Drivers Work Together Against Parking Police

I thought “oh, another copy of a classic 80s game” when I first read news about a Park Patrol application for mobiles.

This is an entirely different game, however. Park Patrol app was designed by a man upset about parking tickets. He hopes that drivers will warn each other about the location of the parking police.

Spot an officer, open ParkPatrol and click Send Alert! It’s easy and satisfying knowing you’ve contributed to the community not to the pockets of the municipality or council. If you have another 5 minutes, wait and report the officer a second time from a new location. Made a mistake? Just “Shake to Delete”!

ParkPatrol maps all enforcement officer reports using our own system of servers and databases, so when the community acts together we become a powerful data gathering and reporting tool. We call this system CRWD POWER – a groundbreaking community based infrastructure designed to help you stay one step ahead of parking tickets.

Is it just me or is the phrase “contributed to the community not to the pockets of the municipality or council” a lot like saying we contributed to the community by not contributing to the community? Did I miss something there?

I vaguely see an argument related to civil disobedience, but it lacks reason. It sounds more like an attempt to depict a municipality or council as not part of a community. Is that even possible? I mean are they in a dictatorship of parking rules or did their community elect representatives to set parking rules, who appointed…?

I could get mired in the political philosophy of it. Instead, I would like to point out that this app might have some interesting security implications. It seems, for example, to be a great way to fool your fellow driver into giving up their space earlier.

When you drive into an area where you want to park, you and your friends just start using CRWD POWER to scare all other drivers (who are past their time limit) into getting back into their cars and opening a spot for you. Send alerts early and often.

In other words, you can assume the authority of the park police simply by using this free app. The more alerts you send the more drivers may fear the presence of (your) authority, especially if the app servers do not properly assign and test for uniqueness in reports.

We also ask you to use this app responsibly and with respect for others

That surely will prevent abuse, just like those parking fines…who could be disobedient? I have an idea, the municipality can get rid of parking fines and just post signs everywhere that say

We ask you to park responsibly and with respect for others

What could go wrong with that plan? Even more to the point, the app developers say it is the responsibility of the app users to detect fraud.

How do I know these reports on the map are real?

You have to ‘feel’ your way around a bit here and use your best judgement [sic]. Here are some ways to have better confidence in the reports you see. If there are many reports around you, then what does the pattern and time stamps tell you? Click on the icon to open a flag showing how long ago it was reported. The reports remain on the map for 4 hours before dropping off. Councils usually don’t work overnight. In our area parking enforcement stops after 9pm. Look for patterns in the reports, are they along a logical path? Are they clustered into groups? Are they within minutes apart? The absence of reports reveals nothing useful.

If you hated worrying about parking enforcement before, something tells me you may really hate parking police + ParkPatrol. The parking timer might be helpful but otherwise it looks like it would only increase worry by sending false alarms and making you sort it all out.

If you really liked parking enforcement before, ParkPatrol extends police power right into your (and your friends’) phones. Now you can easily setup a program to send bogus police parking alerts in your neighborhood to keep pesky parkers away — you now have an active role in law enforcement.

I wonder if the developers account for the fact that the Parking Police may have phones too, which gives them the ability to monitor the signals reporting their positions. This opens up much more effective avenues of enforcement — sending a decoy vehicle one direction while an unmarked officer gives tickets in the other direction. That might not be necessary if they just send in bogus reports themselves.

It also begs the question whether enforcement will switch to digital photos mailed quietly to vehicle owners, like toll-booth violations. Why should they be conspicuous in their enforcement role at all? Is it a requirement that they wave a flag so their position can be known?

Many people swear it is a nice feeling to press that red button!

Maybe too nice a feeling…

2 thoughts on “Drivers Work Together Against Parking Police”

  1. David, in your attempt to be cynical and witty you missed the point.

    It seems most people are out for themselves in this world, including local government. It’s all about what they can get, not what they can do for each other. Parking fines really are a regressive taxation, impacting greater on those who can least afford it. It would be ideal if we could all afford, or have access to an off-road car parking space, but the fact of the matter is that not all of us can. The only option for most is to park on the street, with limitations and restrictions capriciously applied by local councils.

    You seem to imply that local government only works for the greater good of mankind, and has purely altruistic motives. Maybe that was once the case, but right now I feel the opposite is true. Most have come to rely on parking fines as major part of their revenue (and easy dollars they are). That wasn’t the case 10 years ago. It’s as if they’ve suddenly realized that there’s gold in their own backyards and we are now in the midst of a parking fine rush. And what do they do with this dramatic increase in revenue? Do they spend some of their nuggets on better public transport, thereby freeing up the need to drive and park in these precious spaces? The answer is that generally they don’t. Instead, I’m sure most of the money is swallowed up paying off debt incurred as part of the GFC. I know that’s the case here.

    Back to ParkPatrol. Where we work is well away from any other office building, in an area where there is no public transport nearby. The area has low traffic flow and yet the local council targets us with enforcement officers sometimes twice daily. They have admitted that this recent activity in our area is specifically targeted at our building. Over the past 5 years they have changed the parking restrictions on the street, so that now we must move all our cars every one or two hours or face an $80 fine. There has been a massive decrease in work productivity, as drivers swap car spaces in a crazy merry-go-round sometimes up to three times a day. That is until we all started using ParkPatrol. This app has been developed for use by ‘micro-communities’, such as specific buildings, hospitals, universities etc. In these ‘micro-communities’ we all look out for each other, as we all have a vested interest in doing so. You’re always going to have some smart ale who abuses the goodwill, but are you saying that local councils don’t do the same? That would be naive. Where once I was averaging a fine a week, I have not received a single one in 6 months. As well as better productivity in our office, another benefit is that the local council has reduced the number of patrols in our area dramatically, and when I asked one lone officer why, he told me and I quote ‘they just aren’t making the money in this area so they’re sending us elsewhere’.

    It just goes to show you that if we stand together as a community we can influence local government, even if it’s by making them work harder for their money. Viva mobile apps, viva ParkPatrol!

  2. Miked, thanks for your thoughtful comment.

    It seems most people are out for themselves in this world, including local government. It’s all about what they can get, not what they can do for each other.

    That is sometimes true, I agree, but I do not think it is true of most people. Perhaps you could point me to a reference that shows most people are out for themselves…?

    ParkPatrol seems to be based on the notion that people will do things for others, so I’m not sure why you’d say most people are out for themselves.

    You seem to imply that local government only works for the greater good of mankind, and has purely altruistic motives.

    I tried to say local government is a representation of a community. If a community stands together it can have elections and form governance, which results in people taking office to make decisions about things like parking ticket laws and enforcement.

    It’s the same concept behind ParkPatrol — working together.

    It just goes to show you that if we stand together as a community we can influence local government

    Yes, my point exactly. Maybe the app could be called iLocalGovernment, Parking Edition

    You’re always going to have some smart ale who abuses the goodwill, but are you saying that local councils don’t do the same?

    I agree that abuse of a system is a risk. The anti-fraud measures for local government are fairly well-known. They aren’t perfect, but transparency is the first step. What anti-fraud measures are in place for ParkPatrol?

    …the local council has reduced the number of patrols in our area dramatically, and when I asked one lone officer why, he told me and I quote ‘they just aren’t making the money in this area so they’re sending us elsewhere’

    Interesting correlation but is it really causation? Are you saying the true benefit of ParkPatrol is not to reduce unjustified parking fines but rather to push those fines onto some other person/area?

    That sounds a lot like “people are out for themselves in this world”.

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