New York Used A Whole New Kind Of Parking Boot For The First Time Yesterday And You’ll Hate This One, Too

Barnacle Top
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Hey everybody! Big news, big New York news! Just days after the city was rocked by an unusual 4.8 magnitude earthquake, the city must have developed a taste for earth-shaking news, because the NYPD (that’s the LAPD of NYC) unveiled an all-new way to disable cars that have delinquent parking or have in one way or another earned the ire of the NYPD: the Barnacle Device. It’s an alternative to the famous/infamous wheel boot, but this thing is a windshield boot, looking like a large book opened and laid flat against the windshield, blocking vision.

Part of me thinks, hey, this is better! At least you can still drive the car! You just need to lean your head out the side window, excited dog-style, and keep speeds low, right? Or get a helpful friend to sit on the hood and yell LEFT or RIGHT or STOP STOP STOP PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY STOP and then you can be on your way, right?

Well, no, those are all terrible ideas and you should in no way do that. Besides, they have all your information when they stick that thing on there, so you’ll be in an even greater depth of shit if you do that, I suspect.

The Barnacle device seems to have been first deployed on a Volvo VNL semi-truck, as seen in this tweet:

The Barnacle grips onto a windshield in much the same way as an octopus would attach to something, via suction cups. Ironically, that is not how barnacles (the crustacean) attach themselves to animals like whales. Those biological barnacles secrete a fast-drying glue that is incredibly strong – and works in wet environments. This glue has been the inspiration for new surgical glues that can stop bleeding incredibly fast, and other industrial uses are being studied. It’s amazing stuff!

Oh, but back to the Barnacle device, which lacks any sort of exciting biologically-inspired adhesives. It’s just powerful suction cups. One nice thing about the Barnacle is that the victim – can I call them a victim? Sure, why not– is able to pay their fines right there on the device and have it release itself when a given code is entered, eliminating any need to hunt down a police officer to get a boot off.

The whole process can be seen in this video about these things produced by the Henry Ford Museum:

I guess in cities that use these, those drop boxes would be around? I suspect if you don’t return them to a dropbox and instead choose to, say, fling it into a lake, like a giant, rectangular frisbee, you’ll be charged some exorbitant amount for the thing. Barnacle has their own video showing this process in even more detail, from the “enforcer’s” perspective:

I guess overall, these are much better than the traditional wheel boots. At least these have a process for relatively easy removal by the car’s owner, which wheel boots never did. Nobody likes dealing with these, but the windshield variants do seem like a step in the right direction. And, even better, if anyone ever develops spray paint that renders objects transparent, we won’t have to worry about these at all!

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86 thoughts on “New York Used A Whole New Kind Of Parking Boot For The First Time Yesterday And You’ll Hate This One, Too”

  2. Yeah I would just slide something under it and pop the suction cup off. You really only have to worry about it if you live in the state that puts them on AND they suspend registrations for parking tickets. Otherwise who cares? Kind of like the EZ pass pay by plate when you are traveling. Not much they can do to you about blowing past it.

  4. I wonder how much clearance a Jeep Wrangler windshield has, as in could you fold it down to negate the issue one of these provides, till the battery dies and the device comes off.

    *edit: Nvm, apparently it’s GPS tracked and has a noisemaker built in.

    1. It looks like they’re only a few inches thick. If they don’t install it all the way at the bottom of the windshield, I could definitely fold my windshield down and drive perfectly fine. GPS and noisemaker be damned, if I need to get somewhere in an emergency, I will.

  6. Lovely. Wildly unpopular opinion here but just another reason that I despise NYC. Not the people or the State but the absurdity of this. I never seen a city that had its hands in your pocket more than that NYC. ( side note, whole family in my side is from there)

    2. Remember, the mafia was bad because the greedy government couldn’t get their hands on the millions of dollars they were making. Now the mob is gone, guess what the government is doing…..

