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Under tougher procedures put out by the Police Department, seemingly abandoned vehicles that have accumulated three or more tickets for lesser infractions — like parking at an expired meter or on a street that is supposed to be cleared for sweeping — are no longer automatically eligible for a free tow to the nearest precinct, where the owners could pay the fines and drive off.

Like cars left at a hydrant or bus stop or in a crosswalk — considered more serious violations — such vehicles may now be towed to a police pound, where the owners will have to pay a $185 towing fee on top of $20-a-day storage fees, plus the parking fines.

“The bottom line is we don’t want vehicles parked on the streets taking up spots,” said Deputy Inspector Michael Pilecki, commanding officer of the police unit known as the Parking Enforcement District, who signaled the crackdown in a June 8 staff memo obtained by The New York Times.

“We’re going to tow more from alternate side and meters because in the past we have not encouraged our agents to do it,” he said.

As usual, when it comes to city parking rules, nothing is simple.

There are two kinds of city tow trucks under police administration. The dark blue trucks handle vehicles illegally blocking hydrants, bus stops or the flow of traffic — the more serious infractions — and tow them to a police pound. Tow operators call these “revenue-generating tows.”

But a fleet of white trucks with blue markings (mimicking patrol cars) handle so-called department tows to move disabled squad cars or vehicles abandoned or blocking parade routes or seized as evidence and tow them to the precinct.

These blue and white trucks, the union leaders say, have commonly towed vehicles that accumulated tickets for lesser parking infractions. These tows are free. Drivers need only establish their legal ownership and pay the fines to reclaim their vehicles. So these are known as non-revenue-generating tows.

In addition, according to the police patrol guide, private tow operators under contract with the city for so-called “rotation tows” (because their duties are rotated among different companies) also tow abandoned vehicles not involved in investigations. But they are supposed to give the owners at least eight days to reclaim them before delivering them to the police pound.

With the maximum fine for illegal meter or street-cleaning parking at $65, even three tickets would not automatically elevate the violator to scofflaw status. Scofflaws owe at least $350 in unpaid tickets and are handled differently. Their vehicles are not towed by the police at all. In Staten Island, they are towed by the city sheriff; in the other boroughs by one of the city marshals. The city tow operators are seeking to recapture this mission for themselves — along with higher pay.

In his memo, Inspector Pilecki wrote that traffic enforcement agents “are reminded that it is the policy of this command to tow any illegally parked vehicle displaying three (3) or more parking summonses.” (Agents may not issue more than one ticket per day for each violation, and no more than 3 tickets a day to a vehicle at one location.)

Upon giving a vehicle a third ticket, he wrote, an agent “will immediately request the response” of a department tow truck to remove the vehicle from the street. Implicit was that removal would be to the pound.

In a telephone interview, Inspector Pilecki called the rule “not earth-shatteringly new,” but he said, “This takes it a little step further.”

“We didn’t emphasize towing vehicles at meters in the past, or for street cleaning,” he acknowledged. But he denied that there was any previous policy to tow lesser violators free to the precinct.

The new directive has already paid off, Inspector Pilecki said. “On a couple of occasions already, stolen cars were recovered,” he said. The accumulation of tickets was the tip-off to abandonment, he said.

“I anticipate that’s going to be the case — we’ll recover more stolen vehicles,” he said.

The inspector disputed union contentions that the new directive would add to the tow operators’ workload, or pressure to cram in more tows to become eligible for weekend overtime.

The average number of tows a day per operator would remain about four, he said, because only so many trips to and from the pound could be made in a shift. “But rather than Point A they’ll go to Location B,” he said.

And so, he said, it was not a measure calculated to swell the city’s coffers.

Then why do it? he was asked.

“As time goes on I change things,” he said. “I see things I’m not happy with and I change them for the better.”

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