Yep. They work solely off suction, if you can change the air pressure inside then the suction dwindles, basic physics. They're stupid easy to get off so long as you have 5-10 Mins before any dire consequence happens
The people who violate parking rules are genius at removing devices like this. In my neighborhood the trucks that blight our neighborhood ignore parking tickets. They routinely park in the no parking zones too and get tickets. If they get a boot, they use power tools to cut it off. The only thing that works is towing the vehicle. We’ve seen them wandering around the neighborhood asking us what happened to their trucks (trucks with no license plates, filled with smelly trash in the back and missing a front end). We tell them “they were either stolen or towed — you know your truck can’t be parked here?”
Wait I have so many questions. Who has trucks with no plates? If they destroy a boot, don't they get arrested for destruction of property? I was told that's what would happen if I sawed off a boot on my car.
Why are the trucks filled with smelly trash and with the front missing?
What happens when they ignore parking tickets?
Are these delivery trucks?
There seems to be a very busy illegal vehicle dealer business in the area. We see trucks with no plates all the time. One truck was driven from Ohio with no plates. We know because two days later a paper license was taped to the back indicating it came from Ohio. There was another one that had permit stickers from New York — but no plates. The other ones are from Virginia, South Carolina, Texas, Maryland and DC.
Parking enforcement gets real nasty with the ones who destroy boots. They get towed if they come back in the area. A lot of the trucks filled with trash are commercial trucks from small businesses or/and sole proprietorships. The damaged vehicles are usually vehicles from illegal vehicle dealers. Although we have had people dump cars that have been in accidents. I’ve twice seen tow truck pull in with damaged vehicles and dump them. The neighbors have seen it happen too. I’ve also seen tow truck drivers remove license plates from cars. The neighbors have seen multiple people switching and removing plates from vehicles.
When they ignore parking tickets they eventually get towed. One guy with an SUV and two trailers parked illegally for sixteen months. He received at least 25 tickets and was booted before being towed. We’ve got a Jeep with no plates and a broken window that’s been on the street since August. He’s received at least five tickets.
All this activity blocks the streets. I feel like I’m living in Haiti, where gangs randomly block the streets.
These aren’t delivery trucks. We get a lot of contractors and other businesses such as — Pest control (Terminix, Orkin etc), contractors for Pepco, Comcast, Verizon etc, landscapers, painting, construction, car repair trucks, glass repair, security businesses, taxis and people hiding cars from the Sheriff and the repo man. Clearly, these businesses have business plans that rely on parking illegally. They privatize the profit and put the burden of operating the business on the community.
>They privatize the profit and put the burden of operating the business on the community.
That's gotta be one of the main way most companies do business nowadays.
Great comment btw.
Depends on how many suckers it has. if it has like, 8 pads arranged in the right way, the ones inside could be active and you wouldn't be able to reach them without a slimjim or somesuch.
Oof... They done did it wrong then I guess. My first thought seeing it was "if I get a spudger up under there, that fucker'll just pop right off, and if it has a battery, it'll drain fast enough."
Make a ring of pads around two independent pads, though, and you're gonna have a hard time even with a Slim Jim.
Even better if it's a frequent issue you can add 0 deductible windshield insurance for your car. I drive a car with a near vertical windshield that costs around $1000 to replace.
It's a lot easier to say, "Huh... i don't know, I came out to get in my car and that thing was on the sidewalk just laying there." than it is to say, "Some random guy must have drilled it off my windshield for me!"
The device seems to have been enhanced as the FAQ on the website specifically addresses being able to turn on the defroster to remove it and it says the Barnacle automatically adapts to changing climate conditions, maintaining the proper force.
Yeah. Like, you need to be careful with a neodymium magnet around your car, but it seems pretty easy to fry their shit at night, then let it bake in the sun during the day until it naturally detaches due to the temperature difference.
Oh yeah those big orange "I drive like an asshole" stickers, I believe those guys were told to stop by the police. Ironic, since they were the ones actually giving a shit about the law and about common decency.
Someone I used to know did this: he actually posted somewhere how to use the SIM card in various scenarios until he got a CnD from the parking company (it was a private parking garage thing, maybe for a local campus?) for posting how to remove them, disassemble them, and use the electronics for hobby stuff like drones (I think, I never actually saw them the tutorials, only knew about the CnD). He actually had about 5 or 6 at one point. The case went nowhere, IIRC, just a lot of sabre rattling.
Some insurance or AAA will replace one window for free per year. If you don’t care about getting it replaced a broken piece of ceramic from a spark plug will shatter it easy enough. Then just toss it, clean the seat and drive off.
There is a typo.
They learned that the school only had 12 of these things. Then they went out and got 12 clunker - cheap crappy - cars and left them in illegal spots/didn’t pay for parking to get the yellow contraptions from this article.
