Maine Cars are Doomed If Police Use these New Boots Like NYC Uses

How many parking tickets do you have?

When I lived right in Portland, this was almost like a game for locals. It seemed like you were always trying to keep your number of tickets in mind, as you chose some of the sketchiest places you could find, to park your car. Maybe a little too close to a fire hydrant, or in a commercial zone without proper plates.

Inevitably, there's a good chance you forgot how many you had, and at some point you'd likely get a boot on your car. Then you'd have to go through the whole song and dance of paying the tickets and getting the boot off. This isn't limited to Portland by any means.

Some people get crafty, some get kinda stupid.

I think we've also all heard stories of either someone who knew how to get the boot off, or occasionally I've even heard stories about people just putting it in gear and basically breaking the thing right off their car. It's by no means the brightest move, but some people just have to be daring. Is that the right word?

In New York City, you can imagine the stupidity is even more rampant. So they've come up with an ingenious idea for a car boot that will certainly prevent you from just driving away. Mostly, because if you can't see, you can't drive, right? This new kind of boot fits right over the windshield. It's crazy. Check it out...

How does it work?

Simple, really. They lay this device called a barnacle onto the windshield, and a vacuum pump pulls two suction cups tight down onto the windshield. Since people have found clever, or stupid, ways to remove boots from their cars, this innovation should slow people down.

Will Maine police departments ever gets these? I would imagine. In Southern Maine especially, where parking violations are much more lucrative for the city. A small town like Presque Isle may never need something like this. But in Portland, it's probably just a matter of time before you see this kind of technology. If you ever play the parking game again, someday you may come out and see a huge thing on your window. Now you know why...

Some of the things on this list simply speak for themselves...