not sure if this is better lounge or garage...

my partner got her car booted due to parking tickets, boot was installed on LF tire.

after payment and removal, she was driving away and went to stop and the brake pedal went to the floor. several pumps restored brake pressure and the car seemed safe to drive.

being that i work on cars, im gonna go over the brakes, bleed, check parts, etc.

what liability does Park Raleigh or whoever have in this situation?

would this be responsibility of proper boot installation/removal, or more the "well she should have paid her tickets and not gotten booted, her fault"?

what if she had wrecked due to brake failure? liability?

thx.

12/21/2006 10:23:56 AM

I love insurance scams. Let me go get my helmet.

12/21/2006 10:26:37 AM

i would imagine the only sign of mechanical damage would be a severed brake line. if thats the case, and it is in fact on the tire they put the boot on, i would take it to an un-biased shop and ask for their professional opinion.

I would assume Park Raleigh could be held accountable for fucking up someones vehicle. Just because she didnt pay tickets, doesnt give them the right to damage someones personal property.


She's lucky though. That could have been real ugly if the pressure didnt come back.

[Edited on December 21, 2006 at 10:29 AM. Reason : .]

12/21/2006 10:28:07 AM

another option would be to pay your tickets and avoid all of this. OR park where you are supposed to for the time you are supossed to be there.


problem solved

12/21/2006 10:36:18 AM

remember to also get some psychological damage money

12/21/2006 10:37:11 AM

Quote :

"I love insurance scams. Let me go get my helmet. "

rofl

12/21/2006 10:44:12 AM

^^^ no shit, really?

12/21/2006 10:47:24 AM

Well, how could you prove that they did it?

12/21/2006 10:56:04 AM

aww yeah, i guess she deserved to get killed in a collision caused by brake failure since her bad parking ass is such a drain on society

yeah...im thinking it might be better to take it somewhere unbiased and have them inspect/document condition, rather than me...

doesnt meeker or one of the other kids have a vendetta against parking/towing issues that might benefit from this situation?

no insurance scam intentions or anything, just curious about liabiltiy issues and what right parking enforcement has to damage a vehicle...


^...thats another concern, im thinking inspection of brake hose may reveal an area impacted by the boot, may not...reasoning behind inspecting/photographing all parts around are where boot was. hopefully there is documentation of boot installation/removal for accountability purposes within park raleigh...

[Edited on December 21, 2006 at 10:57 AM. Reason : dz]

12/21/2006 10:56:10 AM

Quote :

