If you read the general internet it's all mobbed up guys stealing cars from law-abiding single mothers for no reason at all but then again if I believed the general public about parking violation enforcement here in germany I'd come to the conclusion they're the new jews.
So how bad is that whole privatized towing / enforcement thing, really? Is there an actual problem beyond "it's a private company" or is it mostly carbrain tears?
The other option is to have better city planning. They could have parking garages, lots, or spaces mandated for people who live nearby. But, also, street sweeping doesn't need to stop. They can go around the cars. Do you know what happens in more affluent neighborhoods when they don't move their cars? Nothing, no fines at all. The streets still manage to be cleaned. They are, of course, able to mostly keep their cars off the street because they have garages and driveways, etc. but parking should be made available to all tenants to avoid these issues. There should be parking structures related to neighborhood housing to reduce the need for street parking. Tenency can come with a sticker to place on your car and, there, problem solved. That would also help beautify the streets so they can be pedestrian walkways.
Yes, that is my focus because they are the ones, obviously, who will be more impacted by parking enforcement rather than those without cars. There are a lot of working poor without cars, but they suffer more mostly because they don't have a car rather than because others do have cars. And we should have better transportation, etc. so that they don't suffer just because they don't have a car.
The thing is, we are both discussing very different conditions. I'm in the US, and I'm assuming you're in Europe or the UK. Cars here are absolutely necessary, with extremely rare exceptions. I would prefer to live in a place, like Europe, where driving was optional, there was better public transportation, and the streets were more pedestrian and cyclist friendly. But it's just not the reality here. The focus does go toward the driving working class, we are forced to drive. And, on top of that, we are hounded in the cities by parking enforcement vultures.
As I said initially, there has to be some reprimand for certain violations. Of course. As you mentioned, people parking on sidewalks where people are walking or those with disabilities have to get by, of course, there should be a ticketing or something. Everyone suffers from this, including drivers once they exit their cars. I'm not saying reprimands should never exist at all, I'm saying it shouldn't exist in its current form. And the issues you raise are the exceptions to what they actually do, which is just harass regular people with minor infractions. Arguing that we should have parking enforcement because they deal with the rare issue is like saying we should have cops because sometimes they arrest murderers. Yes, someone should deal with those things that impact others but, as it stands, they are the ones who are mostly dealing the negative impact and mostly to working class people. It goes back to capitalism, in the US there are quotas set on them because cities and departments want the extra revenue. This turns them into predatory roles, both parking enforcement and regular cops but at least parking enforcement don't carry guns to kill people—for now, anyway. I have seen people park on sidewalks in Europe and I've seen people here do stupid things too, they should be ticketed but the parking system—as well as other parallel systems—need serious overhaul. Until then, fuck parking enforcement.
See following paragraph, it plays into this, but I cannot be convinved that "well they suffer mostly because they don't have cars so suffering from other peoples cars is negligible" is a great way to go
Germany to be specific and it's no secret, but it's basically why I'm asking - if I believed everyone here about their opinions of parking enforcement it sounds just the same as what you describe, it's just not true.
Tickets don't solve the issue of shit being blocked though. I mean that's just arriving at "legal if you have money" again, surely?
So parking enforcement is best understood as ACAB here then?
That's cool. I really like Germany. People have always been really friendly with me. Again, we're discussing two separate countries, states, and cities with two different systems. We could both be right in how we're describing parking enforcement. I am not trying to convince you about how it is in Germany, I've traveled throughout Germany and have family and friends from Germany but I haven't lived my daily life there as a driver so I wouldn't know. I know how it is in the US and it is fundamentally predatory.
I didn't necessarily say it's negligible, it's just outside the scope of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how predatory parking enforcement is, and that doesn't really involve how people without cars suffer most. The nuances of how some people without cars are helped by parking enforcement is something that I acknowledge to be true at times but it's offset by the typical work of parking enforcement. Whether people without cars are affected more by others with cars or those without cars is a different topic entirely, but from my own experience without cars and those I know without cars the complaint is rarely (but not non-existent) against other drivers but mostly against a shitty city planning system that makes it so difficult to not have a car. And the complaints in Germany might be different and might be toward the drivers themselves because you already have better city planning in many cities. We are still in the first stage of having larger issues with the city planning.
I said they should be "ticketed" to extend an olive branch to you if it helps since you like parking enforcement, but I agree ticketing doesn't solve the problem. That's also why I said "or something" because I think another method of handling this needs to be developed but I don't know exactly what nor am I in a position to impose it as policy. So, I'm open to ideas.
Here? I don't know, man. I'm just giving you my opinion. I've never discussed parking enforcement here before and I know there are some people that hate car-centric culture and cars so much they hate the drivers themselves so they might end up sympathizing with parking enforcement too. I hate how dependent we are on cars, and the fact that I need a car where I live, but I'm not going to hate working class drivers themselves for the situation they are forced to live in. Because of that, I'll side with working class drivers over some scum parking enforcement. They force many of us to have cars and then always find any excuse to extract, extract, extract more and more. I've been held at gunpoint by police many times and hit by police and stopped unnecessarily by police, but I still hate parking enforcement more because they are such scummy class traitors leeching off the poor when they could just get a job at a grocery store or become a teacher or something, like the rest of us. I have absolutely no sympathy for them. So, for me, parking enforcement is included in ACAB.