The Boot

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Anybody have one of these medieval-ass things slapped on the car wheel? Why don't they just tow it? Those things are brutal.

― andy --, Thursday, 12 May 2005 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

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― Huk-L, Thursday, 12 May 2005 16:45 (twenty-one years ago)

It's cheaper for them to boot or clamp it.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 12 May 2005 16:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i was hoping this was a thread about das boot.

― cindy williams permafrost (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 12 May 2005 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I feel sad when I see these on cars

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 12 May 2005 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

images of homer simpson in nyc abound.
m.

― msp (mspa), Thursday, 12 May 2005 17:13 (twenty-one years ago)

there are ways to avoid the boot!

- always park on streets that have "no parking between 4-7" etc, they won't boot your car and block rush hour traffic. Also, since parking enforcement officers don't check residential streets that don't have restrictions at all, they won't catch you there. Unsafe places? Streets that have no parking restrictions other than street-cleaning.

I have three outstanding tix in L.A. now....they don't boot you until #5, from what I gather.

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Thursday, 12 May 2005 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, since parking enforcement officers don't check residential streets that don't have restrictions at all, they won't catch you there.

well, isn't this obvious then? if you aren't parking illegally they wouldn't "catch" you at all!

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 12 May 2005 17:21 (twenty-one years ago)

In SF, there's a renegade guy who, for a fee, will take the boot off your car... and local gov. is not too happy about that!

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 12 May 2005 17:21 (twenty-one years ago)

there's one in london too

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 12 May 2005 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

It'd be cool if you had YOUR OWN boots. You could have a pair in your trunk, and by putting one on your front wheel, and one on your rear, you could park ANYWHERE you want and they couldn't tow you. You could park on the sidewalk if you wanted.

― andy --, Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess you'd have to have four, or THEY could boot one of your free wheels. This is getting complicated.

― andy --, Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.student.dfh.dk/aktiviteter/ffk/Plakater/Das%20Boot%20plakat.jpg

― you better believe it (you better believe it), Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I was hoping this thread would be about beer.

http://www.drinkstuff.com/productimg/438.jpeg

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.robertolsenart.com/images/boot.jpg

http://www.robertolsenart.com/images/boot2.jpg

― d'ngullberry (noisemeltdown), Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been both booted and towed, thanks largely to the Chicago Cubs, and I will say this: booting is much, much easier on everyone involved. You don't have to walk out and worry that your car's been stolen. You don't have to find some new way to travel to a blighted lot in some location nobody ever bothers going to, hence its availability for blighted lots. You don't have to deal with organized-crime henchmen and pay several hundred dollars in towing and impound fees and spend the next month trying to scrape their marker tags off of your windows. No, you just go to your conveniently-located city building (this'll be downtown, see, not way out nowhere), and pay your money, and then head back to your car, and if you're lucky the boot will be off even before you get back. So don't say "why don't they just tow it!" They're doing a service to us all.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

And while I'm writing about this let me just say that I am still incredibly annoyed that Chicago's so fucking packed with Cubs-related parking restrictions. Am I seriously supposed to follow the Cubs' home-game schedule just in order to park?

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

what, are you some kind of sissy boy that doesn't like baseball or something?

(I'm fascinated by the mention upthread of the renegade SF boot-cutter - shades of the guy who regularly sliced off the heads of parking meters w/a chainsaw in Berkeley years ago)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

What? Tell me more about this parking-meter-chainsaw-madman!

― you better believe it (you better believe it), Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember when there wasn't a goddamn parking meter head in Berkeley at all... for blocks and blocks. I found a couple busted-up ones down by the railroad tracks. Alot of places are switching to those multi-space meters now... more reliable, less stealable.

― andy --, Thursday, 12 May 2005 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, you could drive down the entire length of University Ave and every single meter would be decapitated - just metal poles sticking out of the sidewalk. I was amazed that someone could do this and not get caught, but it happened several times - the meters would be replaced and then the next morning, they'd all be sliced to shit. This was back when I first moved to the Bay Area ('97 or so?)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 12 May 2005 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm guilty of this: take a quarter, grab it with pliers and bang it on the curb til it bends. Then cram it in the meter, causing it to fail. Put a bag over it, and you're good for hours and hours of parking, all for a lousy quarter.

― andy --, Thursday, 12 May 2005 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I kind of love this idea of just decapitating the meter. Headless metal poles.

Do you put a grocery bag over the meter? Or a black-ish bag? Would this work even without the bent quarter?

― you better believe it (you better believe it), Thursday, 12 May 2005 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, it was quite impressive visually... altho I have yet to understand how someone could operate a chainsaw in the middle of the night on a major thoroughfare and not get caught.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 12 May 2005 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

i thought this was all a good idea until I realized how broke-ass Berkeley government is when I had to go vote on city taxes last year.

there do still seem to be an amazing number of broken meters though in places where they didn't replace them with the euro-looking multispace things.

There is a guy who sells "broken meter bags" through homeless people.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 12 May 2005 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

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