This is slightly off topic, but why do people do things like this? I don't understand why anyone would go to such lengths to do something like this. I just don't get it.
I see people around me fighting over parking spaces. I see people holding conferences on how to fight over parking spaces (that guy is muscling in!). I see people do the same for roughly every damn topic in this world, and sometimes it gets really messy. Why?
I once knew a guy who trolled a high quality policy discussion forum. His beef was that his wife made him go to a church that had a bunch of liberals, who would regularly say stuff that would enrage him, but which he couldn't respond to. The only thing that made him feel better was to piss on liberals online.
So one possible explanation is that some of these people feel frustrated and angry because for whatever reason, they're not able to voice their own political opinions in real life, so they get a rush from the power of denying random people on the internet that same freedom.
Fighting for parking spaces... you might be surprised how underhanded even that can get. The state of California has a rule in the vehicle code about abandoned cars. It's clearly intended to deal with cars people just walk away from (without intent of coming back), and perhaps some that are left in unsafe places (on the freeway etc.) The code mentions the court system addressing some aspects of it.
The city of San Luis Obispo (known as being the first for banning smoking in public places and one of the first to have curbside recycling) came up with 72 hour abandonment. There are no 72 hour parking signs. But go on vacation, away to visit family, carpool or use your bike instead of driving, bed in bed with the flu for days... and a car left is in violation. They mark a tire and the street with chalk and leave a little "courtesy notice" under a windshield wiper and then at three days tow. Beside the high towing fees, and a substantial impound release fee, there is also a citation for abandonment ($280).
Of course the towing contractors charge a hefty per day storage fee. They (the city police and parking agency) may reduce/rename the abandonment citation considering picking up the car from the towing yard to be "no intent to abandon". Of course some strapped for cash may not be able to get a car right away, and end up losing a vehicle due to the high ransom at the towing yard. The pirates may extract a lot of money for cargo ships, but on a personal level what the City of San Luis Obispo does to people hits harder as a percentage.
Note that this practice happens even in from of ones own home, even if there is no parking shortage. Neighbors that don't get along use it as a way to harass each other, and in some places people call in complaints to tr and get parking spaces. As a college town, there are many places were units have no off-road parking, or insufficient off road parking. The city makes money on this, as do the towing contractors. They see to meet the public notice requirements without people noticing... I know of an employee who has bought dozens of vehicles at auction for the minimum bid (towing/storage fees).
Wow. The city of somerville, ma has some what i consider draconian enforcement (street sweeping days so you must remember to move your car to the other side of the street or $100, unposted "snow emergency" rules with $100 and towing fines if you don't get your car off the street, regardless of whether snow actually falls).
They also have a 72h rule but it is not enforced (they state this) unless you don't clean the snow off your car after a big snow fall. Surprisingly reasonable of them...
while there is some validity to your argument, there is a reason for this strict code.
i went to school in San Luis. i know two people who left their cars parked on the street after finding out that fixing the car would cost more than the car itself.
the first two years i was in San Luis, i lived at a place that charged for parking. i would park my car on the street and leave it there for weeks until i needed to go visit my folks in the central valley. i did not have the problem you are describing even when i left the car unmoved for 3 weeks at a time.
The enforcement is primarily complaint driven. It does catch some legit cases of abandonment, but also sees abuse.
Although the state vehicle code section cited in their paperwork mentions the court, the actual process of dealing with SLOPD or the parking people DENIES access to the court. Appeals go to the same people that issued the towing order.
Except for a home, a car is the largest investment that great many Americans make. There's notice to ones' mailbox before towing. A person that's ill or otherwise not using a car for legitimate reasons may very well not see a notice on the car. The fine is more than that for parking in a handicapped zone or for any other parking violation.
They're unwilling to work with the community to solve problems. For instance I once had someone park across my driveway which is less obvious than most (especially at night) and I called the PD asking if they could help me by contacting the neighbor (I didn't know which apartment he was in) so he could move his car. It wasn't an immediate problem. They said sure. But when an officer showed up, he refused to go to the neighbor and instead had the car towed. They didn't make me happy, and I'm sure they didn't make the owner of the car happy. The solution was worse than the problem.
If they had 72 hour parking signs up and simply issued tickets with the right to go to court, it'd all be fair. But to put someone through some very expensive grief without due process is just wrong. Also, as you noted, the enforcement is spotty. It's often selective enforcement. It may not be bias on the part of an officer, but the complaint process is open to bias too. Someone of lower income with an older car is more likely to be targeted simply because a neighbor doesn't like seeing an older car, or some assume an older car isn't operational.
San Luis has many people that are very environmentally conscious. Many ride bikes, walk, take a bus or car pool. Some students rarely drive except to see family or buy food. Being parked for a period is not abandonment, and the state code used here has no time limit. The city is misapplying the law selectively. It is being applied to some people that have no intention of abandoning their vehicles. There is no opportunity to appeal towing/impound fees at all and only improper means are available (not to a court) to appeal the citation that follows.
Additionally, towing is overkill when in a residential zone. Extended parking downtown (in an area typically metered) reduces availability of parking in a saturated area. But in a residential area, a car that's parked continuously for a couple of weeks versus one that's used a few times during the day has no difference in impact because it's overnight (when essentially everyone is sleeping) that parking is closest to saturation.
Someone towed and subjected to that cost and the impound release fee when it is not an abandoned car will most likely bring it right back to the same area it was towed from. So what's the point of towing?
Beyond simply being parked, there should be some pretty good additional reason to believe a car is intentionally abandoned. Not currently registered, owner failed to give valid address, flat tires... Issue a ticket with right to appeal, send certified mail to registered address... if the car is by the registered address maybe even knock on a door.
The city employees and PD get huge salaries. Perhaps in the things they do they need policies modified to solve problems with the least possible harm. The refusal to knock on a neighbors door when he parked across my driveway by accident makes it clear just how unwilling to help they can be.
You never got cited. If you'd done something (could be trivial - rude when a party gets a noise complaint) they could throw the book at you for other things.
Just laws don't make ordinary citizens into criminals that can be harassed and emotionally / financially damaged with no appeal. (and I said, a neighbor upset with you could easily have caused the same grief, it is often arbitrary enforcement where there is no actual problem)
Gaming digg? It's a game, they've got time for distractions. Digg is like a sandbox, it doesn't matter much, you can't get punched over the internet yet.
Parking spaces? Because they want to park and people can be intimidated by violence into giving up a preferential space.
The quote at the top of this article, from one of the people involved is literally "I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives," which makes me think that maybe they just don't understand how the internet works?
I see people around me fighting over parking spaces. I see people holding conferences on how to fight over parking spaces (that guy is muscling in!). I see people do the same for roughly every damn topic in this world, and sometimes it gets really messy. Why?
What's in it for them?