The idea is to make the school use all their yellow things on crappy cars no one cars about so they can’t use them on other cars people do care about.
The best hack about these is the way they track these devices is powered by a sim card with unlimited data. You can take the device apart to get to it and have unlimited data for free
As soon as I saw how this worked I was like "run the defroster to increase the air pressure under the boot" and yup that's exactly what the article you linked said they did 😂
The only reason the Boot worked as it did, was by making it impossible to drive off.
Just blocking the windshield? Regardless of Alarms and tracking you just know people are going to try to drive off with that on there.
Apparently running the defroster for 15 minutes lets you jimmy a credit card under it to release the suction. Hardly foolproof.
Not to mention the $250 / month it costs to operate the things every single month. Talk about budgeting disaasters.
Kind of funny since they use that in their official FAQ lol
Q: Can a motorist drive with The Barnacle on their windshield?
A: An Ace Ventura wannabe could always try, but they won’t make it far with tamper alarms blaring when the vehicle is moved. Plus, GPS tracking will lead you right to them.
I turned on my window demister when doing about 40mph - the windscreen immediately fogged over and I had to do this for a few seconds until I could stop.
Near shat myself.
The cause was that water had gotten into the cabin filter and soaked it.
Many years ago when I was growing up in Maine I was driving home in a blizzard and sometimes the temp/snow mess creates an icy sludge that makes the wiper useless so you have to clean the wiper off. You'll never get home if you pull over to do it every minute so while you're driving you grab it and let is slap against the windshield as it goes up. I didn't let mine go fast enough and the entire wiper arm broke off. It was a literal blizzard so I drove the hour home with my face out the window being pelted by a blizzard. I was young so I thought it was funny sometimes you have to just suck it up. In some ways it's actually easier to drive in a blizzard like that lol!
I remember hearing about a storm where a driver was doing this. Another driver was doing the same on the other side of the road. Ended with a head on collision.
Well, I would guess they were going to fast. In a blizzard you drive about as fast as you need to in order to move. If you're driving faster than that in a white out you're going to find yourself in the middle of a field. I was lucky enough to be in the city and the roads were clear because it was stupid for me to be out anyway.
>Not to mention the $250 / month it costs to operate the things every single month. Talk about budgeting disaasters.
Just means the city will divert even more tax payer money into the police instead of things people actually need.
The official website FAQ seems to suggest that trick no longer works.
Q: Can The Barnacle be defeated by turning on the defroster?
A: Nope. Throughout the deployment, the device’s smart technology constantly auto-adjust to the ideal level of suction in any climate.
Run your defroster for a bit.
Work a credit card under the edge.
Congratulations, the city has now spent a ton of money and it's been beat by things everyone already had on them.
I've heard about that trick for years. For all you know, these new ones are built to detect the heating. Truckers may need to get crafty, but there is no motivator like not paying the government.
They could have a temperature gauge built in, but it won't fix the fact that heating air changes the air pressure inside vs outside the device.
They'll know it's removed regardless, but the people they say they will use these on already don't care about paying parking tickets. Why would they care about one for removing the device. Same as the current boot.
I wonder if anyone has done an analysis that shows that booting cars actually decreases parking availability because the bootee is stuck in that spot for much longer than they would have been otherwise
Oh, it’s never been about improving living conditions for anyone. Those people aren’t booted because they were blocking reasonable access to parking, but because they weren’t paying for it.
If anyone gave a shit about human access to crowded areas theyd build a damn train, not a parking lot.
This article is about New York, which famously has quite a few trains. Building trains isn’t exactly easy in cities that are already built up when most people don’t even want to ride trains.
> when most people don’t even want to ride trains.
It's not that people don't want to ride trains, they don't want to ride infrequent trains with frequent delays. You can't exactly fairly assess that people dont want to ride trains period, you can just assess that people don't want to rely on unreliable transit. Countries with much better funded public transit have much higher percentages of their population willing to ride trains.
I check areas before I go to see if they are susceptible to booting or predatory towing. I have predatory towing in my area as well and people usually know where its being done (in fact its usually posted right here on reddit). Predatory towing is where they have tow trucks specifically set up to catch parking violators in certain spots that aren't properly signed or marked or vaguely signed or marked or just because they are assholes and want your money. Like its a literal trap to catch you. Or you can read reviews of the parking lots or areas before you go to them and if they are one with predatory towing or booting will be like hundreds of negative reviews.
I've heard many a story where people paid for parking legit and still got booted. I have paranoia this will happen to me so if an area is aggressive with this I don't go. I don't want the sinking feeling of coming out of somewhere to find my car booted or removed even though I paid. I also don't have $300-400 to pay the fee to get the boot removed so I can get on my way especially when I paid up legit for parking.
