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Court Says Using Chalk on Tires for Parking Enforcement Violates Constitution

336 points by codezero 7y ago

krisrm 7y ago
Definitely not a lawyer, and I know a lot of places are moving to photo enforcement of parking anyway, but it's hard for me to understand why a chalk mark on a tire would be determined an "unreasonable" search by the court.
- codezero 7y ago
  It really feels like a stretch if you ask me. But since the car is private property, even though it's on a public road, the mark itself is an "action" taken by the police against your property despite not having committed any crime. I'm wondering how many other weird interpretations of this new ruling one could come up with where it would apply to a bunch of other things.
  - saynay 7y ago
    I wonder if they only marked the road, and not the vehicle, if that would be sufficient.
  - efraim 7y ago
    Would a police officer looking at tire tread depth also be considered an illegal search?
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      Anything in public and in plain sight is considered not a search wrt the 4th. Otherwise, cops could never be eyewitnesses in court.
    - abruzzi 7y ago
      Not if they had reason to believe that your tires were worn out. The problem is that your tire is being marked when there is no evidence that you will overstay your parking. Everyone is marked indiscriminately. At least, thats how I understood the description.
- SilasX 7y ago
  Ditto. I'm reminded of the practice of police officers touching the tail light at the start of a traffic stop to leave a mark of their presence as later evidence [1]. Is that a search too? A little colored talcum powder on the wheel seems like such a trivial, short-term intrusion that I just don't see the issue. Those perfume spraying salespeople at department stores routinely do something much more invasive. [1] http://mentalfloss.com/article/502605/reason-police-officers-tap-your-taillight-when-they-pull-you-over http://mentalfloss.com/article/502605/reason-police-officers...
  - floatingatoll 7y ago
    The various levels of governments are generally is not permitted “trivial, short-term intrusions”, regardless of the duration or triviality. Specific exceptions are permitted in certain circumstances, which is why (for example) firefighters can smash your windows and run a fire hose through them if you block a fire hydrant.
    - SilasX 7y ago
      You're either being overly pedantic or wrong. Why is a traffic stop limited to 20 minutes if the duration never matters? Why are DUI checkpoints? Edit: I'm well aware that circumstances can generate cause for intrusion, which, if we're going to be that pedantic, also refutes 'governments are generally is not permitted “trivial, short-term intrusions”, regardless of the duration or triviality.'
      - floatingatoll 7y ago
        Traffic stops are not limited to 20 minutes. They are limited to the time reasonably necessary to conclude the traffic stop and either release the driver or, with probable cause, escalate to investigation and/or arrest. Delays of far less than 20 minutes for the purpose of generating probable cause through drug dogs have been found illegal: https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/14/01/131176P.pdf https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/14/01/131176P.pdf DUI checkpoints were found by the Supreme Court to be a specific instance of permissible intrusion in service of the public good, as the benefits of the theoretically-impermissible search outweigh the trivial, short-term intrusion: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1436&context=plr https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=... Both cases clearly indicate that while the trivial, short-term intrusions are normally unacceptable, the public good in each circumstance outweighs the violation of constitutional rights. In the chalking case, the court found no cause sufficient to justify the violation. It seems likely it will be appealed to SCOTUS, which I’m quite looking forward to if they accept it! I encourage you to look up other such cases; I suspect you’ll find that violations of the general principle against any intrusion, regardless of duration, will be carefully scoped to ensure they cannot be generalized.
- rayiner 7y ago
  The 4th amendment requires a warrant for actions that would constitute a trespass at a common law. (Under modern interpretations, a warrant is required for some things that don't constitute a trespass, but most people agree that a warrant is required at least for things that are a trespass.) Chalking your car is a trespass to chattels (personal property) and so requires a warrant.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    Is there actual case law about someone being prosecuted for the trespass of putting chalk at the bottom of someone's tire? How about sneezing? What about leaving a fingerprint on someone's car, which (per my uncle comment) police routinely do without enough evidence for a search, and which ordinary people do all the time? Sticking a flyer in the windshield?
    - rayiner 7y ago
      The Court of Appeals cited the Restatement of Torts (a treatise articulating general principles of common law) for the definition of trespass to chattels: > In accordance with Jones, the threshold question is whether chalking constitutes common-law trespass upon a constitutionally protected area.Though Jonesdoes not provide clear boundaries for the meaning of common-law trespass, the Restatement offers some assistance. As defined by the Restatement, common-law trespass is “an act which brings [about] intended physical contact with a chattel in the possession of another.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 217 cmt. e (1965). Moreover, “[a]n actor may . . . commit a trespass by so acting upon a chattel as intentionally to cause it to come in contact with some other object.” Id.Adopting this definition, there has been a trespass in this case because the City made intentional physical contact with Taylor’s vehicle. As the district court properly found, this physical intrusion, regardless of how slight, constitutes common-law trespass. This is so,even though “no damage [is done] at all.” Jones, 565 U.S. at 405 (quoting Entickv. Carrington,95 Eng. Rep. 807, 817 (C.P.1765)) The Restatement explains, in Section 218, that liability for trespass generally requires some sort of injury or deprivation of use. So you can't sue someone just for touching your car. But it also explains in Section 217 that the trespass itself can occur absent injury or dispossession, and that trespass can have legal significance even if it is not directly actionable.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  The reasonableness of the search never really comes into factor though because there's no basis for the 'search', no suspicion of wrongdoing, so how minimally invasive it is doesn't matter.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Based on the text of the article, it sounds like the search is "unreasonable" because it is performed against cars that haven't done anything wrong. When they apply the chalk, the car is presumably under the parking limit. It's when they later check on the chalk that the car is over the limit.
  - deathanatos 7y ago
    When cars are stopped at a DUI checkpoint, the vast majority of the drivers haven't done anything wrong, and there's no reason to suspect any of them have done anything wrong. Nonetheless, such stops have been upheld as "reasonable". From Wikipedia[1], > The Supreme Court held that Michigan had a "substantial government interest" to advance in stopping drunk driving, and that this technique was rationally related to achieving that goal (though there was some evidence to the contrary). The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently). Applying a balancing test, then, the Court found that the Constitutionality of the search tilted in favor of the government. Assuming one agrees with that ruling, I'm not seeing how chalking cars isn't a sufficiently minimal "reasonable" search to allow the government to enforce things it has an interest in. (Assuming also that parking enforcement qualifies as a "substantial government interest" — which, IDK, perhaps it doesn't.) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_P...
    - tantalor 7y ago
      Chalking fails the balancing test because parking enforcement is about generating revenue, not public safety.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      I'm not providing a legal opinion, just my view of what it says in the news article. I have no opinion on the legality. From a practical perspective, I don't see any problem with chalking and I think this is a mistake on the part of the court.
codezero 7y ago
This is really interesting. The summary is that chalking a car is similar to attaching a GPS device without a warrant, and it violates fourth amendment rights. I imagine an easy workaround for this is to just take photos of the license plates with geolocation and have an app that can easily show you who was there ~ 1 hour ago. Probably less efficient initially, but I'm sure they could automate it.
- colordrops 7y ago
  I was under the assumption that they've been scanning license plates for a while now. I don't see chalk on tires in LA anymore. Could be wrong.
  - codezero 7y ago
    You are right, I think a lot of places have moved to this, but I think a lot of less resourced places like a town in Michigan don't yet have this technology at the ready.
- jrs235 7y ago
  Yup they have the photo taking, license plate reading technology in my city of 60,000 (metro 100,000). And now they also enforce the parking restrictions for the full 24 hours on the entire block face. No longer can you drive around the block to move your vehicle and [re]park on the same black face but in a different parking spot.
- grecy 7y ago
  > I imagine an easy workaround for this is to just take photos of the license plates with geolocation and have an app that can easily show you who was there ~ 1 hour ago Lots of towns in Canada have exactly that now - it's a vehicle with a ton of cameras on it that just endlessly drives around, and the system automatically issues a ticket to any vehicle it determines has been in the same place longer than permitted.
- jcadam 7y ago
  Oh good, so now cities will need to pay a contractor to develop, operate, and maintain some complex hardware/software solution to perform a task that was until now being easily and efficiently performed using a stick of chalk. Because... reasons. Hmm... I'll have to keep an eye out for the RFPs.
jbob2000 7y ago
Yep, chalk on your tires violates your rights. But if you are within 100 miles of a border, we can search everything in your car and on your persons no questions ask.
- reallydude 7y ago
  This ruling is bad for 2 reasons. 1. It's an example of unintended consequence. It changes no circumstance (same cop will just be running around snapping pictures), it makes it more costly for the inefficient government. GJ there. 2. You enter into an implicit contract when you voluntarily subject yourself to the statute of the limited parking (the code is on the signage). It's not unreasonable to be tracked for the purposes of enforcement, anymore than providing an ID for a vehicle license. This appears to be a strawman precedent (bad lawyering) that a higher court will casually reverse (that would be the supreme court). Next up, breathing on a citizen or observing clothing by a law enforcement officer can be construed as unreasonable via the 4th?