  7. This seems way more fun to go vigilante with than a boot.

    Once you get your slim jim with air groove technique down you have a super loud suction cup thing that will go on any suitable window. Will it stick to the side of a subway car?

    Will NYPD keep helpfully posting the installations for quicker access?

  8. Now cyclists and pedestrians in NYC can look forward to sharing the streets with more drivers who won’t see anything directly ahead of them. At least the idiots staring at their phones can put them down.

    1. I had the exact same thought, until I saw how big this thing is on a regular car… but a curved windshield would probably do the trick (good luck with a Lancia Stratos or a Saab 900).

  11. I wonder what a magnetic bulk eraser would do to the electronics of this thing? Especially if it’s not my car, and I’m just thumping every one of these I see on the street.

  13. I love how they allude to this making parking better EXCEPT THE TRUCK IS STILL IN THE FUCKING WAY AND NOW THE DRIVER HAS TO CALL SOMEONE ELSE TO MOVE THE FUCKING TRUCK.

    I hate illegal parkers too, but, this isn’t serving anyone but the boot makers and the traffic enforcement union.

      1. It’s an improvement on the OLD way which had the SAME problem only worse. They made it worse. Then made it not as worse with this. The driver still has to contact someone; paying the fine is a contact to a solution developed and enforced by a person. Then, hopefully they are capable of removing the thing from their windshield. I don’t think my mom could do it. She’s 70 and in great health. She’s also all of 5 feet tall. My sister is also 5 feet tall. What about little people? What about disabled people? The list goes on.

        You may call this an improvement, but now the onus to remedy the parking situation is entirely on the driver, who we already know is a numbnuts because we had to put this barnacle on their car in the first place. So now the person who caused the problem is responsible for solving the problem. That’s not going to work well. Should it not be the responsibility of the law enforcement agency to enforce the laws? If its only 2 hour parking and Parking Ticket Timmy is there for 3. Gets a barnacle, and now he’s parking there for 6 hours because he had to go get his wallet from home because he was running late and forgot it; ultimately leading him to parking illegally in the first place.

        Now, what’s the solution? IDK. Tow em. IDC. We talk about reducing congestion in cities, maybe we should actually enforce the laws so the people who make city driving terrible finally face the ramifications of their actions and are either going to change and abide by the laws or just stop driving. We are way too tolerant of people abusing public infrastructure.

        1. If you can’t remove the device even after paying, uh, I dunno, don’t park illegally in the first place? I don’t object to towing them either, but doesn’t that cost more for everyone involved? I don’t know if the fine with this device is cheaper or not.

          1. That’s precisely the point. If the problem is congestion/parking illegally, we’re making it harder to remove the problem. So just remove the problem rather than making the problem worse.

            It SHOULD cost a lot of money to break the rules. Maybe people will start following them or utilizing the presumably viable mass transit NYC has to offer, and ease some congestion.

            The problem is, the enforcement of that would be done by the same people who do the barnacle and IMO they are a lost cause in solving real problems for real people.

            In my young and dumber days (I’m still dumb just not as dumb) I got towed. Lord knows I park like a saint now. An iOT barnacle
            just makes law breaking more convenient for the law breaker but just as painful for the population when the goal of enforcing parking should be to keep parking available and reduce congestion.

  14. Slim Jim and some oil. I doubt it could resist a metal shim being slid underneath. Even with rigid protective rings around the suctions cup, windshield curvature would permit access. At some point, someone will sell a removal kit on eBay.

    1. Although at that point they’ve already got your license plate so you’ll still get fined. Probably including an additional fine for “unauthorized removal” or somesuch.

      1. I completely agree. Which is why I’m starting a new service company named Remora Removal that will send out camouflaged workers to melt tiny holes in Barnacles so that they passively fall off your windshield when you drive away.

  15. That thing looks massive. I don’t think it would fit on my Miata. It would rest on the cowl and reach over the front half of convertible top.
    Another reason to own a small car in the big city.

