There is little so dispiriting — whether deserved or not — than discovering that the sinister-looking metal boot has been attached to one wheel of your car. Wish you could make it disappear? Scores of people do it in the District every year, according to D.C. authorities.
The boots are clamped on when parking mavens spot the vehicle of a scofflaw whose abundance of tickets — just two or more — they deem beyond the pale. Many a bootee takes umbrage at the notion that they have done wrong. (Occasionally, they are right.)
Faced with the choice of making amends or making the boot disappear, some do the latter.
“The problem isn’t just confined to the District,” said John B. Townsend II, the AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman who looked into the prevalence of boot busters. “To the chagrin of municipalities, university campuses and private parking operators, scofflaws are tampering with, damaging and making off with parking boots.”
Parking boots appear as impregnable as the Maginot Line, but it turns out that, like the famous French fortifications, they, too, can be gotten around. Not surprising in today's world, there are as many how-to videos on YouTube as there are types of boots.
Drivers can hack off a boot with a saw, pick the lock or try deflating the tire to slip it off. Townsend said some drivers contend that "someone stole it off my car," one of the most implausible defenses on Earth.
Advertisement
“Nobody believes it,” he said.
The District Department of Public Works did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. But in an e-mail last year to D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), the department’s director described the issue.
“DPW averages about 100 boots lost per year from the vehicle owner destroying or stealing the boots,” William Howland said in the e-mail to Cheh. He said that the District lost 82 boots in fiscal 2014 and that as many as 300 have disappeared in previous years.
Removing a boot is more offensive to authorities in the District and most other places than not paying parking tickets. The fine locally can run as high as $1,000, and punishment could include six months in jail.
“I believe one solution to further reduce this problem is to significantly increase the fine for an unauthorized release of the vehicle,” Howland said in the e-mail to Cheh.
Advertisement
In the period from 2008 to 2014, the District put the boot on 110,021 vehicles, averaging about 50 a day.
To combat illegal removal of the boots, the city has sped up the towing of booted cars. If the outstanding tickets and boot fee are not paid, a vehicle may be towed immediately.
Howland wrote to Cheh that the District is “impounding vehicles sooner (after it is booted) to reduce the opportunity for vehicle owners to self-release vehicles. This practice has dramatically reduced the number of stolen boots.”
Towing adds another charge. In addition to paying the delinquent parking tickets and $75 to have the boot removed, the owner faces a $100 towing fee and storage fees of $40 a day. In fiscal 2012, the District collected $1.1 million in boot removal fees.
Getting your car booted and towed may be an effective way to get rid of it forever. After it sits in the city’s impound lot (closest Metro station: Anacostia), the District can put it up for auction.
Advertisement
An Arlington man got nabbed almost four years ago when he removed a booted wheel and replaced it with his spare. Police were on him before he could drive away because he was parked in the lot at the courthouse, where police headquarters is located.
“We haven’t received any reports of that happening [again] in the past three years,” said Arlington County police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck.
A Chicago man who flattened his tire while using a blow torch against a boot two years ago told police that he “had to remove it somehow, because I have money problems.”
And last year a 23-year-old man whose mother was yelling at him from the passenger seat tried to drive his booted SUV through downtown Charleston, S.C., just after midnight.
Police said he shredded the tire and damaged the car’s suspension, trimwork and running board. They said he told them he was “hoping to make it just up to the Piggly Wiggly to change his tire.”
The police said there wasn’t a Piggly Wiggly — a supermarket chain — anywhere in the city.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLmwr8ClZq2qkZuzqq%2FAp5ucp52iwrW1zaBmrKedmnqlvsivnKurXZeyosCMrZ%2BeZZKkvLV5wbJkoqScmrSiuIymnJqmo2R%2FcX2UaGdsZ2BofKaylnJpaXBkYrByrpdmaGqdZGKupYHCZmqbcJOahXqykJtvcpejqbyzxY2hq6ak