- bdamm 7y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. You raise an important point on the rather uneven application of justice when it comes to the expansion of police powers. After what, 60 years of chalking tires, the courts decide it is unconstitutional. But the CBP are free to confiscate your phone, and you may be searched on suspicion of harboring illegals. Nearly the entire US population lives within 100 miles of a border (or the coast!) and are subject to warrantless searches by DHS policy. Doesn't seem right.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    They're probably being downvoted because no sane person would believe it. Sounds like SovCit tinfoil-battery. Only trouble is, it is basically true. [1] While arbitrary warrantless search and seizure is in principle still forbidden except at the border crossings themselves, just about anything else the CBP does in its normal course of business is fair game elsewhere in the 100-mile zone. The courts have been reluctant to reign them in for whatever reason. [1] https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
javagram 7y ago
The logical solution would be for cities to switch to photographs and even automated cameras, which in the end will probably be more invasive of privacy than a chalk mark on your tires. Funny how the legal system can work sometimes.
- bunderbunder 7y ago
  The more logical solution, from the city's perspective, might be to just get rid of free-but-time-limited parking. Then parking meters could serve as both the enforcement mechanism and another revenue source.
  - steffan 7y ago
    The article is inconclusive on this point, but many cities have paid and time-limited parking. The same issue applies whether parking is free or paid. In some jurisdictions, the law states that you may not park in the same spot longer than a specified interval without moving your car. In order to determine whether a car has moved between successive passes of Parking Enforcement, chalk (or another method) is used to determine whether the car has moved. I have seen some cities that further prohibit parking anywhere on the same block after the time limit has expired; this eliminates have to determine whether the car has moved since you can't simply drive around the block and back to your initial space.
  - chongli 7y ago
    If they tried to do that then they'd have a massive protest by traffic enforcement people. They don't want that. If you look at almost any seemingly wasteful/pointless/inefficient thing a local government does, you're pretty much guaranteed to find jobs behind it. The very slight relief of annoyance from what these things cause to the general public is not enough to overcome the extreme outrage that occurs when a group of people lose their jobs.
    - nine_k 7y ago
      Why. Park, register with a meter. Your first 15 minutes are free, as they used to be. More time is paid time. Unregistered parking leads to an immediate ticket. Those who did not abuse the system continue to park for free, and may expect more vacant spaces.
ocdtrekkie 7y ago
I would much rather they chalk my tires than store my car's license plate and location in a database...
- lugg 7y ago
  I find it strange we the people for the people by the people don't just straight up outlaw things like this with an amendment. The constitution is a great document that lasted far longer than expected. And surprisingly holds up extremely well to modern era technological change. But I suspect the founding fathers would be down right horrified by the loss of privacy and liberty that has taken place in the name of safety. Why do they need chalk or a location database? Find a better solution that doesn't require loss of privacy. It's not hard even with tech from 50 years ago. We are supposedly at the pinnacle of civilization and knowledge. Yet we are not yet wise or skilled enough to question and alter that which governs us? I mean a lot has changed since then our understanding of the reasoning may have been loss but I suspect non breaking improvements may be a viable course of action.
  - jerf 7y ago
    Try to mentally write the amendment, then attack it like a security researcher/lawyer would. It's really hard to write such a provision without an "unless it's for a reasonable use" clause large enough to drive a truck through, and you can't just leave that one off either. It's not a bad exercise to try, though. (I fear opening the amendment process at this point, to be honest. I'd give good odds Amendment 28, no matter what it is, will be longer than the entire rest of the Constitution, with the way legislation has gone lately.)
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      Better yet, try and rewrite it from the perspective of an 18th century white man and see how it deals with over 200 years of technological progress.
      - jerf 7y ago
jrs235 7y ago
Instead of chalking the tire they can chalk the pavement just before and after the tires. Perhaps they could even write the license plate number on the pavement too.
- citizenkeen 7y ago
  The appeal of chalking the tires is you can do it pretty fast, and if the car moves, so does the chalk. Chalking the ground doesn't work - "I just got here. That was chalk from before." Chalking the license plate doesn't work, it takes way too much time to write out all the license plates .
  - penagwin 7y ago
    My understanding is that the chalking is mostly an aid for the parking people to keep tabs. "I just got here" can be used for any situation involving a ticket can't it? It's your word against the parking person anyway. > and if the car moves, so does the chalk. But the person handing out tickets would notice they moved. Or, if a person is trying that hard to evade tickets while still parking were they aren't supposed to, wouldn't they just wipe off the chalk?
    - function_seven 7y ago
      The chalk on the tread of the tire proves you didn't just get there, though. If you did, then it would not have been possible for the parking enforcement officer to have chalked it an hour ago. But if it's on the pavement, it's not crazy to imagine the marks were for a previous car, and that you parked in the same spot. Even the officer would be unsure of it.
      - jameshart 7y ago
        Chalk your own tires, it's the only way to be sure.
- mc32 7y ago
  They can also have a flat fee system $X/hr and afix that parking fee to your car then give you X days to pay, or they alternatively can require using an app to park at a spot. Or they can write city code to say in order to park on city property you volunteer this kind of “search” implicitly.
thefifthsetpin 7y ago
I suppose I'm happy that the fourth amendment was upheld, but from a privacy perspective I'm disheartened. A chalked tire was ephemeral. I doubt that whatever replaces it will be.
- kd5bjo 7y ago
  Given this ruling, the 2012 ruling about GPS trackers, and the ubiquity of number plate scanners, it’s possible someone could challenge the constitutionality of requiring license plates on vehicles — they’re not all black model Ts anymore, so there’s less need for the registration number to be visible a mile away.
  - ScottFree 7y ago
    If it goes that route, even the legality of using of drug sniffing dogs comes into question.
    - sgustard 7y ago
      I'd imagine drug dogs sniffing you while you walk down a public street to be unconstitutional. At airports, concert venues, and so on, it seems like you've already consented to being searched.
    - chrisdhoover 7y ago
      They should be unconstitutional.
      - ScottFree 7y ago
        According to whom?
        DINKDINK 7y ago
        If the state hasn't shown that an accused has committed a crime before the state trespassed but needs to trespass first to then dig up an ex-post justification for trespassing witch hunts develop.
ryanwhitney 7y ago
Would this extend to companies putting flyers under your windshield wipers? (Years ago—also in Michigan—I turned on my wipers and ended up with a littering citation. Probably still legit, but please don’t put trash on my car.)
- jrs235 7y ago
  No it wouldn't. Constitutionality involves the government, not companies. Your [specific] issue with companies is a civil matter. Whether what they do is criminal is an issue between them and the government (you can certainly call the police and file a complaint about the company littering/trespassing on your property though, but good luck with them doing much of anything).
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    Everything you said seems accurate. But I just want to point out a grey area: Where a private company is allowed to act a certain way via a government. I live in a snowy area. Which means regular plowing/snowblowing during the winter months. A local company started throwing "newspapers" (read: ads) onto everyone's driveway. These were rolled up paper in a plastic bag. They were distributed late in the evenings often getting buried by snow by the following morning, and then clog up or are thrown by snowblowers (and wind up in the streets causing littering, etc). In theory this is a civil issue between this private company and the property owner ("littering"). But in reality the local government green lit this, they made a specific exception for these ad companies to essentially liter on every resident's property, and because it is legal a lawsuit would likely be unsuccessful (at least until they cause property damage). So while constitutionality often only applies to government, we're slipping into a situation where private companies are allowed to do things by government and the constitution doesn't work either against the government (because the company did it) or the company (because the government allowed it).
    - deogeo 7y ago
      That exception could turn out to be unconstitutional if challenged.
hallman76 7y ago
Couldn't take the time to park legally then went out of her way to launch a lawsuit against the city. This is not community behavior. It's toxic.
- jupp0r 7y ago
  Something makes me think that that particular location doesn’t have abundant legal parking options available, which in turn is a community problem. I’m not defending her, but it’s a two sided coin.
  - jrs235 7y ago
    Why is it the public's responsibility to provide and offer people space on public right aways to [temporarily] store people's private property?
    - TheGRS 7y ago
      There's a common benefit to having spots available for businesses and other uses. Its sort of why we have parking meters in the first place, so people don't camp spots all day long.
      - jrs235 7y ago
        I get this. But this isn't a community problem. It's a community choice.
    - ohples 7y ago
      For free mind you (at least in this case)
    - jupp0r 7y ago
      For the same reason it's the public responsibility to provide infrastructure to get private property from A to B (roads), protect people's private property (police, military, firefighters), etc. It's just infrastructure.
- 7y ago
edoo 7y ago
I used to work in a government office when I was young. One of my jobs was every 165 minutes to go out and wipe the chalk marks off the tires of anyone in the department who parked on that wonderfully close to work street.
chungleong 7y ago