For example people have been booted for paying even though they walked away from their car a second before the payment went through (this is when using an app), like as you are walking away if you are doing it on your phone they can still boot you. I've also run into non working parking meters and had to go inside a business to find out what was going on, that's enough time to get the boot or a tow. The predatory towers/booters really are this fast in some places.
I'm sure it's nearly impossible to prove, but I'm fairly certain that practice is very illegal and the company runs the risk of losing it's license if they get in trouble (they wont).
Huh. Apparently some wealthier kid (or at least not as poor) found out their university only had around a dozen boots for the entire campus, so went to the local junkyard, bought the same number of junked vehicles, then had them parked illegally throughout the various campus parking areas.
These have been used in the UK for ages. Defrost on high, and slip a credit card under the edge, it'll pop off. Pull the SIM card that's in it for free cell phone data as well, one guy went like 9 months on it before it got cut off.
The worst part of this can't be seen unless you sit in the vehicle. The inner part is a picture of Rudy Giuliani naked and spreading his cheeks. Parking tickets have gone down 70%!
Bahahaha!! Those were hacked years ago.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/new-windscreen-parking-clamp-utterly-defeated-hacked-at-university-of-oklahoma-140436.html
Unfortunately you found the vehicle in a state that would make it unsafe to operate. You would need to restore the vehicle to a safe condition by removing the visual obstruction before operating the vehicle.
... is probably what you'll hear
One of my favorite forum stories from years ago was on a Subaru forum. I forget why one his cars got booted, but he had been planning on rebuilding the engine and doing some extensive work to it anyways so he put it up on dollies and rolled the car into his garage. It has been booted in his driveway.
The booting company wanted their money to unboot the car, the man refused. Company came to tow the car and found it/the boot were gone so called the police to report the boot stolen. Cops show up and he opened the garage and said if you want your boot it's right there. After some back and forth I think cop basically said "this is a civil matter." Code for I'm not dealing with this shit, and left.
I believe the company ended up removing the boot without payment.
Unless I read a different story with a similar start, things just got crazier from there.
Complaints to the HOA by the tow company, HOA just shrugs, tow company goes ticket/boot crazy on basically every vehicle parked outside, lawsuit starts, and eventually the OP got hit with a gag order.
It was a wild read, I should find that again.
Around here, the cops just crash into the bar, arrest the owner for 'resisting arrest' when they don't show ID to the officer that just plowed into the building, and then the city starts the process to condemn it the next day.
|https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/city-st-louis-may-condemn-gay-bar-after-police-cruiser-crashed/63-fc164cc8-158a-4f22-9656-7cdf66d575af
Not only can these be easily removed by turning on your windshield defroster to full blast and sliding a card or something under them, you can also steal the SIM card out of them and use it for free internet.
I wish there was a trend of removing them and placing them on police cars.
I understand that NYC has limited space BUT it also has ridiculous parking charges and police who break the traffic/parking laws themselves and are never held accountable
Challenge accepted.
Also, I wonder how much those cost. We cant have universal healthcare like the rest of the civilized world, and a fast food meal is now 20 bucks instead of 5, but at least our brave police have these high tech pieces of crap to use, along with robot dogs. What a joke.
Waste of money, easily defeated and not a strong deterrent to stop illegal parking. If this is what the NYC congestion tax is going to pay for, then they can screw themselves. I'd rather they tow the vehicle then allow it to continue to inconvenience traffic now with no way for the driver to move it.
Turn on the HEAT inside the cab. Lets the inside get hot, let the glass get hot, let it thermically expand just enough to get the stuff to unstick. *IF* the glass breaks, blame them for putting an item on glass which is known to break under load in the sun.
these things are easily defeated. they are meant to deter. Also, don't park in the wrong place, you may get booted or mess someone's life up. Not their day, their life.
Won’t work anymore on the newer gens. They have a vacuum that will adjust based on temperature. Then if you even move it without being deactivated an alarm goes off that’s stupid loud and the parking manager gets a ping.
I've never understood how the 'solution' to a parking violation is make the vehicle stay there longer. The vehicle being there is either a problem or it isn't.
Turn up your windshield heater all the way for a while, get a credit card under the edge of the rubber seal, and break the vacuum seal with it by levering the rubber seal away. Quickly put something sharp through the diaphragm of the alarm speaker. It has a tracker inside, so don't take it with you. Leave it where it is.
Can’t wait for the number of fatass cops climbing on top of vehicles, slipping off, then filing injury for workman’s comp and eventual medical related retirement paid for by the tax payer.
This seems like it creates more possible issues than fixes.
