There are major parking problems in many parts of California. With too many cars inside of a limited area it can take hours to find a park space. There are many private parking lots out there that charge as high as $20 an hour. Some of these lots are gated and require you to pay before you are able to leave the parking lot while others simply have a parking attendant that walks around and charges people for parking. Many times these parking attendants won’t see the person parking their car and will leave a bill for them under their windshield. Some of them have egos and will even write pricey tickets to cars that they feel are breaking their rules or did not pay prior to parking.
The State of California allows private parking companies to ticket cars which were parked on their property. However, most people don’t realize that they are not obligated to pay these parking tickets. Unpaid parking tickets received in a private parking lot will never go against your drivers license or your vehicle’s registration. If you look carefully at the fine print on this ticket it will say that its not a state issued ticket and that it won’t go against your license or registration. They make this print really small so people won’t read it and pay the ticket out of fear that they will be penalized by the DMV.
They have very little recourse to force you to pay these tickets. However, they can either tow or boot your car if you attempt to park in their private lots again.
For several months I would park in this one parking lot next to the mall that was between two banks, a Wells Fargo and a Citibank. There were always parking attendants in this lot that attempted to charge you $6 for parking in this lot. They were required to provide 30 minutes of free parking to anyone using either bank. I have accounts at both banks and sometimes when I go into these banks I will come out and there will be a $65 ticket on my car stating that I did not pre-pay for parking. I will dispute this with the attendant, but they will not cancel the ticket. So I parked there anyway and over time I accumulated over 20 parking tickets which I did not pay.
One day I returned to my car to find that the right front wheel had been immobilized by a Denver Boot.
The Denver Boot was invented by a Colorado musician as a means to immobilize the vehicles of people who failed to pay their parking tickets. The idea is that instead of towing the vehicle, which requires time, space and expense, booting can force someone to pay quickly and easily.
I walked around to the back of my car and examined the bright orange parking boot. I noticed that a large orange plate was covering the lug nuts to prevent the car owner from simply removing the wheel and tire, putting on a spare, and then driving away. A short prong pressed against the tire holding the boot in place. The clamp had a padlock encased in a quarter inch of hardened steel and was positioned inside the wheelwell so it would be hard to reach with heavy tools.
I knew that the boot could easily be cut off using either an angle grinder or a propane torch, but I did not have either of tools on hand. I also knew that liquid nitrogen could be used to freeze the metal making it easy to break or thermite could be used to burn the metal into liquid. However, I did not have either of these available.
I found that removing the boot without any tools was quite simple. I noticed that the prongs holding the boot in place was attached to the tire. So I let the air out of the tire and was able to slide the prongs off the tire, partially exposing the hubcab. At this point I could have removed half of the lug nuts, but that would not do me much good because I would still not be able to remove the rest of the lugs and remove the wheel. I tried pulling the boot off the wheel completely, but it would not come off. So I got behind the wheel of the car and drove it backwards a few inches, the bottom of the boot hit the street and the torque of the wheel against the boot popped the boot of the wheel completely.
I was free and I drove away laughing with the boot in my car and later pitched the boot into a dumpster knowing that I got the last laugh. I won’t park there anymore because next time they will resort to towing my car now that they know I can defeat their parking boots. However if I see anyone else booted in this parking lot I will share this secret with them.
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