I suspect that this decision will get overturned. People don't have privacy expectations concerning the appearance of tires of their cars. Any member of the general public can come by and chalk your car. No specialized equipment is required. As I recall, that was the deciding factor when the SCOTUS ruled that finding pot-growers with the help of a an infrared camera was unconstitutional.
- jawns 7y ago
  > People don't have privacy expectations concerning the appearance of tires of their cars. My privacy expectation is that other people don't touch my car or put marks on any part of it without my permission. > Any member of the general public can come by and chalk your car. And they, too, would be doing something illegal.
- AcerbicZero 7y ago
  I don't believe the argument being used here is about expectations of privacy - its in regards to the trespassing of a police officer by interacting directly with your property.
  - chungleong 7y ago
    Your car is parked in a public space. A dog could walk by and mark it. No wanting something to happen is quite different from having a reasonable expectation it won't happen. Kyllo was decided by a narrow 5-4. That case was by far stronger. It involved a person's home, first of all. And as I mentioned, it involved the use of sophisticated equipment not generally possessed by the public. Without the camera, the police would have to enter the house to obtain the same information. One can therefore establish an equivalence between the two acts. In the present case, such equivalence does not exist. The police could conceivably just stare at the car for an hour or two. Chalking is thus only a time saver. It's not a search.
OliverJones 7y ago
My hometown uses license plate recognition. To pay for parking we put our license plates into the kiosk. The enforcement person has a gadget with camera instead of expired meters.
PaulHoule 7y ago
... now there was that time somebody noticed that the Sheriff always had a vehicle parked at the airport and was curious if it ever moved and proved that it didn't by chalking the tires.
viburnum 7y ago
Better to just ban cars completely.
ravenstine 7y ago
So then will they be violating the constitution when they place a ticket under my windshield wipers?
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  No, because presumbaly that doesn't count as a search, because they are not gathering information by performing the act.
kmm 7y ago
Is there a reason disc parking is not practiced in the US? Seems a lot less work than marking tires or keeping track of license plates. Are there any legal or other issues with it?
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  I have never seen it in the US. But the only counterpoint I could find seemed appropriate to post here; https://hackaday.com/2011/10/27/hacked-parking-disc-can-be-controlled-remotely/ https://hackaday.com/2011/10/27/hacked-parking-disc-can-be-c...
- Jach 7y ago
  Probably some combination of never hearing of such a thing (I just looked it up) and that the whole idea of directly paying for parking / time-limited parking is still offensive to many of us ("just build more parking lots") and doesn't exist in many places. Then after hearing about it an obvious objection is that it puts an extra burden on the driver to manage the thing even when they just want to pop-in/pop-out, and that if the level of abuse is actually a problem we might as well go all the way with a full blown pay-always approach.
rmason 7y ago
I'm left wondering if the ruling applies to cops using it on people who frequent bars? It's common practice at least in rural areas in Michigan to target cars in bar parking lots. If you're there for three hours they assume you will be leaving drunk so they put a chalk mark across your headlight. They park down the road and stop everyone with the mark on their headlight. It's not foolproof because people catch on and wipe down their headlights before leaving the bar ;<).
- jMyles 7y ago
  > It's not foolproof because people catch on and wipe down their headlights before leaving the bar. There are many reasons it's not foolproof, chiefly among them that leaving a bar is not a basis for knowing that someone is over the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle. The driver might well be a DD.
- bluedino 7y ago
  The 2 hour rule goes away after 6pm but you can still be ticketed for parking overnight.
bluedino 7y ago
Here's a link to the local news story about this topic: https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-court-rules-chalking-tires-violates-fourth-amendment.html:wq https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-...
- paradoja 7y ago
  Fixed link: https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-court-rules-chalking-tires-violates-fourth-amendment.html https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-... There was a :wq at the end (too much vim everywhere ;) ).
dboreham 7y ago
Always wondered about this.. ..only kidding, of course I didn't. It's silly.
pmcollins 7y ago
I used to listen to a radio show hosted by a law professor and iirc he said that airport security doesn't violate the privacy amendment because you don't have to fly. When you choose to fly you implicitly wave those rights. How is this different?
- jrs235 7y ago
  Probably buried in a clause in your carrier contract. Don't fly commercial (fly your own plane or charter through general aviation not CAT, commercial air transport) and you can avoid searches.
- tantalor 7y ago
  Basically, yes: 9th Circuit Court rules on U.S. vs Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908... airport screenings are considered to be administrative searches because they are conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme, where the essential administrative purpose is to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft ... are allowed if no more intrusive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect weapons or explosives, confined in good faith to that purpose, and passengers may avoid the search by electing not to fly https://flyingwithfish.boardingarea.com/2010/11/20/how-the-tsa-legally-circumvents-the-fourth-amendment/comment-page-1 https://flyingwithfish.boardingarea.com/2010/11/20/how-the-t...
wingspar 7y ago
Perhaps they can chalk the curb instead? 'Bracket' the tire(s) with marks on the curb, and a "code" indicating where the valve stem
couchdive 7y ago
But infrared pictures of your license plate ran through private corporations databases are not. The future is grand
zelon88 7y ago
The car has a unique identifier already. Several of them infact. I don't see how chalking could have ever been an option on the table. Why do you need to touch someone's car to identify it? A notepad and a pen would suffice, no? EXAMPLE ST. - 8am -Green honda AAB-234 -Red Toyota 22F-554 -Blue Land Rover 9JG-532 EXAMPLE ST. - 9am -Green Honda AAB-234 <- Getting a ticket -Yellow Nissan BB5-K25 <- New, no ticket -Blue Land Rover 9JG-532 <- Getting a ticket I mean it really is that easy and it takes about the same amount of time, perhaps a little more diligence. It's sad that we need to govern for the lowest common denominator. If the civil servants weren't so lazy/disinterested/uneducated this wouldn't have cost the city as much money as it did to resolve.
- sfink 7y ago
  Try it. See how many plate numbers you can write down in half an hour. (To be fair, you'd need to read and compare those plate numbers too.) Then see how many tires you can mark with chalk on a stick in the same amount of time. As a taxpayer, I'd rather not pay for the difference in staff.
zelon88 7y ago
Honestly paying for parking is an insult in the first place. Here in MA to drive a car you have to pay..... 1. Sales tax, whether you bought the car out-of-state or not. This is calculated by the RMV and NOT by your bill of sale. So if MA thinks your $500 car is worth $3,000 you're paying 6.25% of $3k. 2. Registration fees that go up every year. This pays for the 4 hours you have to sit at the RMV watching people who get paid $30/hour help one person every 15 minutes. 3. Private insurance, which is required. Lots of out-of-state policies aren't eligible, so we see ads on TV for competetive policies from Progressive, Geiko, ect yet nobody in MA is eligible to buy them. It's worth it to note that state vehicles don't need insurance as they are "self-insured." So if you crash into a cop you or your insurance will pay 100% but if a cop crashes into you the town and its taxpayers get to pay 100%. 4. We have toll booths all over the fucking place yet we still have some of the worst paved road conditions in the country. Anyone who has visited Cambridge MA can attest to this. 5. We pay yearly excise tax on each vehicle to the town we live in. 6. Exorbiant state fuel tax (27th highest in the nation). How much more can they charge us for infrastructure without actually having to invest anything on infrastructure? On top of property and income tax and sales tax and excise tax you've gotta pay $3 to park on a public street.....
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > 6. Exorbiant state fuel tax (27th highest in the nation). Sounds more like a median state fuel tax.
  - zelon88 7y ago
    All by itself sure. Other states usually go one way or another. Tax more here but a little less over there. MA taxes everything across the board. After factoring in all the other expenses you can easily stand back and call the whole ensemble exorbitant.
    - codyb 7y ago
      Hmm. Well. Let’s see. 5th best healthcare out of the fifty states according to [0]. 1st best education system [1]. 7th by median household income [2]. Wow! 45th on the infrastructure list [3]. 37th on inequality [4]. So, seems like you get what you pay for. My guess is that all those plains states have less people and less infrastructure to maintain in general, and with great opportunities also comes great inequality in some instances. I did not read a word on any of the linked articles besides rank as I’m at work. But it seems interesting, and I didn’t skip over the ones that surprised me. [0] - https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care [1] - https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... [3] - https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastruct... [4] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_...
nsuser3 7y ago
Off-topic, but I really like that the website offers a text-only version without tracking.
rubyn00bie 7y ago
<rant> So can I retroactively sue the Berkeley municipality? I'm not joking (...okay I am). I've gotten a fucking ticket literally every time I've been in Berkley because they don't keep track of WHO marks your tires or WHERE they fucking mark them. The city also refuses to at all harbor the mere concept of a mistake by their own... </end-rant> And yes I know I ain't ever getting my money back from the city of Berkeley.
not2b 7y ago
Even if this ruling is upheld, parking enforcement will just switch to using photos or license plate readers. At least in an area that uses chalking for enforcement, if your car hasn't been marked, you'll over the time limit but you can't leave immediately, you know you have a little more time. No such luck when you don't know whether your car's license plate # has already been recorded.
intrasight 7y ago
