EV Reserved Parking Spots violators

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Maybe someone should put together a website where you can submit a picture of any ICE car blocking an EV parking space, and enter the license. If any car did it more than once (i.e., two or more photos for a given state/license combo), they'd automatically appear on a Wall of Shame on the website. Do it once mistakenly, no harm no foul. Do it repeatedly and deliberately, and you end up on the Wall of Shame. :p
 
Just call parking enforcement and or the towing company for the lot. It is so easy and all they want is a description and location of the vehicle(s). Towing makes them money and they will love you.

We should have a dedicated thread with the locations and towing numbers for "problem" locations. Nothing like crowd-sourcing to solve this problem.
 
planet4ever said:
Maybe I'm just being cheap, but am I going to get anything worthwhile for my $17? Are these needed anywhere in the Bay Area?

Ray
Yes Ray you are being cheap :D

However the way I read the code that unless the sign states:
Unauthorized vehicles not displaying valid zero-emission vehicle decal identifications will be towed away at owner's expense.
the sticker doesn't mean squat.

Keep in mind that this also keeps plug in hybrids out of spots marked as such too. Should those vehicles be towed as well?
 
mwalsh said:
IMO....Yes. It should apply to any vehicle that doesn't use electricity as it's sole source of motivation.
I agree even though it will most likely not make the PHEV folks happy and it is the way the law is currently written. By the way I do have the sticker but have not placed it on my vehicle yet but will soon.

So is it appropriate to play "hard ball" and call to have a car towed that is in a designated parking stall that is not displaying the sticker?
 
Spies said:
So is it appropriate to play "hard ball" and call to have a car towed that is in a designated parking stall that is not displaying the sticker?

It would be less "hard ball" if they were just towed to another available spot, with a $XX "re-parking" fine...

I've printed out a bunch of those warning notices 2x per page (thanks to jcesare!) and it will at least make me feel better to put that on a vehicle...

As far as the $17 CA EV parking sticker goes, it seems excessive to me (the HOV sticker is only $8), especially on vehicles that are clearly EVs.
 
Electric4Me said:
It would be less "hard ball" if they were just towed to another available spot, with a $XX "re-parking" fine...

Great idea!

Electric4Me said:
As far as the $17 CA EV parking sticker goes, it seems excessive to me (the HOV sticker is only $8), especially on vehicles that are clearly EVs.

LOL! I thought the same thing. :lol: But the HOV sticker was a bargain at only $8, so it didn't give me much cause to grumble. I just looked at the two as having a $25 "package price".
 
mwalsh said:
Electric4Me said:
It would be less "hard ball" if they were just towed to another available spot, with a $XX "re-parking" fine...

Great idea!

You can always bring 1-3 floor jacks with you as well and move any violators out into the main aisle. (I've "re-parked" cars with 5-6 guys lifting one end at a time...but that's a little harder with gynormous SUVs!)
 
So which is more destructive? Keying the car all the way around or slitting all 4 side walls? I think the keying does more damage dollar wise but the slit side walls creates a lot more inconvenience.
 
Spies said:
I agree even though it will most likely not make the PHEV folks happy and it is the way the law is currently written. By the way I do have the sticker but have not placed it on my vehicle yet but will soon.

So is it appropriate to play "hard ball" and call to have a car towed that is in a designated parking stall that is not displaying the sticker?
I think for every one L2 parking spot reserved for EV only there should be 2-10 L1 parking spots available to any EV or PHEV.

For charging stations on Chargepoint and Blink networks, with a slightly more sophisticated reservation system PHEV's could have access to L2 while still giving preference to EV's which need them more. E.g., an EV could make a reservation up to 24 hours ahead of time, while a PHEV could make a reservation 1 hour ahead of time. So a PHEV driver could benefit from opportunity charging in locations that weren't over-subscribed by EV's, knowing before he drove to the location that the car would be able to charge. Yet EV's which might need the electricity to move would not be locked out by PHEV's which were merely improving their gas mileage. I've used a reservation system like this in another context 10 years ago, so the software is definitely doable.

Leaf drivers would benefit from having Volt, Prius, and other PHEV drivers also influencing retail owners and government agencies to install more charging stations. So it's in our interest for charging stations to accommodate them in some manner.
 
walterbays said:
I think for every one L2 parking spot reserved for EV only there should be 2-10 L1 parking spots available to any EV or PHEV.
This is an excellent idea, and though this is slightly off-topic, I think that I'd rather see four parking spots with 120V @ 15A outlets in place of additional L2 EVSE equipment.

If you think about the cost of installing a single dedicated 220V @ 40A circuit to a parking space along with the L2 EVSE, wouldn't you rather see four spots with 120V outlets instead? Maybe not at the movie theater or other short-term parking spots, but think about the parking lot at work, Caltrain, or the Oakland airport... It seems like a shame to see cars sitting there for 8-12 hours (or days, in the case of the airport), tying up an expensive L2 EVSE charging port.