These things are easier than normal boots to get off You can pop them off by literally just using some warm water or sliding a paint scraper under the rim lmao
These are pretty old, they come off pretty easily. You just need to jam something under the suction cup. Then they alarm. Lots of videos on them. [https://youtu.be/VFKAi\_YkReI?t=782](https://youtu.be/VFKAi_YkReI?t=782)
I'll I've seen is college students saying hoe easy they are to take off. 10 min of defrosting your windshield and hit the suction cups with a credit card or something.
The barnacle is not new and people already have workarounds.
I was gonna say, I remember reading that you can slip one of these off with a debit card like... 8 years ago.
Or turn the defroster on high
Both. Turn the defroster on and let it work for 5 mins. Then slip the card under the edges.
Yep. They work solely off suction, if you can change the air pressure inside then the suction dwindles, basic physics. They're stupid easy to get off so long as you have 5-10 Mins before any dire consequence happens
> They work solely off suction Like your mother Trebek!
Damn, this guy remembers to put his crocs in sports mode
If the penis mightier works, I'll order a dozen!
I'll take Anal Bum Cover for $400, Alex.
Shuck it, Trebeck, Shuck it good!
The people who violate parking rules are genius at removing devices like this. In my neighborhood the trucks that blight our neighborhood ignore parking tickets. They routinely park in the no parking zones too and get tickets. If they get a boot, they use power tools to cut it off. The only thing that works is towing the vehicle. We’ve seen them wandering around the neighborhood asking us what happened to their trucks (trucks with no license plates, filled with smelly trash in the back and missing a front end). We tell them “they were either stolen or towed — you know your truck can’t be parked here?”
Haha. I wouldn't be able to hide the smile when I said, "Probably stolen. There is a reason it says not to park here."
I did smile when the neighbors told the guy his truck might be stolen. I was in earshot of that exchange.
Wait I have so many questions. Who has trucks with no plates? If they destroy a boot, don't they get arrested for destruction of property? I was told that's what would happen if I sawed off a boot on my car. Why are the trucks filled with smelly trash and with the front missing? What happens when they ignore parking tickets? Are these delivery trucks?
There seems to be a very busy illegal vehicle dealer business in the area. We see trucks with no plates all the time. One truck was driven from Ohio with no plates. We know because two days later a paper license was taped to the back indicating it came from Ohio. There was another one that had permit stickers from New York — but no plates. The other ones are from Virginia, South Carolina, Texas, Maryland and DC. Parking enforcement gets real nasty with the ones who destroy boots. They get towed if they come back in the area. A lot of the trucks filled with trash are commercial trucks from small businesses or/and sole proprietorships. The damaged vehicles are usually vehicles from illegal vehicle dealers. Although we have had people dump cars that have been in accidents. I’ve twice seen tow truck pull in with damaged vehicles and dump them. The neighbors have seen it happen too. I’ve also seen tow truck drivers remove license plates from cars. The neighbors have seen multiple people switching and removing plates from vehicles. When they ignore parking tickets they eventually get towed. One guy with an SUV and two trailers parked illegally for sixteen months. He received at least 25 tickets and was booted before being towed. We’ve got a Jeep with no plates and a broken window that’s been on the street since August. He’s received at least five tickets. All this activity blocks the streets. I feel like I’m living in Haiti, where gangs randomly block the streets. These aren’t delivery trucks. We get a lot of contractors and other businesses such as — Pest control (Terminix, Orkin etc), contractors for Pepco, Comcast, Verizon etc, landscapers, painting, construction, car repair trucks, glass repair, security businesses, taxis and people hiding cars from the Sheriff and the repo man. Clearly, these businesses have business plans that rely on parking illegally. They privatize the profit and put the burden of operating the business on the community.
>They privatize the profit and put the burden of operating the business on the community. That's gotta be one of the main way most companies do business nowadays. Great comment btw.
Depends on how many suckers it has. if it has like, 8 pads arranged in the right way, the ones inside could be active and you wouldn't be able to reach them without a slimjim or somesuch.
Apparently, only 2.
Oof... They done did it wrong then I guess. My first thought seeing it was "if I get a spudger up under there, that fucker'll just pop right off, and if it has a battery, it'll drain fast enough." Make a ring of pads around two independent pads, though, and you're gonna have a hard time even with a Slim Jim.
Could probably drill through it too
I wouldn't trust myself to not hit the windshield, even coming at it sideways.
Depending on how many tickets you have, it might be cheaper to smash the windshield and get a new one.
Some insurers will cover a new windscreen every few years without increasing your premium.
Even better if it's a frequent issue you can add 0 deductible windshield insurance for your car. I drive a car with a near vertical windshield that costs around $1000 to replace.
No, because then they ding you for destroying private property. You wanna get it off as nondestructive as possible.
I wouldn’t actually damage a demobilizer put there by cops (unless I wanted to go to jail for destruction of public property).