I had a very pleasant experience with "Parking Enforcement" in a commercial district outside of Pittsburgh recently. I had either forgot to put money in the meter or it ran out. Got back to my car to find a ticket. The fine was only a dollar and I think it was voluntary. On the ticket was printed a note explaining that the business community really values people coming to visit and so doesn't want to annoy those people with high parking rates or ticket fines. It was the most pleasant parking ticket experience I could imagine.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Just think about how many people over the years haven't decided that was a good place to clean out the trash from their cars after receiving such a nice ticket.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  What bizarre machinations of Moloch; "we decided to fine you, but then we decided to not fine you, so we had to settle on fining you as little as possible while still fining you because we have to fine you or there wouldn't be a reason for this sub-sub-department of us to exist."
  - intrasight 7y ago
    Yeah. I'd like to have seen how that compromised between business owners and the traffic police was negotiated.
  - spbaar 7y ago
    Bureaucracy being lenient and reasonable can look a little dystopian. I'll take it.
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    The question is, does it significantly reduce the number of people overstaying on the parking spot? A good use of parking meters is to ensure shared access to a limited parking resource. You can't just park your car all day there. You have to keep going back every hour to fill the meter, which means that you will usually leave and let someone else park there for a while. The amount of the fine is irrelevant. It's just an annoyance to ensure that you realise the need to share the resource. If it does that, then the smaller the fine, the better.
titzer 7y ago
They can't chalk your tires but they can get a location trace from your mobile phone just because you were close to the wrong place at the wrong time. Pfft.
knicholes 7y ago
So who is going to create the app that helps cops track how long a vehicle has been present in an area?
- ben509 7y ago
  Already done in DC. https://twitter.com/howsmydrivingdc?lang=en https://twitter.com/howsmydrivingdc?lang=en
HillaryBriss 7y ago
this is a big day for chalk stories on HN
Pxtl 7y ago
Didn't the whole "drinking and driving" thing establish that the 14th amendment is limited when it comes to the complicated relationship between a private vehicle on publicly-owned roads? I can see the argument that a GPS tracking device crosses the line because the intent is to track the owner of the vehicle and the scope is far beyond their interaction with the public roadway. But on this? It's directly about your usage of the public roadway for storage purposes.
- epylar 7y ago
  This case seems to be more about the 4th amendment.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    It's about the rights in the Fourth as incorporated against the states by the Fourteenth, just like DUI stop cases, but the safety factors at issue in the DUI (and other traffic) stop cases that have been held to make limited stops reasonable without cause short of probable cause do not seem to apply to the case here.
tareqak 7y ago
What about people who stick flyers under windshield wipers? Isn't that also a physical trespass? What about dropping flyers into open car windows, or into convertible cars with the hood down? Will cities start having "chalk notices" similar to cookie notices that websites have saying that you consent to having your car wheels chalked by using this parking space?
- kelnos 7y ago
  People who stick flyers under windshield wipers aren't government entities, so they aren't bound by constitutional notions of what is and isn't a reasonable search. Having said that, I really wish this practice was considered a form of property damage or defacement, maybe littering, or at least, as you suggest, a form of trespass.
- ummonk 7y ago
  Both of those are physical trespass, yes.
cheriot 7y ago
Seems like there's a simple solution to be found here. Don't put the chalk mark on the car, put it on the city owned street underneath it.
michelpp 7y ago
20 years ago Portland, Oregon used to chalk tires and had coin fed meters in downtown. And a fleet of go-cart driving officers for the rest of the city. Around that time the city started moving to electronic meters in downtown that produced a printed ticket with a time that you were required to post on a street facing window. There was the usual city waste and political kickbacks iirc, at least one city employee got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Now the traffic enforcement officers have a handheld plate scanner, on each end of every block the parking enforcement signs have a QR-like code on the back that the officers first scan, then they go down the block scanning every car, then they scan the sign at the other end. This defines a complete audit trail of the officers movement with respect to every block and every car. Using this technique, they not only scan for expired tickets, but can also issue citations for expired plates, previously unpaid tickets, warrants for outstanding criminals (in which they notify city police) and even summon a boot or tow truck. I suspect that all cities that use chalk now will eventually move to some fully automated system like this. Perhaps not even ticket printing machines, just cameras looking down at all the cars, watching them (and you) come and go. Stay too long, and you get a ticket in the mail. Have a warrent on you an the police are there waiting when you return. The upshot for them? Besides the usual hands in cookie jars like in Portland, they won't have to pay all those traffic enforcement officers.
- baldfat 7y ago
  My city about 10 years ago have a car that drives with a camera scans every plate and with a GPS location. You have to move your car about 2 feet and you are fine. They also moved away from towing to a boot. If your on a boot for 48+ hours then they tow. $50 for the boot to be removed or $275 for the tow and $85 per day in parking.
- brownbat 7y ago
  Reminds me of tolls. It makes me comically angry that our toll roads require RFID equipment in most cars and slow cash lanes for people without. The fallback for people running the toll booth is to automatically take a photo of the plate and send the owner a bill. Why not just use the fallback system as the primary system? You already have the equipment to collect tolls automatically. Why do I need to glue something to my window or wait in a long line to pay cash? Comically angry because I know this is "old man yells at cloud" territory.
cromulent 7y ago
A lot of places in Europe just use a parking disk. No chalking, no second check needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_parking
- ghostly_s 7y ago
  Ah, so, the honor system.
  - finnh 7y ago
    Not quite - if you try to game the system by post dating your arrival time, and the disc is checked quickly enough, the enforcer will see the disc time is ahead of the current time = ticket.
    - em-bee 7y ago
      but you could come back after an hour and update the time
      - finnh 7y ago
        and you can wipe chalk off your tires after an hour, too.
- dyhtf 7y ago
  That couldn't possibly work in a country with so many black people.
- stendinator 7y ago
  I have seen officers making notes of how the tires are aligned so they know whether the car has been moved when they come by a second time. (Seen in DACH countries)
  - _archon_ 7y ago
    What's to say you didn't leave and return and your wheels are in roughly the same configuration?
atomical 7y ago
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19724969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19724969
sytelus 7y ago
Legally speaking, city could have easily argued that parking space is not a private property and therefore they can easily enforce an agreement to be chalked. I wouldn't like this but the thing is that 4AM cannot be applied if you willingly relocated your private property in to a place that is not owned by you. This is the principle (I think) behind government able to search in whatever way they deem fit at airport because airport is not your private property. If supreme court upholds this then things would become very messy for the government.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Legally speaking, city could have easily argued that parking space is not a private property and therefore they can easily enforce an agreement to be chalked. They could perhaps enforce such an agreement, if the agreement existed. > I wouldn't like this but the thing is that 4AM cannot be applied if you willingly relocated your private property in to a place that is not owned by you. No, the fourth Amendment doesn't go away on public property, generally. > This is the principle (I think) behind government able to search in whatever way they deem fit at airport because airport is not your private property. It's not. A variety of administrative search criteria together with the “grave and urgent” need to prevent hijackings is, and it's not unlimited. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/482/482.F2d.893.71-2993.html https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/482/482.F2d...
- torstenvl 7y ago
  "[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) (internal citations omitted) available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/389/347 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/389/347.
thomasjudge 7y ago
If tire chalking constitutes an unconstitutional seizure, I wonder when we will see followup suits over towing and booting
- sfink 7y ago
  No, because that only happens when there's reasonable belief that you are breaking a law.
negativez 7y ago
There are two obvious possible solutions to this from the city: (1) tiny print on the parking signs that says you consent to be chalked, creating an explicit contract (2) sell the rights to manage the city's parking to a private entity using private contractors to chalk with no prescription on methodology, rendering the "search" non-governmental in nature
plcancel 7y ago
No more having to clear parking cookies, at least.
tsjq 7y ago
someone please ELI5: what purpose does the chalking serve , in the parking enforcement ?
- schwede 7y ago
  Chalk on the tires marks the time the parking officer saw the car. If they come back to that car, they can know it’s been parked there over the time limit.
jrochkind1 7y ago
On the other hand, imprisoning people for fleeing danger and seeking refuge without the rights we even give other people arrested before trial who are actually accused of a crime, stealing their babies and putting them in cages or giving them away to Christians, all that is totally fine under the 4th ammendment and the rest of the Constitution. Thank God we live in a free country!
sfink 7y ago
My immediate alternative would be to drop a grape behind a tire. Though the fact that it's edible is problematic. The rats (with and without wings) would enjoy my scheme. Still, any cheap inedible alternative would work. As long as, when you squish it, it stays squished. But that leads me to think: why not build it into the parking spaces? Glue something down that takes just over 2 hours to fully reinflate. Would need to be wide enough to ensure it gets run over. Probably want to be clever and make the reinflation not appear to be linear - once it gets to a certain point, it would stand itself up or something. Would be fun to design.
phyzome 7y ago
It's also quite possible that this will be overturned. Seems kinda bonkers to me.