I've suggested to Coulomb that they should make a single 40A L2 EVSE with four or eight J-cables hanging off of it. This would be great at work, since several cars could plug in, and thanks to their "smart" charge management, they could allocate the charge to those who need it most (to be able to make it back home, or those willing to pay the most in the case of a public lot) and defer charge to others (like me since I don't really need it) who will take any available charging time at the end of the day...

I'm guessing that they're probably pretty happy selling many tens of units to business like Goole who, for now, evidently don't mind paying the installation cost (thousands of dollars) for each additional charger, even if they'll likely be idle all afternoon, and unavailable to additional EVs who didn't manage to get a connection in the morning.
 
I'd love to see the charging ports to notify user when the charge is full, and if the owner do not unplug the charger (move the car) then the owner will be charged by the minute. We don't even need man power to enforce it and it'll help make sure that chargers are available for everyone. When more EV's are on the road, we'll need a strong courtesy system one way or another.
 
Lanzer said:
I'd love to see the charging ports to notify user when the charge is full, and if the owner do not unplug the charger (move the car) then the owner will be charged by the minute. We don't even need man power to enforce it and it'll help make sure that chargers are available for everyone. When more EV's are on the road, we'll need a strong courtesy system one way or another.
Moving the car could be challenging if you just left your car in one of the charging spots at Oakland airport and then left on an airplane for a few days... Or maybe we'll see "valet/charging" lots where someone will charge the car, then move it to open the spot. But this all goes back to my earlier suggesting to simply have an "octopus" EVSE with several J-cables, able to trickle charge many cars at once, or L2-charge them sequentially. The idea is to be able to charge more cars over a long period of time, from each individual (and presumably expensive to install) 40A 240V circuit.
 
Today I visited the California Science Center at Exposition Park in downtown LA near USC. They had recently put in 2 chargepoint stations and I wanted to check them out. Much to my dismay, one of the 2 spaces was blocked with an ICE. The space on the other side of the blocked space was a crosswalk so no chance of extending the cord. Plus the spaces are right in front of the elevator and so are very tempting to be used both by handicapped placard cars and non handicap placard cars. I was able to park in the second space. This space has another regular space to its right so the cord could be extended. But again, very unlikely the space will be empty. I charged for awhile to get my car to recognize the station. There are no 120 or 240 outlets at these stations, just the J nozzle. No chargepoint card is needed nor do you have to dial the 800 number for access. You just take the plug and plug it in. The first time I visited, they let me in without paying the $8 after the kiosk guy radioed a supervisor. Today, I was told I could go in for 15 minutes only without paying. YMMV. I don't think they have a clear policy.
The spaces are marked with one small sign but there is no sign prohibiting other cars from parking there. I emailed the Science Center and attached a picture, asking them to put more signage and to enforce ticketing and towing for violations. Here is the email [email protected] Feel free to email as well if you are so moved. This parking structure provides access to all the museums, the Coliseum, Sports Arena, Imax theatre, etc. These are 2 very important charging stations! They should be as accessible as possible. I will post if I hear from them.

Kat
 
I agree with the others, leave the violators a nice warning the first time around, but do not hesitate to have the law enforced if need be. There haven't been a lot of EV's around in the last decade so a lot of it has gone un-noticed, but we will be around in force soon and people need to learn that there is a statue in effect.

Case in point, here in Phoenix our ball park has chargers which I occasionally used over the past few years. There were six highly prized spaces which they let gas vehicles park at. I learned this the hard way when I showed up out of the blue for a game one night and it took me an hour to get a vehicle moved. Legally I had the right to have all six towed, but I didn't want to burn bridges. In the end I worked out a system with them, I let them use the spots, but I would call the security office before I went down there for a game and asked politely to keep a space open for my EV, they would do it. All six of these spaces I believe are slated to be retrofit so it will be interesting to see what the future holds as far as the ball park policy.
 
I think most of the ICE cars will figure it out and play nice once the charge stations are actually getting used. We are just living through the hangover from the EV-1 days where most of these were initially installed to charge and were rarley if ever used.
 
smkettner said:
I think most of the ICE cars will figure it out and play nice once the charge stations are actually getting used. We are just living through the hangover from the EV-1 days where most of these were initially installed to charge and were rarley if ever used.

I don't think that is totally true. I don't think a lot of the ICE parkers ponder the usage of an EV spot for a long time before deciding to park in it. Maybe some, but more frequently I see people that ignore rules when parking. They double park, park in handicapped spots, and stop in the EV spots too. I don't think they would really learn unless a ticket or even towing made the point.
 
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