7 ms·

"A chalked tire was ephemeral. I doubt that whatever replaces it will be." I suspect you are right and share your foreboding... However, a very easy solution

by rsync 8y ago

"A chalked tire was ephemeral. I doubt that whatever replaces it will be." I suspect you are right and share your foreboding... However, a very easy solution would be to just mark the asphalt around the tires ... maybe write "blue chevy" between the marks. So easy. Instead, a politically connected services firm will capture local mayors / council members (very, very cheaply - shockingly cheaply) and build it into their unnecessary speed/redlight camera systems.

NotAnEconomist 8y ago
Cops with license plate scanners that also check for warrants and cross reference your movements over time is my guess.
- sathackr 8y ago
  And then the police departments sell the information to 3rd party advertising companies to make up for shortfalls in their budget.
burkaman 8y ago
That's error-prone (what if another blue chevy replaces it?), and takes 10 times as long as a simple mark, and doesn't work when the road is sandy or wet, and you need some quick way to erase the last marks, etc. I can't think of anything nearly as quick and cheap and effective as a chalk mark on the tire.
- stale2002 8y ago
  I can think of a way. Police could walk around with a hand held license plate scanner, that electronically tracks the general location of the parking space, and the car. I bet this could be done with a phone app, actually.
  - coderintherye 8y ago
    In urban areas the city could even work with local property owners to place video cameras that have enough angle to be able to have a constant view of all the cars that park. Could automate ticketing car owners who overstay. *Not that I wish for this, but it's theoretically possible to implement.
    - pfooti 8y ago
      incentivize this by passing 20% of the ticket price back to the property owner
      - dondawest 8y ago
        How do we de-incentivize doing cop’s jobs for them on HN? This is a great idea with one problem: fuck the police.
        lazyasciiart 8y ago
        Ban parking cars on public property. Then nobody needs to be tracking how long it's there for.
        dondawest 8y ago
        Fully agreed.
  - amluto 8y ago
    Palo Alto does something like this.
  - burkaman 8y ago
    I know, but that's a little slower, way more expensive, and fails if the battery runs out or the GPS can't connect, or the license plate is too dirty to read. Obviously the chalk method isn't perfect either, but it's close.
    - daveFNbuck 8y ago
      There are also a lot of advantages once you automate this via a camera. Now you can put cheap cameras near spots and/or mount the cameras on cars to automate ticketing as police are driving around on other business.
    - ricardobeat 8y ago
      That is how parking enforcement works here in the Netherlands. Someone just drives a camera-equipped car around and everything happens automatically - you enter your license plate on the meter so times are known to the minute.
      - perl4ever 8y ago
        There are parking meters in the US city I live in, where you enter your license plate and you don't have to fill an individual meter or display a tag on your dash.
    - djmobley 8y ago
      If the license plate is too dirty to read, give them a ticket for that instead. Penalty should be greater than for the parking infraction anyway, otherwise people would dirty their plates deliberately.
  - nitrogen 8y ago
    I think Salt Lake City for one does enforce parking this way.
  - SllX 8y ago
    San Francisco already does. Hell, it might actually be built into the enforcement vehicle (the Interceptors!), but don’t quote me on that part.
  - rlander 8y ago
    My city does this (Florianopolis, Brazil). I can use a smart phone app to start the clock or just let an officer pass by and tag my car. Chalking seems very... rudimentary.
  - stan_rogers 8y ago
    They're not exactly equivalent. Tire-chalking essentially proves that the vehicle didn't move (or that the driver was ridiculously unlucky in that the mark showed up at about the same location). The number/license plate merely shows that the same car is in the same parking spot, so the (legal, if arguably too "letter of the law") approach of vacating the space and parking there again is indistinguishable from overstaying the limit.
    - foota 8y ago
      I believe most jurisdictions require you to leave a space for some time before the parking "resets"
      - _archon_ 8y ago
        How would they know that hadn't happened?
        foota 8y ago
        If you require vehicles to be gone from a certain street for 24 hours, say, before parking there again for a 2 hour spot, and you check it at 1 pm then later at 4 pm, you can conclude the vehicle wasn't gone for 24 hours.
- tom_ 8y ago