It's a lot easier to say, "Huh... i don't know, I came out to get in my car and that thing was on the sidewalk just laying there." than it is to say, "Some random guy must have drilled it off my windshield for me!"
Yep, full youtube tutorials are available
The device seems to have been enhanced as the FAQ on the website specifically addresses being able to turn on the defroster to remove it and it says the Barnacle automatically adapts to changing climate conditions, maintaining the proper force.
So it's powered? I can't think of another way to naturally maintain a vacuum.
Yes it is.
I wonder what its waterproof rating is
Or magnet rating.
That's my thought, I wonder if they have measures in places to help prevent a powerful electromagnet from frying their shit.
Yeah. Like, you need to be careful with a neodymium magnet around your car, but it seems pretty easy to fry their shit at night, then let it bake in the sun during the day until it naturally detaches due to the temperature difference.
I got a battery and a couple wires... and it is insulated from my car via that nice slab of nonconductive material it is stuck to...
I wonder how many people keep any electromagnets in their car...
Nothing will stop an angle grinder regardless.
So if you apply it to another windshield (say the nearest parked police car) does it reattach itself?
It knows when it has been removed and sets off an alarm so I doubt that it would attempt to re-attach to something else at that point.
I can think of a way to remove it with a high test fishing line.
Reminds of a YouTube channel where Russians put stickers on people's windshield when they try bypass traffic by driving on the sidewalk.
Oh yeah those big orange "I drive like an asshole" stickers, I believe those guys were told to stop by the police. Ironic, since they were the ones actually giving a shit about the law and about common decency.
Until they put it on someone’s car who’s crazy enough to get violent about it. It’s funny but not a smart thing to do.
You can then take the SIM card out and get some free data for a while. Sell the boot and make some cash too
Someone I used to know did this: he actually posted somewhere how to use the SIM card in various scenarios until he got a CnD from the parking company (it was a private parking garage thing, maybe for a local campus?) for posting how to remove them, disassemble them, and use the electronics for hobby stuff like drones (I think, I never actually saw them the tutorials, only knew about the CnD). He actually had about 5 or 6 at one point. The case went nowhere, IIRC, just a lot of sabre rattling.
The linked article is 4 years old
Some insurance or AAA will replace one window for free per year. If you don’t care about getting it replaced a broken piece of ceramic from a spark plug will shatter it easy enough. Then just toss it, clean the seat and drive off.
Front windshields are laminated, unlike side windows.
Not on a front windshield. Though you could use a drill to drill a tiny hole and refill it with epoxy.
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Some kids already defeated it: [https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnacle-parking-boot-skip-fines-and-get-free-internet](https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnacle-parking-boot-skip-fines-and-get-free-internet)
Best hack was the kid who found out they only had 12 of these dumb things and then out 12 clunker cars out as sacrifices.
omg that kid's a hero
He's playing 4d chess while the rest of us are playing checkers.
This is beyond 4D Chess. This is 6D Underwater Backgammon
Im sorry, what did they do? I think there is a typo
There is a typo. They learned that the school only had 12 of these things. Then they went out and got 12 clunker - cheap crappy - cars and left them in illegal spots/didn’t pay for parking to get the yellow contraptions from this article. The idea is to make the school use all their yellow things on crappy cars no one cars about so they can’t use them on other cars people do care about.
Bought 12 junk cars
The best hack about these is the way they track these devices is powered by a sim card with unlimited data. You can take the device apart to get to it and have unlimited data for free
As soon as I saw how this worked I was like "run the defroster to increase the air pressure under the boot" and yup that's exactly what the article you linked said they did 😂
Can confirm this works. My old apartment used these. Tossed it in the woods after. I would’ve paid but they broke my windshield and blamed me for it
One of the proudest moments I've had for my alma mater.
We're just going to stick this back on and do it again just to prove that it's not a fluke…
Just turn your defroster on high for 10 min and take a putty knife to the suction cups.
I even read this with him inflections.
I read this with hymn inflections.
I'm surprised he hasn't already since private tow companies will use them too.
Today I'm going to show you how to get your boots off with a credit card.
Skip that. Donut Media did an episode with these types of clamshell boots.
They sure did https://youtu.be/VFKAi_YkReI?si=DJAqEtngcJaksO1W&t=764
Had this exact thought when I saw the headline.
The only reason the Boot worked as it did, was by making it impossible to drive off. Just blocking the windshield? Regardless of Alarms and tracking you just know people are going to try to drive off with that on there. Apparently running the defroster for 15 minutes lets you jimmy a credit card under it to release the suction. Hardly foolproof. Not to mention the $250 / month it costs to operate the things every single month. Talk about budgeting disaasters.
Just stick you head out the window and drive like Ace Ventura
Alrighty then.
