Don’t you just hate when come back to your car and the hands of fortune have just decided that a boot is the best kind of decoration? There really is nothing worse than the sparkling orange parasite on the wheels of your vehicle with an accompanying $75 ticket, when you’re coming out of work or class late at night, with $3.04 on your card. The only thing worse than that is… finding out it’s been done illegally.
It’s quite simple Atlanta. We get syllabuses so that we know how to act, what’s required of us, and what we are allowed to do in class and not. You get ordinances. And you follow them. Ordinances that state the fine maximum allowed is $50, not $75, and definitely, absolutely, not $200. So despite the little yellow intimidating vest the booters may wear, don’t be afraid to ask them to provide all the information they’re supposed to.
Even abbreviating the company’s name is going against regulations, but there’s another loophole they’re allowed to play with that no ordinance can save us from. According to ParkAtlanta’s website, for five years now, the City can boot your car if you have more than three unpaid parking tickets – even if your car’s parked legally.
So that means that if your car is parked outside of your apartment on the street and a ParkAtlanta employee checks your tag and sees you have more than three unpaid tickets, he or she can boot your car legally. I know, it sucks.
According to the regulation, “The City of Atlanta has adopted new legislation authorizing the immobilization of vehicles with unpaid parking tickets. This program became effective on November 1, 2009”.
And to be fair, those people are doing their jobs, and the city’s trying to keep cars parked and stopped in an organized manner, and that’s all well and fun, but here’s the other side, on behalf of The Signal, our friends and a lot of, if not most of, the Downtown student body: parking Downtown is hard! There’s no free option (which is ridiculous – living in a city that’s booming so fast, students – especially- should be able to grab some relief out of parking their car at not expense), and even paid options are not guaranteed (yes, we’ve missed class trying to find a spot in parking decks we’ve paid for. And when leaving the campus district, we’ve got to think twice about grabbing a coffee with a friend because of the level of difficulty that comes along with parking. Street parking definitely isn’t free and comes with limits.