  What about a notebook and pen? Note car number plate and/or description of car and location. If you've got somebody going wrong chalking tyres, you can have that person take notes instead. (This might also take a bit longer than making a chalk mark, but time is not exactly of the essence here.)
  - learnstats2 8y ago
    I searched for "number plate" because I am pretty sure this is what is done in UK/Europe and I have no idea why you would consider doing anything else? But nobody saying "license plate" is suggesting this - is there some reason why not? Chalking seems 100% unreliable and very open to legal challenge.
    - ThePadawan 8y ago
      I assume it's just harder to write down license plate "numbers" in the US since they are both less strictly formatted and less unique than any national plates in Europe (that I am aware of). From a short search, it seems that license plate numbers aren't even unique across state borders in the US, for example.
    - opless 8y ago
      In the UK equipment varies. I've seen smartphone based license scanners, Psion-based data entry terminals (they punch in each and every offenders license plate), but parking meters tend to have a paper receipt you place on the dashboard or stick to the window. But now they have a pay-using-an-app option ... They take your licence plate details always and check it against an online db, and if not then they look for a paper ticket. Pretty much, if you park in a time limited street zone or a metered zone or a municipal car park ... You can be assured your car number plate is captured along with entry and exit times. The data is likely sold on too
  - mcv 8y ago
    I find all of these solutions wonderfully low-tech. In Amsterdam, they slowly drive google streetview-style car which autotmatically records number plates, looks them up, and issues fines where necessary. The only thing needed is someone to drive the car, and I'm sure that's also going to replaced eventually.
- tokai 8y ago
  Parking clocks solves the problem easily. http://www.ericandleandra.com/2014/07/28/memory-monday-parking-discs-in-copenhagen/ http://www.ericandleandra.com/2014/07/28/memory-monday-parki...
- n8henry 8y ago
  A photo
acdha 8y ago
> So easy. Instead, a politically connected services firm will capture local mayors / council members (very, very cheaply - shockingly cheaply) and build it into their unnecessary speed/redlight camera systems. I agree that there’s a history of questionable business practices in that industry but those systems are far from unnecessary. Motor vehicles being driven irresponsibly kill something like 40k Americans per year and cause all sorts of injuries and quality of life reductions. Cameras are a good way to discourage that without using tons of police time or dragging in questions of fairness — the call should be punishing corruption, not giving up a valuable tool.
- Stratoscope 8y ago
  Cities all around the SF Bay Area have been removing their red light cameras. Here in Menlo Park the city just dropped ours. And about time! They were widely hated for mailing people fake tickets for minor infractions that were not a safety hazard at all, like slowly rolling through a right turn with no other traffic in the vicinity.
  - Declanomous 8y ago
    I used to be annoyed by red light cameras because they triggered on "safe" infractions, like right turns on red. Over the past few years I've changed my mind, because I've almost been hit as a pedestrian and on my bike by people sliding through intersections, to the point where I've physically prevented myself from being hit by pushing off the car a couple times. Right on red is awesome as a driver, but it makes roads really dangerous for other road users. I think bad intersection design is partly to blame for perceived "frivolous" red light tickets, but at the same time I think that drivers really should come to a complete stop before the line (and before the crosswalk if there is one) before deciding if a right turn on red is safe or practicable. If people can't even be bothered to stop for a right turn on red then it's probably better to ban them outright. Also, I've seen enough people run red lights 2-3 seconds after the light changes that I want red light cameras at every intersection anyways. It might be 1 in every 250 people who gets dinged for the right turn on red ticket, but that's stupidly dangerous. If a fix is needed, increase the fine for blowing the light, scale it based on the time the light had been red (so you don't excessively punish people who got caught in the zone of indecision), and reduce the fine for rolling through a right on red.
chrisbrandow 8y ago
Not as easy at tapping a tire with a long stick as you drive by
sandos 8y ago
Afaik, here in Sweden they use something called "digital cameras". They take a picture of said car and placement on street and just compare it later on.