336 points by codezero 7y ago

Definitely not a lawyer, and I know a lot of places are moving to photo enforcement of parking anyway, but it's hard for me to understand why a chalk mark on a tire would be determined an "unreasonable" search by the court.

codezero 7y ago
It really feels like a stretch if you ask me. But since the car is private property, even though it's on a public road, the mark itself is an "action" taken by the police against your property despite not having committed any crime. I'm wondering how many other weird interpretations of this new ruling one could come up with where it would apply to a bunch of other things.
- saynay 7y ago
  I wonder if they only marked the road, and not the vehicle, if that would be sufficient.
- efraim 7y ago
  Would a police officer looking at tire tread depth also be considered an illegal search?
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Anything in public and in plain sight is considered not a search wrt the 4th. Otherwise, cops could never be eyewitnesses in court.
  - abruzzi 7y ago
    Not if they had reason to believe that your tires were worn out. The problem is that your tire is being marked when there is no evidence that you will overstay your parking. Everyone is marked indiscriminately. At least, thats how I understood the description.
SilasX 7y ago
Ditto. I'm reminded of the practice of police officers touching the tail light at the start of a traffic stop to leave a mark of their presence as later evidence [1]. Is that a search too? A little colored talcum powder on the wheel seems like such a trivial, short-term intrusion that I just don't see the issue. Those perfume spraying salespeople at department stores routinely do something much more invasive. [1] http://mentalfloss.com/article/502605/reason-police-officers-tap-your-taillight-when-they-pull-you-over http://mentalfloss.com/article/502605/reason-police-officers...
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  The various levels of governments are generally is not permitted “trivial, short-term intrusions”, regardless of the duration or triviality. Specific exceptions are permitted in certain circumstances, which is why (for example) firefighters can smash your windows and run a fire hose through them if you block a fire hydrant.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    You're either being overly pedantic or wrong. Why is a traffic stop limited to 20 minutes if the duration never matters? Why are DUI checkpoints? Edit: I'm well aware that circumstances can generate cause for intrusion, which, if we're going to be that pedantic, also refutes 'governments are generally is not permitted “trivial, short-term intrusions”, regardless of the duration or triviality.'
    - floatingatoll 7y ago
      Traffic stops are not limited to 20 minutes. They are limited to the time reasonably necessary to conclude the traffic stop and either release the driver or, with probable cause, escalate to investigation and/or arrest. Delays of far less than 20 minutes for the purpose of generating probable cause through drug dogs have been found illegal: https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/14/01/131176P.pdf https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/14/01/131176P.pdf DUI checkpoints were found by the Supreme Court to be a specific instance of permissible intrusion in service of the public good, as the benefits of the theoretically-impermissible search outweigh the trivial, short-term intrusion: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1436&context=plr https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=... Both cases clearly indicate that while the trivial, short-term intrusions are normally unacceptable, the public good in each circumstance outweighs the violation of constitutional rights. In the chalking case, the court found no cause sufficient to justify the violation. It seems likely it will be appealed to SCOTUS, which I’m quite looking forward to if they accept it! I encourage you to look up other such cases; I suspect you’ll find that violations of the general principle against any intrusion, regardless of duration, will be carefully scoped to ensure they cannot be generalized.
rayiner 7y ago
The 4th amendment requires a warrant for actions that would constitute a trespass at a common law. (Under modern interpretations, a warrant is required for some things that don't constitute a trespass, but most people agree that a warrant is required at least for things that are a trespass.) Chalking your car is a trespass to chattels (personal property) and so requires a warrant.
- SilasX 7y ago
  Is there actual case law about someone being prosecuted for the trespass of putting chalk at the bottom of someone's tire? How about sneezing? What about leaving a fingerprint on someone's car, which (per my uncle comment) police routinely do without enough evidence for a search, and which ordinary people do all the time? Sticking a flyer in the windshield?
  - rayiner 7y ago
    The Court of Appeals cited the Restatement of Torts (a treatise articulating general principles of common law) for the definition of trespass to chattels: > In accordance with Jones, the threshold question is whether chalking constitutes common-law trespass upon a constitutionally protected area.Though Jonesdoes not provide clear boundaries for the meaning of common-law trespass, the Restatement offers some assistance. As defined by the Restatement, common-law trespass is “an act which brings [about] intended physical contact with a chattel in the possession of another.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 217 cmt. e (1965). Moreover, “[a]n actor may . . . commit a trespass by so acting upon a chattel as intentionally to cause it to come in contact with some other object.” Id.Adopting this definition, there has been a trespass in this case because the City made intentional physical contact with Taylor’s vehicle. As the district court properly found, this physical intrusion, regardless of how slight, constitutes common-law trespass. This is so,even though “no damage [is done] at all.” Jones, 565 U.S. at 405 (quoting Entickv. Carrington,95 Eng. Rep. 807, 817 (C.P.1765)) The Restatement explains, in Section 218, that liability for trespass generally requires some sort of injury or deprivation of use. So you can't sue someone just for touching your car. But it also explains in Section 217 that the trespass itself can occur absent injury or dispossession, and that trespass can have legal significance even if it is not directly actionable.
rtkwe 7y ago
The reasonableness of the search never really comes into factor though because there's no basis for the 'search', no suspicion of wrongdoing, so how minimally invasive it is doesn't matter.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
Based on the text of the article, it sounds like the search is "unreasonable" because it is performed against cars that haven't done anything wrong. When they apply the chalk, the car is presumably under the parking limit. It's when they later check on the chalk that the car is over the limit.
- deathanatos 7y ago
  When cars are stopped at a DUI checkpoint, the vast majority of the drivers haven't done anything wrong, and there's no reason to suspect any of them have done anything wrong. Nonetheless, such stops have been upheld as "reasonable". From Wikipedia[1], > The Supreme Court held that Michigan had a "substantial government interest" to advance in stopping drunk driving, and that this technique was rationally related to achieving that goal (though there was some evidence to the contrary). The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently). Applying a balancing test, then, the Court found that the Constitutionality of the search tilted in favor of the government. Assuming one agrees with that ruling, I'm not seeing how chalking cars isn't a sufficiently minimal "reasonable" search to allow the government to enforce things it has an interest in. (Assuming also that parking enforcement qualifies as a "substantial government interest" — which, IDK, perhaps it doesn't.) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_P...
  - tantalor 7y ago
    Chalking fails the balancing test because parking enforcement is about generating revenue, not public safety.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I'm not providing a legal opinion, just my view of what it says in the news article. I have no opinion on the legality. From a practical perspective, I don't see any problem with chalking and I think this is a mistake on the part of the court.

codezero 7y ago

This is really interesting. The summary is that chalking a car is similar to attaching a GPS device without a warrant, and it violates fourth amendment rights. I imagine an easy workaround for this is to just take photos of the license plates with geolocation and have an app that can easily show you who was there ~ 1 hour ago. Probably less efficient initially, but I'm sure they could automate it.

colordrops 7y ago
I was under the assumption that they've been scanning license plates for a while now. I don't see chalk on tires in LA anymore. Could be wrong.
- codezero 7y ago
  You are right, I think a lot of places have moved to this, but I think a lot of less resourced places like a town in Michigan don't yet have this technology at the ready.
jrs235 7y ago
Yup they have the photo taking, license plate reading technology in my city of 60,000 (metro 100,000). And now they also enforce the parking restrictions for the full 24 hours on the entire block face. No longer can you drive around the block to move your vehicle and [re]park on the same black face but in a different parking spot.
grecy 7y ago
> I imagine an easy workaround for this is to just take photos of the license plates with geolocation and have an app that can easily show you who was there ~ 1 hour ago Lots of towns in Canada have exactly that now - it's a vehicle with a ton of cameras on it that just endlessly drives around, and the system automatically issues a ticket to any vehicle it determines has been in the same place longer than permitted.
jcadam 7y ago
Oh good, so now cities will need to pay a contractor to develop, operate, and maintain some complex hardware/software solution to perform a task that was until now being easily and efficiently performed using a stick of chalk. Because... reasons. Hmm... I'll have to keep an eye out for the RFPs.

jbob2000 7y ago

Yep, chalk on your tires violates your rights. But if you are within 100 miles of a border, we can search everything in your car and on your persons no questions ask.

