The research and advocacy group Transportation Alternatives is taking its battle against illegally parked placard cars to the next level — cyber shaming.The cyber-shaming concept has taken off in recent months as residents in various construction-ridden neighborhoods have begun using YouTube to post videos of illegal or dangerous site work. Now, TransAlt is asking the public to post photos of placarded cars abusing their permit privileges: commuter vehicles claiming to be on official business; cars blocking sidewalks and fire hydrants; and the like.A Transportation Alternatives study, published Sept. 28, 2006, showed that illegal placard parking was rampant citywide and especially bad in areas with high concentrations of government workers, like Lower Manhattan. The placard cars, even those with counterfeit or expired permits, were seldom ticketed by traffic agents, perhaps because the study revealed the N.Y.P.D. as the top permit-abusing agency.Although Chinatown residents are getting some permit relief from their new precinct commander, frustrated residents and business owners in other precincts can now post tow-worthy photos, along with information on the type of permit and violation, to www.uncivilservants.org. The site gives visitors a guide to which permits are legal in what zones and uses the data that citizens provide to create an interactive map of illegal parking across the five boroughs.Transportation Alternatives announced on March 15 that the UncivilServants site is just one part of a new three-pronged approach to tackling the parking problem. The group, which promotes traffic safety and alternative transportation, also plans to use the Freedom of Information Law to keep its information on permit legality up to date. The third prong of the strategy is to support a pending City Council bill that would require the Mayor’s Office to keep tabs on the number of permits issued by each agency.TransAlt says the permit counts would allow the city, at the very least, to crack down on the counterfeit and expired permits that have proliferated in recent years. But for those Web surfers more interested in entertainment than advocacy, the site offers many sets of snarky comment threads with residents and police supporters sniping back and forth at one another.UnderCover also enjoyed the site’s YouTube video, which intersperses the TransAlt study’s statistics with shots of illegally parked cars and shame-on-you quotes from local politicians, including Councilmember Alan Gerson.