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Comment by filoleg | Hacker News Reader

About 8 years ago in Atlanta, I got booted on my first offence, by overstaying in the nearly empty parking lot in midtown by 15 mins (I paid for the hour of parking before that, but the restaurant took their time with the checks). I think "first time offense of being late on your parking by 15 mins - you get a boot" is pretty excessive.

Don't get me wrong, I am totally in favor of parking enforcement, and wouldnt have even been that upset to take the hit and pay the fine. Instead, I had to both pay the fine and wait an hour in that parking lot until someone (working for the boot company) came to unlock the boot on my car (and i was lucky they weren't busy that night).

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I think the problem here is the state (or city) offloading its basic enforcement functions to private corporations. And then most worryingly financially incentivizing over enforcement. This also happens with excessive towing [1]

The city should have these folks on payroll instead of constantly contracting this stuff out.

Yes, even on private property because it’s adjudication between two private properties (the car and the parking lot)

[1] https://youtu.be/cs6u0iExry8?si=HQdJts_liwCP1_tV

I think cities do this because it’s cheaper. Parking enforcement costs the same whether it’s private or public but you can extract more money out of it by being dirty. It’s a bad look for the city if they’re dirty but if the private company they contract out does it, the city gets to wash their hands of it. Also pensions and stuff.

Pretty bad.

Parking enforcement in just about any city costs nothing, it's profit making. Surely a private company can only be cheaper if it's literally paying the city?

If they can make money off of it, why wouldn't they pay the city for the contract?

If they can double profits by being dirty and give 60% of their profits to the city, then everyone wins except the citizens.

How would it be any different if the city applied the boots themselves? That sounds like an entirely orthogonal issue.

Because city workers aren’t paid more to boot/tow more cars while private companies are.

If the profit motive could be aligned with actual progress, somehow objectively measurable then contracting might makes sense.

I’d add greater oversight, too: you can’t FOIA the internal policies or records of a private company, and if there’s some policy change you have to rebid or do a painful contract amendment.

I think the appeal to privatization is sometimes corruption – when we lived in New Haven, at least two of the city’s tow contracts always went to cousins of council members – but mostly it’s the hope that magic pixie dust will avoid the need for competent oversight. As you noted that only works out when the incentives align, and I don’t see that here.

Yea Atlanta parking enforcement sucks. At least as of a few years ago it was outsourced to a private company(/companies) and they are very trigger happy. Had two tickets assessed incorrectly

The same thing happened to a colleague of mine in ATL just a month or so ago, so it seems the practice is longstanding and current.

Note that it's private parking companies, not municipal agencies, doing the booting.

out of curiosity, did you have out of state plates? maybe they have different booting standards based on "collectibility" of the ticket

Nope, GA plates registered in Fulton County (aka the same county that ATL is in). GA driver's license too, and the car was registered under my name.

Was that a private lot?

Not sure, but it was this[0] parking lot. It was behind a place that is currently marked as Sebastian Pintxos Bar on google maps. At the time, it was a korean-mexican fusion restaurant, forgot the name, it closed down permanently not that long ago.

0. https://maps.app.goo.gl/dQUE4yaaJTqVQ7En6?g_st=ic

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