reallydude 7y ago
This ruling is bad for 2 reasons. 1. It's an example of unintended consequence. It changes no circumstance (same cop will just be running around snapping pictures), it makes it more costly for the inefficient government. GJ there. 2. You enter into an implicit contract when you voluntarily subject yourself to the statute of the limited parking (the code is on the signage). It's not unreasonable to be tracked for the purposes of enforcement, anymore than providing an ID for a vehicle license. This appears to be a strawman precedent (bad lawyering) that a higher court will casually reverse (that would be the supreme court). Next up, breathing on a citizen or observing clothing by a law enforcement officer can be construed as unreasonable via the 4th?
bdamm 7y ago
I don't know why you're being downvoted. You raise an important point on the rather uneven application of justice when it comes to the expansion of police powers. After what, 60 years of chalking tires, the courts decide it is unconstitutional. But the CBP are free to confiscate your phone, and you may be searched on suspicion of harboring illegals. Nearly the entire US population lives within 100 miles of a border (or the coast!) and are subject to warrantless searches by DHS policy. Doesn't seem right.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  They're probably being downvoted because no sane person would believe it. Sounds like SovCit tinfoil-battery. Only trouble is, it is basically true. [1] While arbitrary warrantless search and seizure is in principle still forbidden except at the border crossings themselves, just about anything else the CBP does in its normal course of business is fair game elsewhere in the 100-mile zone. The courts have been reluctant to reign them in for whatever reason. [1] https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

javagram 7y ago

The logical solution would be for cities to switch to photographs and even automated cameras, which in the end will probably be more invasive of privacy than a chalk mark on your tires. Funny how the legal system can work sometimes.

bunderbunder 7y ago
The more logical solution, from the city's perspective, might be to just get rid of free-but-time-limited parking. Then parking meters could serve as both the enforcement mechanism and another revenue source.
- steffan 7y ago
  The article is inconclusive on this point, but many cities have paid and time-limited parking. The same issue applies whether parking is free or paid. In some jurisdictions, the law states that you may not park in the same spot longer than a specified interval without moving your car. In order to determine whether a car has moved between successive passes of Parking Enforcement, chalk (or another method) is used to determine whether the car has moved. I have seen some cities that further prohibit parking anywhere on the same block after the time limit has expired; this eliminates have to determine whether the car has moved since you can't simply drive around the block and back to your initial space.
- chongli 7y ago
  If they tried to do that then they'd have a massive protest by traffic enforcement people. They don't want that. If you look at almost any seemingly wasteful/pointless/inefficient thing a local government does, you're pretty much guaranteed to find jobs behind it. The very slight relief of annoyance from what these things cause to the general public is not enough to overcome the extreme outrage that occurs when a group of people lose their jobs.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    Why. Park, register with a meter. Your first 15 minutes are free, as they used to be. More time is paid time. Unregistered parking leads to an immediate ticket. Those who did not abuse the system continue to park for free, and may expect more vacant spaces.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

I would much rather they chalk my tires than store my car's license plate and location in a database...

lugg 7y ago
I find it strange we the people for the people by the people don't just straight up outlaw things like this with an amendment. The constitution is a great document that lasted far longer than expected. And surprisingly holds up extremely well to modern era technological change. But I suspect the founding fathers would be down right horrified by the loss of privacy and liberty that has taken place in the name of safety. Why do they need chalk or a location database? Find a better solution that doesn't require loss of privacy. It's not hard even with tech from 50 years ago. We are supposedly at the pinnacle of civilization and knowledge. Yet we are not yet wise or skilled enough to question and alter that which governs us? I mean a lot has changed since then our understanding of the reasoning may have been loss but I suspect non breaking improvements may be a viable course of action.
- jerf 7y ago
  Try to mentally write the amendment, then attack it like a security researcher/lawyer would. It's really hard to write such a provision without an "unless it's for a reasonable use" clause large enough to drive a truck through, and you can't just leave that one off either. It's not a bad exercise to try, though. (I fear opening the amendment process at this point, to be honest. I'd give good odds Amendment 28, no matter what it is, will be longer than the entire rest of the Constitution, with the way legislation has gone lately.)
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Better yet, try and rewrite it from the perspective of an 18th century white man and see how it deals with over 200 years of technological progress.
    - jerf 7y ago

jrs235 7y ago

Instead of chalking the tire they can chalk the pavement just before and after the tires. Perhaps they could even write the license plate number on the pavement too.

citizenkeen 7y ago
The appeal of chalking the tires is you can do it pretty fast, and if the car moves, so does the chalk. Chalking the ground doesn't work - "I just got here. That was chalk from before." Chalking the license plate doesn't work, it takes way too much time to write out all the license plates .
- penagwin 7y ago
  My understanding is that the chalking is mostly an aid for the parking people to keep tabs. "I just got here" can be used for any situation involving a ticket can't it? It's your word against the parking person anyway. > and if the car moves, so does the chalk. But the person handing out tickets would notice they moved. Or, if a person is trying that hard to evade tickets while still parking were they aren't supposed to, wouldn't they just wipe off the chalk?
  - function_seven 7y ago
    The chalk on the tread of the tire proves you didn't just get there, though. If you did, then it would not have been possible for the parking enforcement officer to have chalked it an hour ago. But if it's on the pavement, it's not crazy to imagine the marks were for a previous car, and that you parked in the same spot. Even the officer would be unsure of it.
    - jameshart 7y ago
      Chalk your own tires, it's the only way to be sure.
mc32 7y ago
They can also have a flat fee system $X/hr and afix that parking fee to your car then give you X days to pay, or they alternatively can require using an app to park at a spot. Or they can write city code to say in order to park on city property you volunteer this kind of “search” implicitly.

thefifthsetpin 7y ago

I suppose I'm happy that the fourth amendment was upheld, but from a privacy perspective I'm disheartened. A chalked tire was ephemeral. I doubt that whatever replaces it will be.

kd5bjo 7y ago
Given this ruling, the 2012 ruling about GPS trackers, and the ubiquity of number plate scanners, it’s possible someone could challenge the constitutionality of requiring license plates on vehicles — they’re not all black model Ts anymore, so there’s less need for the registration number to be visible a mile away.
- ScottFree 7y ago
  If it goes that route, even the legality of using of drug sniffing dogs comes into question.
  - sgustard 7y ago
    I'd imagine drug dogs sniffing you while you walk down a public street to be unconstitutional. At airports, concert venues, and so on, it seems like you've already consented to being searched.
  - chrisdhoover 7y ago
    They should be unconstitutional.
    - ScottFree 7y ago
      According to whom?
      - DINKDINK 7y ago
        If the state hasn't shown that an accused has committed a crime before the state trespassed but needs to trespass first to then dig up an ex-post justification for trespassing witch hunts develop.

ryanwhitney 7y ago

Would this extend to companies putting flyers under your windshield wipers? (Years ago—also in Michigan—I turned on my wipers and ended up with a littering citation. Probably still legit, but please don’t put trash on my car.)

jrs235 7y ago
No it wouldn't. Constitutionality involves the government, not companies. Your [specific] issue with companies is a civil matter. Whether what they do is criminal is an issue between them and the government (you can certainly call the police and file a complaint about the company littering/trespassing on your property though, but good luck with them doing much of anything).
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Everything you said seems accurate. But I just want to point out a grey area: Where a private company is allowed to act a certain way via a government. I live in a snowy area. Which means regular plowing/snowblowing during the winter months. A local company started throwing "newspapers" (read: ads) onto everyone's driveway. These were rolled up paper in a plastic bag. They were distributed late in the evenings often getting buried by snow by the following morning, and then clog up or are thrown by snowblowers (and wind up in the streets causing littering, etc). In theory this is a civil issue between this private company and the property owner ("littering"). But in reality the local government green lit this, they made a specific exception for these ad companies to essentially liter on every resident's property, and because it is legal a lawsuit would likely be unsuccessful (at least until they cause property damage). So while constitutionality often only applies to government, we're slipping into a situation where private companies are allowed to do things by government and the constitution doesn't work either against the government (because the company did it) or the company (because the government allowed it).
  - deogeo 7y ago
    That exception could turn out to be unconstitutional if challenged.

hallman76 7y ago

Couldn't take the time to park legally then went out of her way to launch a lawsuit against the city. This is not community behavior. It's toxic.

jupp0r 7y ago
Something makes me think that that particular location doesn’t have abundant legal parking options available, which in turn is a community problem. I’m not defending her, but it’s a two sided coin.
- jrs235 7y ago
  Why is it the public's responsibility to provide and offer people space on public right aways to [temporarily] store people's private property?
  - TheGRS 7y ago
    There's a common benefit to having spots available for businesses and other uses. Its sort of why we have parking meters in the first place, so people don't camp spots all day long.
    - jrs235 7y ago
      I get this. But this isn't a community problem. It's a community choice.
  - ohples 7y ago
    For free mind you (at least in this case)
  - jupp0r 7y ago
    For the same reason it's the public responsibility to provide infrastructure to get private property from A to B (roads), protect people's private property (police, military, firefighters), etc. It's just infrastructure.
7y ago

edoo 7y ago

I used to work in a government office when I was young. One of my jobs was every 165 minutes to go out and wipe the chalk marks off the tires of anyone in the department who parked on that wonderfully close to work street.

chungleong 7y ago

I suspect that this decision will get overturned. People don't have privacy expectations concerning the appearance of tires of their cars. Any member of the general public can come by and chalk your car. No specialized equipment is required. As I recall, that was the deciding factor when the SCOTUS ruled that finding pot-growers with the help of a an infrared camera was unconstitutional.

jawns 7y ago
> People don't have privacy expectations concerning the appearance of tires of their cars. My privacy expectation is that other people don't touch my car or put marks on any part of it without my permission. > Any member of the general public can come by and chalk your car. And they, too, would be doing something illegal.
AcerbicZero 7y ago
I don't believe the argument being used here is about expectations of privacy - its in regards to the trespassing of a police officer by interacting directly with your property.
- chungleong 7y ago
  Your car is parked in a public space. A dog could walk by and mark it. No wanting something to happen is quite different from having a reasonable expectation it won't happen. Kyllo was decided by a narrow 5-4. That case was by far stronger. It involved a person's home, first of all. And as I mentioned, it involved the use of sophisticated equipment not generally possessed by the public. Without the camera, the police would have to enter the house to obtain the same information. One can therefore establish an equivalence between the two acts. In the present case, such equivalence does not exist. The police could conceivably just stare at the car for an hour or two. Chalking is thus only a time saver. It's not a search.