"Ticket writers rile drivers Downtown Raleigh leaders fret as workers and customers find meter minders surly and frequently wrong. The parking contractor tries to mend its image RALEIGH -- In its first seven months as steward of the city's curbside meters, Park Raleigh has writt At an expired parking meter near Moore Square downtown, a Park Raleigh worker issues a ticket. In seven months of enforcing parking for the city, the company has gotten a reputation for being overzealous and making mistakes. At time when the city is spending millions to make downtown a destination, are parking policies scaring people away Complaints over shoddy service date to August, shortly after the contractor's debut, and at times have rolled in at a rate of four a day. The complaints magnify a nagging worry among Raleigh leaders: As the city spends millions to make downtown a destination, are parking policies scaring people away? Some samples from hundreds of pages of records kept in city hall by Norman Hale, Raleigh's parking administrator: * Melvena Sams of Wendell paid a $12 ticket in October and waited nearly a month for her check to be cashed. While she waited, Park Raleigh sent her an overdue notice. "The check had to be sitting on somebody's desk," she said. * Tim Foshee of Cary got two tickets in August from the same downtown spot, one ticket labeled with the wrong street, spelled incorrectly. He photographed his car, parked safely outside the no-parking zone, but found no sympathy at Park Raleigh. "Just because there's not a sign that says you can't park there," he recalled being told, "it doesn't mean you can." Foshee eventually won his case, but not after paying the tickets -- a requirement for getting a hearing. He waited 11 weeks for a refund, then received a delinquent payment notice for the same citations. * Workers on lunch breaks got tickets three minutes after their meters expired. A pharmacist's courier got hit repeatedly while delivering medicine to the Sir Walter Apartments. In October, parking coordinator Hale wrote to Park Raleigh management and called the level of complaints landing on his desk "not acceptable." Around that time, Park Raleigh announced a list of changes to boost its image: new uniforms, posters for its Wilmington Street office and a candy dish for customers. "I'm concerned that we're not making downtown friendly," council member Joyce Kekas said. "If we went back to the city managing the parking, we'd have control." Add to that a report last month that blamed computer problems for trouble with overdue notices: More than 18,000 were issued with no way to verify their accuracy. Signs point to progress. Park Raleigh has a new project manager. Staff members took customer service training in January. Hale said complaints have fallen to three or four per week since their peak last fall. Asked last week whether the city is satisfied, Hale paused several seconds to shape his reply. "They're making improvements," he said. Still, some leaders wonder whether the city blundered in 2000 by turning its streets over to private, for-profit contractors. Park Raleigh management did not return repeated phone calls. With parking spaces scarce downtown, Raleigh has always seen ticket writing as a guarantee that spots will turn over and make room for new cars -- not so much as a moneymaker off the $12 or $20 tickets. Private enforcement Until 2000, parking enforcement fell to police officers and other city employees, but Raleigh leaders thought their time could be better spent and turned to a private contractor. The first contract fell to Affiliated Computer Services in Dallas, which managed the meters and other on-street spots. When Affiliated won the contract, the city hoped to collect $2.5 million in unpaid citations and correct the impression that parking tickets were meaningless slips of paper. Last year, the city switched to Central Parking, citing problems with Affiliated Computer Services' ability to collect old debts. Central Parking won a contract last summer that guaranteed $850,441 for the first of three years with adjustments for inflation. Also, Central would get a flat rate -- not a percentage -- a move designed to discourage rampant ticketing. The Tennessee-based company adopted the local brand name Park Raleigh and began work on Aug. 1. In the first month, citations totaled about 3,000. More recently, tickets top 6,000 a month. As part of its contract, the company was to make sure "all of the contractors' employees shall be properly dressed, friendly and courteous to the public." Another condition, which Raleigh leaders sought less formally: The contractor was to give motorists a break when it could. No hovering over meters, waiting for them to expire. In e-mail to Hale and complainants, Park Raleigh's management has insisted that meter stalking doesn't happen. But residents' complaints tell a different story. Gaines Weaver parked in a two-hour spot on New Bern Place downtown, heading for a lunch date. He returned a few minutes late to see a Park Raleigh attendant walking away from his car, ticket written. The ticket listed his car as parked at 2:19 p.m. -- with 34 seconds past the minute. By Weaver's watch, it was 4:19 p.m. "This is the 'more customer-friendly' enforcement we have been promised?" he wrote in e-mail to Mayor Charles Meeker last December. "Waiting to pounce almost the moment time has expired?" In reply, Weaver got a friendly letter from Park Raleigh management, assuring him that staff used accurate timing devices and could not rely on time by his watch. "I would like to assure you that the Parking Enforcement personnel are not 'waiting to pounce' and that we do actively practice a customer friendly approach," wrote Bob Kamper, the general manager. Copious complaints There are more than 120 complaints -- some pending, some closed -- in Hale's log. Other people have chosen to vent frustration to City Council members, or the mayor. Many of them say the tickets are not worth contesting, and they believe appeals to be futile. Statistics supplied by Park Raleigh do not bear this out. More than half of 2,040 appeals -- 1,245 total -- have been dismissed. Still, the perception of futility persists. Several complainants report trouble getting the proper forms in time for a 48-hour appeal deadline. Whenever a complaint reaches Hale, he forwards it to Park Raleigh, and the confusion is often cleared up. But last month, Park Raleigh issued a report on computer problems that have thrown the accuracy of its late-payment notices into doubt. Because of problems with data inherited from ACS, Park Raleigh cannot verify the accuracy of more than 18,000 notices issued by Law Enforcement Systems, a New York company it uses for more aggressive collection tactics. The New York company is a licensed debt collection agency. It threatens to boot cars, and it instructs violators to call Law Enforcement Systems -- not Park Raleigh -- with problems. Only about 100 people had reported problems with these notices as of last month, and only one paid twice. But Park Raleigh concedes there is no way to know how many more notices were issued in error unless people contest them with proof of payment. Olive branches Melvena Sams, whose payment check took almost a month to clear, eventually got a letter of apology from Park Raleigh. "He apologized 59 times in this letter," said Sams, a state employee. "He said he had all these problems, and I'm like, 'I don't care.' " Foshee, who photographed his car, also found peace in the end. He got a similar letter, explaining a combination of factors. "They made it right," he said. "It's not a computer problem. It's a management problem. The computer didn't give me bad tickets. The computer didn't give me ridiculous reasons for why I got those tickets." In the end, he said, Park Raleigh even sent him a fruit basket."

12/21/2006 11:32:50 AM

thanks yo

sounds like norman hale is the go to guy

crafting an email...

12/21/2006 12:11:40 PM

Quote :

"yeah...im thinking it might be better to take it somewhere unbiased and have them inspect/document condition, rather than me..."

It might be better to have it towed there - you don't know if the brake failure was a one time thing or not.

12/21/2006 12:16:45 PM

well it happened monday and shes been driving it since...no repeat yet

i wonder how much clamping force an installed boot produces...on a floating caliper design, the piston is on the inside edge of the rotor, so enough force applied to the caliper may force the piston back in, causing the symptoms experienced...

still tho...fuckers need some training or accountability, cant just go around booting cars and fucking up brakes...

12/21/2006 12:21:29 PM

^ that would be my guess, clamped on the caliper, but they aslo do a good job of scratching the shit out of wheels

12/21/2006 12:47:22 PM

Quote :

"Just because she didnt pay tickets, doesnt give them the right to damage someones personal property."

yeah, they kinda have that right, just like towing companies aren't liable for damage your car incurs as a result of them having to tow you.

12/21/2006 1:34:13 PM

Raleigh needs Angle Grinder Man

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/09/MN293846.DTL [old]

12/21/2006 1:51:17 PM

^yes he my man

12/22/2006 3:41:31 AM