by rsync 8y ago

NotAnEconomist 8y ago

Cops with license plate scanners that also check for warrants and cross reference your movements over time is my guess.

sathackr 8y ago
And then the police departments sell the information to 3rd party advertising companies to make up for shortfalls in their budget.

burkaman 8y ago

That's error-prone (what if another blue chevy replaces it?), and takes 10 times as long as a simple mark, and doesn't work when the road is sandy or wet, and you need some quick way to erase the last marks, etc. I can't think of anything nearly as quick and cheap and effective as a chalk mark on the tire.

stale2002 8y ago
I can think of a way. Police could walk around with a hand held license plate scanner, that electronically tracks the general location of the parking space, and the car. I bet this could be done with a phone app, actually.
- coderintherye 8y ago
  In urban areas the city could even work with local property owners to place video cameras that have enough angle to be able to have a constant view of all the cars that park. Could automate ticketing car owners who overstay. *Not that I wish for this, but it's theoretically possible to implement.
  - pfooti 8y ago
    incentivize this by passing 20% of the ticket price back to the property owner
    - dondawest 8y ago
      How do we de-incentivize doing cop’s jobs for them on HN? This is a great idea with one problem: fuck the police.
      - lazyasciiart 8y ago
        Ban parking cars on public property. Then nobody needs to be tracking how long it's there for.
        dondawest 8y ago
        Fully agreed.
- amluto 8y ago
  Palo Alto does something like this.
- burkaman 8y ago
  I know, but that's a little slower, way more expensive, and fails if the battery runs out or the GPS can't connect, or the license plate is too dirty to read. Obviously the chalk method isn't perfect either, but it's close.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    There are also a lot of advantages once you automate this via a camera. Now you can put cheap cameras near spots and/or mount the cameras on cars to automate ticketing as police are driving around on other business.
  - ricardobeat 8y ago
    That is how parking enforcement works here in the Netherlands. Someone just drives a camera-equipped car around and everything happens automatically - you enter your license plate on the meter so times are known to the minute.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      There are parking meters in the US city I live in, where you enter your license plate and you don't have to fill an individual meter or display a tag on your dash.
  - djmobley 8y ago
    If the license plate is too dirty to read, give them a ticket for that instead. Penalty should be greater than for the parking infraction anyway, otherwise people would dirty their plates deliberately.
- nitrogen 8y ago
  I think Salt Lake City for one does enforce parking this way.
- SllX 8y ago
  San Francisco already does. Hell, it might actually be built into the enforcement vehicle (the Interceptors!), but don’t quote me on that part.
- rlander 8y ago
  My city does this (Florianopolis, Brazil). I can use a smart phone app to start the clock or just let an officer pass by and tag my car. Chalking seems very... rudimentary.
- stan_rogers 8y ago
  They're not exactly equivalent. Tire-chalking essentially proves that the vehicle didn't move (or that the driver was ridiculously unlucky in that the mark showed up at about the same location). The number/license plate merely shows that the same car is in the same parking spot, so the (legal, if arguably too "letter of the law") approach of vacating the space and parking there again is indistinguishable from overstaying the limit.
  - foota 8y ago
    I believe most jurisdictions require you to leave a space for some time before the parking "resets"
    - _archon_ 8y ago
      How would they know that hadn't happened?
      - foota 8y ago
        If you require vehicles to be gone from a certain street for 24 hours, say, before parking there again for a 2 hour spot, and you check it at 1 pm then later at 4 pm, you can conclude the vehicle wasn't gone for 24 hours.
tom_ 8y ago
What about a notebook and pen? Note car number plate and/or description of car and location. If you've got somebody going wrong chalking tyres, you can have that person take notes instead. (This might also take a bit longer than making a chalk mark, but time is not exactly of the essence here.)
- learnstats2 8y ago
  I searched for "number plate" because I am pretty sure this is what is done in UK/Europe and I have no idea why you would consider doing anything else? But nobody saying "license plate" is suggesting this - is there some reason why not? Chalking seems 100% unreliable and very open to legal challenge.
  - ThePadawan 8y ago
    I assume it's just harder to write down license plate "numbers" in the US since they are both less strictly formatted and less unique than any national plates in Europe (that I am aware of). From a short search, it seems that license plate numbers aren't even unique across state borders in the US, for example.
  - opless 8y ago
    In the UK equipment varies. I've seen smartphone based license scanners, Psion-based data entry terminals (they punch in each and every offenders license plate), but parking meters tend to have a paper receipt you place on the dashboard or stick to the window. But now they have a pay-using-an-app option ... They take your licence plate details always and check it against an online db, and if not then they look for a paper ticket. Pretty much, if you park in a time limited street zone or a metered zone or a municipal car park ... You can be assured your car number plate is captured along with entry and exit times. The data is likely sold on too
- mcv 8y ago
  I find all of these solutions wonderfully low-tech. In Amsterdam, they slowly drive google streetview-style car which autotmatically records number plates, looks them up, and issues fines where necessary. The only thing needed is someone to drive the car, and I'm sure that's also going to replaced eventually.
tokai 8y ago
Parking clocks solves the problem easily. http://www.ericandleandra.com/2014/07/28/memory-monday-parking-discs-in-copenhagen/ http://www.ericandleandra.com/2014/07/28/memory-monday-parki...
n8henry 8y ago
A photo