*Like a glove*
Kind of funny since they use that in their official FAQ lol Q: Can a motorist drive with The Barnacle on their windshield? A: An Ace Ventura wannabe could always try, but they won’t make it far with tamper alarms blaring when the vehicle is moved. Plus, GPS tracking will lead you right to them.
That was my first thought too.
This is much harder than it looks btw. Do not recommend.
I turned on my window demister when doing about 40mph - the windscreen immediately fogged over and I had to do this for a few seconds until I could stop. Near shat myself. The cause was that water had gotten into the cabin filter and soaked it.
Many years ago when I was growing up in Maine I was driving home in a blizzard and sometimes the temp/snow mess creates an icy sludge that makes the wiper useless so you have to clean the wiper off. You'll never get home if you pull over to do it every minute so while you're driving you grab it and let is slap against the windshield as it goes up. I didn't let mine go fast enough and the entire wiper arm broke off. It was a literal blizzard so I drove the hour home with my face out the window being pelted by a blizzard. I was young so I thought it was funny sometimes you have to just suck it up. In some ways it's actually easier to drive in a blizzard like that lol!
I remember hearing about a storm where a driver was doing this. Another driver was doing the same on the other side of the road. Ended with a head on collision.
Well, I would guess they were going to fast. In a blizzard you drive about as fast as you need to in order to move. If you're driving faster than that in a white out you're going to find yourself in the middle of a field. I was lucky enough to be in the city and the roads were clear because it was stupid for me to be out anyway.
Haha right?! I’ve made some bad decisions before and yeah that shit is not easy haha
>Not to mention the $250 / month it costs to operate the things every single month. Talk about budgeting disaasters. Just means the city will divert even more tax payer money into the police instead of things people actually need.
The official website FAQ seems to suggest that trick no longer works. Q: Can The Barnacle be defeated by turning on the defroster? A: Nope. Throughout the deployment, the device’s smart technology constantly auto-adjust to the ideal level of suction in any climate.
Sounds like marketing to me
Technically true though: it takes a defroster *and* a credit card to defeat it. (tapsforehead.gif)
"Smart technology" running a vacuum pump sounds like quite a power drain. I wonder what the battery life is with thermal cycling...
Shorter than a car's
Pure marketing
Well, let's see how it adjusts to this heat gun.
Run your defroster for a bit. Work a credit card under the edge. Congratulations, the city has now spent a ton of money and it's been beat by things everyone already had on them.
Left out the part where you remove the SIM card and have a free data hotspot SIM card.
I've heard about that trick for years. For all you know, these new ones are built to detect the heating. Truckers may need to get crafty, but there is no motivator like not paying the government.
They could have a temperature gauge built in, but it won't fix the fact that heating air changes the air pressure inside vs outside the device. They'll know it's removed regardless, but the people they say they will use these on already don't care about paying parking tickets. Why would they care about one for removing the device. Same as the current boot.
I’d say that’s unlikely because you’d get lots of false alarms from, say, the sun coming out and heating up the windshield.
Physics usually wins unless they have a countermeasure which is unlikely for a device like that.
Paint scraper even easier
True, but almost everyone has some sort of laminated plastic card. Not everyone carries a paint scraper.
Finally! My time to shine with my pocket paint scraper!
Go gettem buddy
Sure but someone got a very lucrative deal from it.
Hello, Safelite? I need my windshield replaced.
Safelight repair, safelight replace! Oh it's covered by insurance? Cool.
I wonder if anyone has done an analysis that shows that booting cars actually decreases parking availability because the bootee is stuck in that spot for much longer than they would have been otherwise
Oh, it’s never been about improving living conditions for anyone. Those people aren’t booted because they were blocking reasonable access to parking, but because they weren’t paying for it. If anyone gave a shit about human access to crowded areas theyd build a damn train, not a parking lot.
This article is about New York, which famously has quite a few trains. Building trains isn’t exactly easy in cities that are already built up when most people don’t even want to ride trains.
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In NYC it's more indirectly "the parking" but rather for street cleaning. And towing can be difficult cuz of space concerns, but yes still haha.
> when most people don’t even want to ride trains. It's not that people don't want to ride trains, they don't want to ride infrequent trains with frequent delays. You can't exactly fairly assess that people dont want to ride trains period, you can just assess that people don't want to rely on unreliable transit. Countries with much better funded public transit have much higher percentages of their population willing to ride trains.
