Big Brother Parking

As I understand it, there are roughly 5 million parking meters scattered throughout the U.S. and they range from those oft-broken devices that somehow manage to steal one out of every three quarters inserted, to the new devices that can be fed through various cloud applications and a credit card.

For someone who just recently installed WhatsApp on my phone, the technology now associated with the rather basic act of parking your car is beginning to give me the same degree of uneasiness as when I witnessed my first drone landing. I’ve since been privy to three more touchdowns, including one on a tennis court where I was engaged in a furious singles match, but that’s fodder for another tech-centric column.

I read an article recently where the privilege of paying for parking via a meter has been around since 1935. By my calculations, I probably could own or at least rent a beachfront house in the Hamptons for all the money I’ve tendered to these ominous iron monsters since I first received my license more years ago than I want to remember.

It also doesn’t help that nearly every shopping mall, movie theater or available street space within a five-mile radius of my home welcomes visitors and consumers alike with the threat of fines or a tow, if the meters are not fed. In fact the closest suburban city which fields a population of just over 58,000 collects some $5 million a year in parking fines. And no, that’s not a misprint.

Since the fine for getting towed averages $175 and the meters run about $1.50 an hour, it doesn’t take an economist to tell me that the risk/reward ratio of shunning payment is decidedly not in my favor. Oh sure, I’ve run into a store or Starbucks for five minutes and not “fed” the meter but anything longer, I’ll pay. Envisioning an empty spot where my car once was, while carrying an armful of packages is not how I want to spend the rest of my day.

But it gets a bit creepier.

I was in a parking garage recently where the technology is such that it captures your license plate and charges you accordingly.  So now in addition to running the risk of a summons or tow, there’s an application that’s monitoring me and my vehicle as well. I shudder to think what the next level of parking payment applications will bring.

And if it’s via drone, I’m going to become the biggest supporter of public transportation.