acdha 8y ago

> So easy. Instead, a politically connected services firm will capture local mayors / council members (very, very cheaply - shockingly cheaply) and build it into their unnecessary speed/redlight camera systems. I agree that there’s a history of questionable business practices in that industry but those systems are far from unnecessary. Motor vehicles being driven irresponsibly kill something like 40k Americans per year and cause all sorts of injuries and quality of life reductions. Cameras are a good way to discourage that without using tons of police time or dragging in questions of fairness — the call should be punishing corruption, not giving up a valuable tool.

Stratoscope 8y ago
Cities all around the SF Bay Area have been removing their red light cameras. Here in Menlo Park the city just dropped ours. And about time! They were widely hated for mailing people fake tickets for minor infractions that were not a safety hazard at all, like slowly rolling through a right turn with no other traffic in the vicinity.
- Declanomous 8y ago
  I used to be annoyed by red light cameras because they triggered on "safe" infractions, like right turns on red. Over the past few years I've changed my mind, because I've almost been hit as a pedestrian and on my bike by people sliding through intersections, to the point where I've physically prevented myself from being hit by pushing off the car a couple times. Right on red is awesome as a driver, but it makes roads really dangerous for other road users. I think bad intersection design is partly to blame for perceived "frivolous" red light tickets, but at the same time I think that drivers really should come to a complete stop before the line (and before the crosswalk if there is one) before deciding if a right turn on red is safe or practicable. If people can't even be bothered to stop for a right turn on red then it's probably better to ban them outright. Also, I've seen enough people run red lights 2-3 seconds after the light changes that I want red light cameras at every intersection anyways. It might be 1 in every 250 people who gets dinged for the right turn on red ticket, but that's stupidly dangerous. If a fix is needed, increase the fine for blowing the light, scale it based on the time the light had been red (so you don't excessively punish people who got caught in the zone of indecision), and reduce the fine for rolling through a right on red.

chrisbrandow 8y ago

Not as easy at tapping a tire with a long stick as you drive by

sandos 8y ago

Afaik, here in Sweden they use something called "digital cameras". They take a picture of said car and placement on street and just compare it later on.