Upper East Side cops took a rogue private garbage truck driver off the streets on Monday — but he was never supposed to be on them in the first place.

Police say they pulled over 53-year-old John Bailey a little after 1 am on Monday after the Royal Waste Service driver blew through a red light and drove in a bike lane on First Avenue between 61st and 62nd streets. At that point, officers arrested Bailey for driving without a license — though police spokesman Detective Ahmed Nasser could not say why Bailey’s license had been suspended.

Driving for blocks in a #UES bike lane & running through red?, midnight Officers Burke & Foster stopped a private sanitation truck on East 62 St. shortly after 1am.

They conducted an investigation—The operator had a suspended license & they placed him under arrest. Great work! pic.twitter.com/jFU18lHTdW

— NYPD 19th Precinct (@NYPD19Pct) February 27, 2019

In this case, the NYPD might have saved a life by getting an unlicensed private garbage truck driver off the road. The arrest follows a much-hyped NYPD crackdown on the notoriously dangerous private carting industry — and brings to mind the July, 2017, death of 27-year-old Neftaly Ramirez, a cyclist who was run down and killed by the improperly licensed driver of an Action Carting truck.

Unlike Monday’s arrest, police let Ramirez’s killer Jose Nunez off the hook, but for a summons, which typically results in a $150–$500 fine. Bailey may end up doing more jail time than Nunez, who killed a man.

The Nunez case is certainly not the only time a rogue truck driver has escaped justice. Cops arrested Philip Monfoletto after he hit and killed 13-year-old Kevin Flores while driving an oil delivery truck with a license that had been suspended nine time. But police only charged Monfoletto with a misdemeanor, not a felony, because a driver must rack up 10 suspensions to be slapped with felony charges.

Queens-based Royal Waste did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why it allowed Bailey to drive with a suspended licenses.