OliverJones 7y ago

My hometown uses license plate recognition. To pay for parking we put our license plates into the kiosk. The enforcement person has a gadget with camera instead of expired meters.

PaulHoule 7y ago

... now there was that time somebody noticed that the Sheriff always had a vehicle parked at the airport and was curious if it ever moved and proved that it didn't by chalking the tires.

viburnum 7y ago

Better to just ban cars completely.

ravenstine 7y ago

So then will they be violating the constitution when they place a ticket under my windshield wipers?

oh_sigh 7y ago
No, because presumbaly that doesn't count as a search, because they are not gathering information by performing the act.

kmm 7y ago

Is there a reason disc parking is not practiced in the US? Seems a lot less work than marking tires or keeping track of license plates. Are there any legal or other issues with it?

whenchamenia 7y ago
I have never seen it in the US. But the only counterpoint I could find seemed appropriate to post here; https://hackaday.com/2011/10/27/hacked-parking-disc-can-be-controlled-remotely/ https://hackaday.com/2011/10/27/hacked-parking-disc-can-be-c...
Jach 7y ago
Probably some combination of never hearing of such a thing (I just looked it up) and that the whole idea of directly paying for parking / time-limited parking is still offensive to many of us ("just build more parking lots") and doesn't exist in many places. Then after hearing about it an obvious objection is that it puts an extra burden on the driver to manage the thing even when they just want to pop-in/pop-out, and that if the level of abuse is actually a problem we might as well go all the way with a full blown pay-always approach.

rmason 7y ago

I'm left wondering if the ruling applies to cops using it on people who frequent bars? It's common practice at least in rural areas in Michigan to target cars in bar parking lots. If you're there for three hours they assume you will be leaving drunk so they put a chalk mark across your headlight. They park down the road and stop everyone with the mark on their headlight. It's not foolproof because people catch on and wipe down their headlights before leaving the bar ;<).

jMyles 7y ago
> It's not foolproof because people catch on and wipe down their headlights before leaving the bar. There are many reasons it's not foolproof, chiefly among them that leaving a bar is not a basis for knowing that someone is over the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle. The driver might well be a DD.
bluedino 7y ago
The 2 hour rule goes away after 6pm but you can still be ticketed for parking overnight.

bluedino 7y ago

Here's a link to the local news story about this topic: https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-court-rules-chalking-tires-violates-fourth-amendment.html:wq https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-...

paradoja 7y ago
Fixed link: https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-court-rules-chalking-tires-violates-fourth-amendment.html https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/appeals-... There was a :wq at the end (too much vim everywhere ;) ).

dboreham 7y ago

Always wondered about this.. ..only kidding, of course I didn't. It's silly.

pmcollins 7y ago

I used to listen to a radio show hosted by a law professor and iirc he said that airport security doesn't violate the privacy amendment because you don't have to fly. When you choose to fly you implicitly wave those rights. How is this different?

jrs235 7y ago
Probably buried in a clause in your carrier contract. Don't fly commercial (fly your own plane or charter through general aviation not CAT, commercial air transport) and you can avoid searches.
tantalor 7y ago
Basically, yes: 9th Circuit Court rules on U.S. vs Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908... airport screenings are considered to be administrative searches because they are conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme, where the essential administrative purpose is to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft ... are allowed if no more intrusive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect weapons or explosives, confined in good faith to that purpose, and passengers may avoid the search by electing not to fly https://flyingwithfish.boardingarea.com/2010/11/20/how-the-tsa-legally-circumvents-the-fourth-amendment/comment-page-1 https://flyingwithfish.boardingarea.com/2010/11/20/how-the-t...

wingspar 7y ago

Perhaps they can chalk the curb instead? 'Bracket' the tire(s) with marks on the curb, and a "code" indicating where the valve stem

couchdive 7y ago

But infrared pictures of your license plate ran through private corporations databases are not. The future is grand

zelon88 7y ago

The car has a unique identifier already. Several of them infact. I don't see how chalking could have ever been an option on the table. Why do you need to touch someone's car to identify it? A notepad and a pen would suffice, no? EXAMPLE ST. - 8am -Green honda AAB-234 -Red Toyota 22F-554 -Blue Land Rover 9JG-532 EXAMPLE ST. - 9am -Green Honda AAB-234 <- Getting a ticket -Yellow Nissan BB5-K25 <- New, no ticket -Blue Land Rover 9JG-532 <- Getting a ticket I mean it really is that easy and it takes about the same amount of time, perhaps a little more diligence. It's sad that we need to govern for the lowest common denominator. If the civil servants weren't so lazy/disinterested/uneducated this wouldn't have cost the city as much money as it did to resolve.

sfink 7y ago
Try it. See how many plate numbers you can write down in half an hour. (To be fair, you'd need to read and compare those plate numbers too.) Then see how many tires you can mark with chalk on a stick in the same amount of time. As a taxpayer, I'd rather not pay for the difference in staff.

zelon88 7y ago

Honestly paying for parking is an insult in the first place. Here in MA to drive a car you have to pay..... 1. Sales tax, whether you bought the car out-of-state or not. This is calculated by the RMV and NOT by your bill of sale. So if MA thinks your $500 car is worth $3,000 you're paying 6.25% of $3k. 2. Registration fees that go up every year. This pays for the 4 hours you have to sit at the RMV watching people who get paid $30/hour help one person every 15 minutes. 3. Private insurance, which is required. Lots of out-of-state policies aren't eligible, so we see ads on TV for competetive policies from Progressive, Geiko, ect yet nobody in MA is eligible to buy them. It's worth it to note that state vehicles don't need insurance as they are "self-insured." So if you crash into a cop you or your insurance will pay 100% but if a cop crashes into you the town and its taxpayers get to pay 100%. 4. We have toll booths all over the fucking place yet we still have some of the worst paved road conditions in the country. Anyone who has visited Cambridge MA can attest to this. 5. We pay yearly excise tax on each vehicle to the town we live in. 6. Exorbiant state fuel tax (27th highest in the nation). How much more can they charge us for infrastructure without actually having to invest anything on infrastructure? On top of property and income tax and sales tax and excise tax you've gotta pay $3 to park on a public street.....

blattimwind 7y ago
> 6. Exorbiant state fuel tax (27th highest in the nation). Sounds more like a median state fuel tax.
- zelon88 7y ago
  All by itself sure. Other states usually go one way or another. Tax more here but a little less over there. MA taxes everything across the board. After factoring in all the other expenses you can easily stand back and call the whole ensemble exorbitant.
  - codyb 7y ago
    Hmm. Well. Let’s see. 5th best healthcare out of the fifty states according to [0]. 1st best education system [1]. 7th by median household income [2]. Wow! 45th on the infrastructure list [3]. 37th on inequality [4]. So, seems like you get what you pay for. My guess is that all those plains states have less people and less infrastructure to maintain in general, and with great opportunities also comes great inequality in some instances. I did not read a word on any of the linked articles besides rank as I’m at work. But it seems interesting, and I didn’t skip over the ones that surprised me. [0] - https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care [1] - https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... [3] - https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastruct... [4] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_...

nsuser3 7y ago

Off-topic, but I really like that the website offers a text-only version without tracking.

rubyn00bie 7y ago

<rant> So can I retroactively sue the Berkeley municipality? I'm not joking (...okay I am). I've gotten a fucking ticket literally every time I've been in Berkley because they don't keep track of WHO marks your tires or WHERE they fucking mark them. The city also refuses to at all harbor the mere concept of a mistake by their own... </end-rant> And yes I know I ain't ever getting my money back from the city of Berkeley.

not2b 7y ago

Even if this ruling is upheld, parking enforcement will just switch to using photos or license plate readers. At least in an area that uses chalking for enforcement, if your car hasn't been marked, you'll over the time limit but you can't leave immediately, you know you have a little more time. No such luck when you don't know whether your car's license plate # has already been recorded.

