By Tommy Hallissey

Few quality-of-life issues can draw the ire of New Yorkers quite like the scarcity of parking. There's something about taking lap after lap around a city block that gets the blood boiling.

Yet some Riverdale and Kingsbridge residents never have to worry about finding a parking spot - and it's got their neighbors hopping mad.

In recent months, several residents have called in and written to The Press to complain that off-duty police officers were abusing their parking privileges by leaving their cars in no-standing zones or in illegal spots. They evade a ticket by placing their police placards in the windshield.

One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, complained of two cars parked day and night in a no-standing zone on Van Cortlandt Park South, near Bailey Avenue. The cars, the resident said, are causing a dangerous situation.

"The problem is children crossing Bailey Avenue. Their sight looking north is obstructed and city buses are making the turn coming down the hill, coming close to these parked cars in order to pull over to their bus stop on Bailey Avenue," the resident wrote.

Another anonymous man wrote in to report an illegally parked car on West 256th Street and Arlington Avenue, and provided pictures of the offending automobile. A NYPD placard is clearly displayed.

"They set lousy examples as municipal abusers who believe they may disregard the law," the man wrote.

A source at the 50th Precinct said the police placards are only valid for parking a car near the precinct stationhouse. The residents who wrote to The Press indicated the locally offending officers were from other commands and parking in residential neighborhoods.

Police are not the only organizations entitled to parking placards in New York City.

In fact, a recent account of City Hall-issued parking placards found that 142,000 city workers were issued one, much more than the city had originally thought.