make the parcel giant change its ways.
New York City resident Alex Bell has reportedly filed two new lawsuits against UPS that accuse Big Brown's trucks of repeatedly blocking Manhattan bike lanes by double-parking in them during deliveries.
"I am trying to annoy UPS," Bell told the news site DNAinfo.com, which first revealed his Civil Court complaints Friday. "If you annoy them enough, they'll change maybe."
Bell told DNAinfo that he is frequently brushed off by drivers when he asks them not to park in the lanes he wants to use, being either told to "Talk to corporate," or sometimes getting much-saltier dismissive responses.
The Harlem man said he rarely sees cops ticketing UPS trucks for double-parking in the lanes set aside for cyclists.
A previous, similar small-claims case that Bell filed in June was dismissed after he agreed to go to arbitration. He was reportedly unable to give the arbitrator proof of complaints he had made to UPS, or MetroCard receipts that would have backed his claims of taking the subway instead of riding his bike to work. Bell had demanded $999 in damages because of the double-parking drivers allegedly making his bike commute dangerous.
Since then, Bell told DNAinfo, he has geared up for his new lawsuits by collecting such documentation, which includes photographs he has taken of double-parked UPS trucks.
A UPS spokeswoman told the news site that the company's drivers look for appropriate parking spots for commercial vehicles, but face a shortage of them in the Big Apple.
She also noted that state law allows trucks to briefly double-park in bike lines if the driver is making "an expedited attempt at delivery," the article said.
Read the full DNAinfo.com story here.