intrasight 7y ago

I had a very pleasant experience with "Parking Enforcement" in a commercial district outside of Pittsburgh recently. I had either forgot to put money in the meter or it ran out. Got back to my car to find a ticket. The fine was only a dollar and I think it was voluntary. On the ticket was printed a note explaining that the business community really values people coming to visit and so doesn't want to annoy those people with high parking rates or ticket fines. It was the most pleasant parking ticket experience I could imagine.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Just think about how many people over the years haven't decided that was a good place to clean out the trash from their cars after receiving such a nice ticket.
blotter_paper 7y ago
What bizarre machinations of Moloch; "we decided to fine you, but then we decided to not fine you, so we had to settle on fining you as little as possible while still fining you because we have to fine you or there wouldn't be a reason for this sub-sub-department of us to exist."
- intrasight 7y ago
  Yeah. I'd like to have seen how that compromised between business owners and the traffic police was negotiated.
- spbaar 7y ago
  Bureaucracy being lenient and reasonable can look a little dystopian. I'll take it.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  The question is, does it significantly reduce the number of people overstaying on the parking spot? A good use of parking meters is to ensure shared access to a limited parking resource. You can't just park your car all day there. You have to keep going back every hour to fill the meter, which means that you will usually leave and let someone else park there for a while. The amount of the fine is irrelevant. It's just an annoyance to ensure that you realise the need to share the resource. If it does that, then the smaller the fine, the better.

titzer 7y ago

They can't chalk your tires but they can get a location trace from your mobile phone just because you were close to the wrong place at the wrong time. Pfft.

knicholes 7y ago

So who is going to create the app that helps cops track how long a vehicle has been present in an area?

ben509 7y ago
Already done in DC. https://twitter.com/howsmydrivingdc?lang=en https://twitter.com/howsmydrivingdc?lang=en

HillaryBriss 7y ago

this is a big day for chalk stories on HN

Pxtl 7y ago

Didn't the whole "drinking and driving" thing establish that the 14th amendment is limited when it comes to the complicated relationship between a private vehicle on publicly-owned roads? I can see the argument that a GPS tracking device crosses the line because the intent is to track the owner of the vehicle and the scope is far beyond their interaction with the public roadway. But on this? It's directly about your usage of the public roadway for storage purposes.

epylar 7y ago
This case seems to be more about the 4th amendment.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  It's about the rights in the Fourth as incorporated against the states by the Fourteenth, just like DUI stop cases, but the safety factors at issue in the DUI (and other traffic) stop cases that have been held to make limited stops reasonable without cause short of probable cause do not seem to apply to the case here.

tareqak 7y ago

What about people who stick flyers under windshield wipers? Isn't that also a physical trespass? What about dropping flyers into open car windows, or into convertible cars with the hood down? Will cities start having "chalk notices" similar to cookie notices that websites have saying that you consent to having your car wheels chalked by using this parking space?

kelnos 7y ago
People who stick flyers under windshield wipers aren't government entities, so they aren't bound by constitutional notions of what is and isn't a reasonable search. Having said that, I really wish this practice was considered a form of property damage or defacement, maybe littering, or at least, as you suggest, a form of trespass.
ummonk 7y ago
Both of those are physical trespass, yes.

cheriot 7y ago

Seems like there's a simple solution to be found here. Don't put the chalk mark on the car, put it on the city owned street underneath it.

michelpp 7y ago

20 years ago Portland, Oregon used to chalk tires and had coin fed meters in downtown. And a fleet of go-cart driving officers for the rest of the city. Around that time the city started moving to electronic meters in downtown that produced a printed ticket with a time that you were required to post on a street facing window. There was the usual city waste and political kickbacks iirc, at least one city employee got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Now the traffic enforcement officers have a handheld plate scanner, on each end of every block the parking enforcement signs have a QR-like code on the back that the officers first scan, then they go down the block scanning every car, then they scan the sign at the other end. This defines a complete audit trail of the officers movement with respect to every block and every car. Using this technique, they not only scan for expired tickets, but can also issue citations for expired plates, previously unpaid tickets, warrants for outstanding criminals (in which they notify city police) and even summon a boot or tow truck. I suspect that all cities that use chalk now will eventually move to some fully automated system like this. Perhaps not even ticket printing machines, just cameras looking down at all the cars, watching them (and you) come and go. Stay too long, and you get a ticket in the mail. Have a warrent on you an the police are there waiting when you return. The upshot for them? Besides the usual hands in cookie jars like in Portland, they won't have to pay all those traffic enforcement officers.

baldfat 7y ago
My city about 10 years ago have a car that drives with a camera scans every plate and with a GPS location. You have to move your car about 2 feet and you are fine. They also moved away from towing to a boot. If your on a boot for 48+ hours then they tow. $50 for the boot to be removed or $275 for the tow and $85 per day in parking.
brownbat 7y ago
Reminds me of tolls. It makes me comically angry that our toll roads require RFID equipment in most cars and slow cash lanes for people without. The fallback for people running the toll booth is to automatically take a photo of the plate and send the owner a bill. Why not just use the fallback system as the primary system? You already have the equipment to collect tolls automatically. Why do I need to glue something to my window or wait in a long line to pay cash? Comically angry because I know this is "old man yells at cloud" territory.

cromulent 7y ago

A lot of places in Europe just use a parking disk. No chalking, no second check needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_parking

ghostly_s 7y ago
Ah, so, the honor system.
- finnh 7y ago
  Not quite - if you try to game the system by post dating your arrival time, and the disc is checked quickly enough, the enforcer will see the disc time is ahead of the current time = ticket.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    but you could come back after an hour and update the time
    - finnh 7y ago
      and you can wipe chalk off your tires after an hour, too.
dyhtf 7y ago
That couldn't possibly work in a country with so many black people.
stendinator 7y ago
I have seen officers making notes of how the tires are aligned so they know whether the car has been moved when they come by a second time. (Seen in DACH countries)
- _archon_ 7y ago
  What's to say you didn't leave and return and your wheels are in roughly the same configuration?

atomical 7y ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19724969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19724969

sytelus 7y ago

Legally speaking, city could have easily argued that parking space is not a private property and therefore they can easily enforce an agreement to be chalked. I wouldn't like this but the thing is that 4AM cannot be applied if you willingly relocated your private property in to a place that is not owned by you. This is the principle (I think) behind government able to search in whatever way they deem fit at airport because airport is not your private property. If supreme court upholds this then things would become very messy for the government.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Legally speaking, city could have easily argued that parking space is not a private property and therefore they can easily enforce an agreement to be chalked. They could perhaps enforce such an agreement, if the agreement existed. > I wouldn't like this but the thing is that 4AM cannot be applied if you willingly relocated your private property in to a place that is not owned by you. No, the fourth Amendment doesn't go away on public property, generally. > This is the principle (I think) behind government able to search in whatever way they deem fit at airport because airport is not your private property. It's not. A variety of administrative search criteria together with the “grave and urgent” need to prevent hijackings is, and it's not unlimited. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/482/482.F2d.893.71-2993.html https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/482/482.F2d...
torstenvl 7y ago
"[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) (internal citations omitted) available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/389/347 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/389/347.

thomasjudge 7y ago

If tire chalking constitutes an unconstitutional seizure, I wonder when we will see followup suits over towing and booting

sfink 7y ago
No, because that only happens when there's reasonable belief that you are breaking a law.

negativez 7y ago

There are two obvious possible solutions to this from the city: (1) tiny print on the parking signs that says you consent to be chalked, creating an explicit contract (2) sell the rights to manage the city's parking to a private entity using private contractors to chalk with no prescription on methodology, rendering the "search" non-governmental in nature

plcancel 7y ago

No more having to clear parking cookies, at least.

tsjq 7y ago

someone please ELI5: what purpose does the chalking serve , in the parking enforcement ?

schwede 7y ago
Chalk on the tires marks the time the parking officer saw the car. If they come back to that car, they can know it’s been parked there over the time limit.

jrochkind1 7y ago

On the other hand, imprisoning people for fleeing danger and seeking refuge without the rights we even give other people arrested before trial who are actually accused of a crime, stealing their babies and putting them in cages or giving them away to Christians, all that is totally fine under the 4th ammendment and the rest of the Constitution. Thank God we live in a free country!

sfink 7y ago

My immediate alternative would be to drop a grape behind a tire. Though the fact that it's edible is problematic. The rats (with and without wings) would enjoy my scheme. Still, any cheap inedible alternative would work. As long as, when you squish it, it stays squished. But that leads me to think: why not build it into the parking spaces? Glue something down that takes just over 2 hours to fully reinflate. Would need to be wide enough to ensure it gets run over. Probably want to be clever and make the reinflation not appear to be linear - once it gets to a certain point, it would stand itself up or something. Would be fun to design.

phyzome 7y ago

It's also quite possible that this will be overturned. Seems kinda bonkers to me.