Here’s a little friendly head’s up for anyone out there in the Charleston area with unpaid parking tickets: You may have recently read in the paper that the police have turned over the task of booting cars to the parking enforcement people — those people in the little go-karts who have a sixth sense for detecting the exact moment that a meter starts blinking red. There are people in town with thousands of dollars of unpaid parking tickets. The city has only three boots and three employees who are trained and authorized to do the booting. These fun facts might lead you to believe that the odds of your car getting booted for having only a few unpaid tickets are very low. You’d be wrong.
I had the joyous experience of walking out to my car this morning and finding a big yellow boot attached to the front wheel. Luckily, my boyfriend’s car was available, so I was able to run downtown immediately and pay the fines. When I got back home, these dudes were removing the boot:
Thanks, guys!
So beware, they’re not just targeting the big offenders. Getting the boot removed will run you an extra fifty bucks (and a headache), so I’d recommend you pay off those tickets, even if it’s only a handful. Or else hide your car in the bushes or something.*
(FYI: They apparently sent me a notice about the unpaid tickets to my old address, which, being my old address, I never received. So, you know, watch out for that too.)
* Disclaimer: Does not constitute legal advice.
Wait a minute … I took a picture of a car with a boot on it on Capitol Street. This wasn’t you was it?
http://not-my.blogspot.com/2007/08/end-for-now.html
Nope. The boot was put on my car right in front of my very own house. I don’t have a driveway so I park on the street, where they’re allowed to boot people.
But I heard another boot story that beats mine. An attorney in my office was downtown taking his daughter to an appointment, and he parked his car in a parking spot and left it running while he went in somewhere just for a couple of minutes. The traffic people came along and started putting a boot on his car — while it was running! His daughter didn’t know what to do. (Guess she didn’t have time to jump in the driver’s seat and drive away!) He had to immediately go get cash and pay the fine so he could get the boot off (and his fine was higher than mine).
Curious, I looked up the city ordinance regarding booting cars, and the rule is if a person has five or more unpaid parking tickets, they can boot or tow your car. I had the minimum — five tickets. You’d think they have bigger fish to fry than people with just five tickets. Maybe they’re picking on lawyers.