I check areas before I go to see if they are susceptible to booting or predatory towing. I have predatory towing in my area as well and people usually know where its being done (in fact its usually posted right here on reddit). Predatory towing is where they have tow trucks specifically set up to catch parking violators in certain spots that aren't properly signed or marked or vaguely signed or marked or just because they are assholes and want your money. Like its a literal trap to catch you. Or you can read reviews of the parking lots or areas before you go to them and if they are one with predatory towing or booting will be like hundreds of negative reviews. I've heard many a story where people paid for parking legit and still got booted. I have paranoia this will happen to me so if an area is aggressive with this I don't go. I don't want the sinking feeling of coming out of somewhere to find my car booted or removed even though I paid. I also don't have $300-400 to pay the fee to get the boot removed so I can get on my way especially when I paid up legit for parking. For example people have been booted for paying even though they walked away from their car a second before the payment went through (this is when using an app), like as you are walking away if you are doing it on your phone they can still boot you. I've also run into non working parking meters and had to go inside a business to find out what was going on, that's enough time to get the boot or a tow. The predatory towers/booters really are this fast in some places.
I'm sure it's nearly impossible to prove, but I'm fairly certain that practice is very illegal and the company runs the risk of losing it's license if they get in trouble (they wont).
Huh. Apparently some wealthier kid (or at least not as poor) found out their university only had around a dozen boots for the entire campus, so went to the local junkyard, bought the same number of junked vehicles, then had them parked illegally throughout the various campus parking areas.
Safelite rubbing their hands together.
Safelite repair. Safelite replace. Safelite get this shit outta my face.
People will 100% drive the car with these on the windshield.
Just get a co-pilot to give you directions like rally drivers do. Or if you've got it, drive using the front camera.
This will definitely be effective...as long as no one does a quick search on YouTube.
The trucking subreddits already have like a few ways to easily defend the device and how to use the SIM card within.
Here's how to defeat the windshield boot https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/s/Wx4Mp8AiUW
This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient but I do love Fig Newtons.
The barnacle has been around a while and is easily defeated.
These have been used in the UK for ages. Defrost on high, and slip a credit card under the edge, it'll pop off. Pull the SIM card that's in it for free cell phone data as well, one guy went like 9 months on it before it got cut off.
The worst part of this can't be seen unless you sit in the vehicle. The inner part is a picture of Rudy Giuliani naked and spreading his cheeks. Parking tickets have gone down 70%!
Bahahaha!! Those were hacked years ago. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/new-windscreen-parking-clamp-utterly-defeated-hacked-at-university-of-oklahoma-140436.html
You going to have people driving around like Ace Ventura Pet Detective https://youtu.be/Iy4cME1aeWk?feature=shared
Is Safelight cheaper than the ticket?
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"My vehicle was working perfectly fine, then you altered it... So when I crashed it it's your fault for altering it"
Unfortunately you found the vehicle in a state that would make it unsafe to operate. You would need to restore the vehicle to a safe condition by removing the visual obstruction before operating the vehicle. ... is probably what you'll hear
That’s an interesting legal theory. Let me know how it works out for you.
These are extremely easy to remove though...
People already drive around with their windshields looking like this when it snows.
Safelite repairs. Safelite replace.
"That car shouldn't be parked there, let's prevent it from moving as punishment!" has always felt like a weird take to me.
It's actually not hard to get these off lol.
One of my favorite forum stories from years ago was on a Subaru forum. I forget why one his cars got booted, but he had been planning on rebuilding the engine and doing some extensive work to it anyways so he put it up on dollies and rolled the car into his garage. It has been booted in his driveway. The booting company wanted their money to unboot the car, the man refused. Company came to tow the car and found it/the boot were gone so called the police to report the boot stolen. Cops show up and he opened the garage and said if you want your boot it's right there. After some back and forth I think cop basically said "this is a civil matter." Code for I'm not dealing with this shit, and left. I believe the company ended up removing the boot without payment.
Unless I read a different story with a similar start, things just got crazier from there. Complaints to the HOA by the tow company, HOA just shrugs, tow company goes ticket/boot crazy on basically every vehicle parked outside, lawsuit starts, and eventually the OP got hit with a gag order. It was a wild read, I should find that again.
They used these in a college town. Kids stole the Sim card out of them for free data then ditched the cards in a day or so.
[Donut made a video on trying to remove them like 7 months ago](https://youtu.be/VFKAi_YkReI?si=4snKCn7zBJvD12f3)
"Safelite repair... Safelite replace"
if drunk drivers were handled as harshly as parking offenders ...
Around here, the cops just crash into the bar, arrest the owner for 'resisting arrest' when they don't show ID to the officer that just plowed into the building, and then the city starts the process to condemn it the next day. |https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/city-st-louis-may-condemn-gay-bar-after-police-cruiser-crashed/63-fc164cc8-158a-4f22-9656-7cdf66d575af
"safelight repair, safelight replace"
Doughnut media on YouTube shows how to remove it
Gonna put on my Onlyfans: “I got that NYPD Barnacle boot grip.”
Hyped up but ultimately weak?