      1. Or just take public transportation while in New York City. I went last spring for the first time and was blown away at how well it worked and how convenient it was. Or at least it is those things compared to transit options in Michigan/Detroit and the ridiculously short-routed People Mover.

        1. It is pretty remarkable, coming from a city that has a poor bus system at best. Although I have to say, the NYC subway was possibly one of the most filthy, disgusting, smelly places I’ve ever been in. To the point where I got nauseous more than once. It was also difficult to navigate when you’re only there five days and don’t really have time to learn the system. The second time we went to NYC we drove our car some, and used Lyft/Uber to get everywhere else. Cheaper than cabs (then, anyway), cleaner than the subway. I’m probably in a minority, but driving in NYC wasn’t bad. I didn’t try to drive to some of the more popular areas, but for hitting up restaurants in a regular part of town, no issue, including parking. No idea what things are like now though, it’s been eight years since I was there last. A lot has changed since then.

          1. New Yorker here, it’s pretty much the same, tho I don’t find the subways all that smelly (maybe in late august lol). Lyft/Uber is def not cheap anymore, prolly more than cabs. I own a car and driving isn’t that bad, we use it mostly to leave the city, occasionally maybe take it out to brooklyn.

            1. I was there in late summer so that explains why it smelled so bad. That, and I have a very sensitive nose and am allergic to mold. My body was not happy down there lol

        2. I went 10 years ago and was blown away by how well it DIDN’T work. It’s great as long as you’re going somewhere 1 train away. I think I had 2 trips like that the entire week I was there. The rest of the trips involved 2 transfers and took 45 minutes to go 3 miles.

  17. I’ll bet that in about 1 week there will be at least 2 hacks for it. One to remove it (using only a USB cable), and one to totally hijack it and let you reinstall it on the front glass at traffic headquarters with a ransom.

    1. I see both of these as absolute wins, not because I would ever do either, but because people will just to piss off the NYPD, and the reaction will be priceless.

    2. But they got your car’s info when they installed it, and probably yours too. I’m sure it has software and a cell connection so that if you tamper with it, it calls for backup.

      1. They already have your car’s info before they install it. That’s how they know to install it, because of the unpaid parking tickets on the cars record. Presumably the person is already a scofflaw so not sure they care.

        As for the software and cell connection that is what the hacking takes care of, presumably. And you’re not stealing it, you’re returning it to their window, maybe with a cheeky note.

        Also, backup for traffic enforcement, lolz. Three wheeled meter reader mobiles will converge on the target at a rate of… 5 MPH, once their done writing whatever ticket they’re currently working on.

  19. Oh that *was* Mo Rocca. I was wondering why it sounded so much like the Daily Show of yore, and after the slightly dramatized buildup of parking a car, expected a punchline.

      2. I thought it’s been a long time he’s been on it regularly.

        Though what confused the shit out of me a while back was when they had Joel Kim Booster on literally every week for several months.

  22. Running your defroster on high for about 15 minutes should help reduce the suction enough that you can slip a credit card underneath and break the seal.

    1. If they were smart enough to put a vacuum sensor in, then it could easily maintain suction against temperature changes. I mean, they had to have considered the sun at some point.

          1. Its not just the defroster. You run that to help with the physical attach of sliding something under the edge of the suction cups to release it. They still have all of the vehicle information so they will get you someday.

      1. As a seasoned Phoenician who replaces his windshield every 2-3 years I can assure you they exist, as long as you don’t have a fancy car. The windshield for my 10 year old GLI is about $150, the one for my SQ5 is about 10x that much.

    2. Lets see – Barnacle installed because driver didn’t pay tickets.
      Driver removes the thing and breaks his own windshield.

      Um – The Driver?

      1. They literally said this is after they pay, and remove it. The barnacle caused damage in the course of its intended operation, through no fault (during removal) of the car owner.

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