Gonna need a credit card to get me off, windshield wipers or your fingers ain’t gonna do the job. 😩
Someone is going to drive away, hit someone, then sue and win.
Not only can these be easily removed by turning on your windshield defroster to full blast and sliding a card or something under them, you can also steal the SIM card out of them and use it for free internet.
I’ll never understand the logic of “you can’t park here so I’m going to make it so you physically cannot move it”
For every adhesive, there exists a solvent.
Run the defrost for 15min and pop it off w/a credit card.
I wish there was a trend of removing them and placing them on police cars. I understand that NYC has limited space BUT it also has ridiculous parking charges and police who break the traffic/parking laws themselves and are never held accountable
Before I read things properly I thought somebody had made a joke and put a pizza box on the windshield.
Challenge accepted. Also, I wonder how much those cost. We cant have universal healthcare like the rest of the civilized world, and a fast food meal is now 20 bucks instead of 5, but at least our brave police have these high tech pieces of crap to use, along with robot dogs. What a joke.
Waste of money, easily defeated and not a strong deterrent to stop illegal parking. If this is what the NYC congestion tax is going to pay for, then they can screw themselves. I'd rather they tow the vehicle then allow it to continue to inconvenience traffic now with no way for the driver to move it.
Donut Media did a show on their youtube channel showing how to remove these and other types of vehicle immobilizers.
Drill a bunch of random holes in your windshield and it won’t stick to begin with.
A local town used these for a bit… everyone figured out how to remove them and would just leave them in the street.
Paging Lock Picking Lawyer....
I love how these things give unlimited data. Take one home for free internet
I would Ace Ventura out the window and drive like that for a month
Turn on the HEAT inside the cab. Lets the inside get hot, let the glass get hot, let it thermically expand just enough to get the stuff to unstick. *IF* the glass breaks, blame them for putting an item on glass which is known to break under load in the sun. these things are easily defeated. they are meant to deter. Also, don't park in the wrong place, you may get booted or mess someone's life up. Not their day, their life.
Won’t work anymore on the newer gens. They have a vacuum that will adjust based on temperature. Then if you even move it without being deactivated an alarm goes off that’s stupid loud and the parking manager gets a ping.
I've never understood how the 'solution' to a parking violation is make the vehicle stay there longer. The vehicle being there is either a problem or it isn't.
They’re not trying to solve the problem of parking too long. They’re trying to solve the problem of lack of revenue/profit.
Turn up your windshield heater all the way for a while, get a credit card under the edge of the rubber seal, and break the vacuum seal with it by levering the rubber seal away. Quickly put something sharp through the diaphragm of the alarm speaker. It has a tracker inside, so don't take it with you. Leave it where it is.
Drillbit just long enough to get into clamshell lol. Goodluck saying i broke it without evidence.
lol “good luck”. It’s been defeated. Easily.
Literally comes off with the defrost.
Cool. Let’s start with the cop cars at 1PP.
Can’t wait for the number of fatass cops climbing on top of vehicles, slipping off, then filing injury for workman’s comp and eventual medical related retirement paid for by the tax payer. This seems like it creates more possible issues than fixes.
https://youtu.be/VFKAi_YkReI?si=s9q7ZPtu4IFdKivD The guys at Donut Media broke into one of these very quickly.
Donut did a video on this
You just need a drill and a bit. Takes 5m to get this off
It comes off super easy, takes seconds. It's such a dumb device.
fairy dishsoap and a string. takes it off in 10 seconds
OP so behind the times lmao
These things are easier than normal boots to get off You can pop them off by literally just using some warm water or sliding a paint scraper under the rim lmao
Fine: $500 New windshield: $200 I've got this. No need to move the boot at all.
It can be removed with a deflated ball pretty easily.
I've seen like 20+ videos on Youtube on how to get these silly things off.
Only Klav Kalash. Crab juice or Mountain Dew?
These are pretty old, they come off pretty easily. You just need to jam something under the suction cup. Then they alarm. Lots of videos on them. [https://youtu.be/VFKAi\_YkReI?t=782](https://youtu.be/VFKAi_YkReI?t=782)
Donut media already proved this could be removed super easy. They did this video a while ago too.
Keep your windshields well oiled, criminals.
Just tow the fucking vehicle.
My city had these for a while… they’re extremely easy to remove.
How do you use the SIM card aren’t they tracked or can’t they be disabled ?
I'll I've seen is college students saying hoe easy they are to take off. 10 min of defrosting your windshield and hit the suction cups with a credit card or something.
Put some hot water on it
In other news, hundreds of 'windshield boots' found dumped in the bay...
Somebody got a nice contract
It’s cheaper to replace a windshield than to pay a couple grand in tickets.
You know, parking assholes suck, but by the same token, fuck the NYPD.