Wheel clamp

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Parking enforcement office clamps a wheel using a tubular key.

Denver boot as used by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation

Style of wheel clamp used in The United Kingdom

A wheel clamp (American English: Denver boot, wheel boot, or boot) is a device that is designed to prevent vehicles from moving. In its most common form, it consists of a clamp which surrounds a vehicle wheel and is designed to prevent removal of both itself and the wheel. It is often used for security purposes, such as preventing a trailer or caravan from being towed away by a thief, or to stop one's own car from being driven away by a thief.

It is also used to crack down on unauthorized or illegal parking, in lieu of towing the offending vehicle. In these cases, police or property owners who place the clamp may charge a high "release fee" to remove it. In the United States, such a device became known as a "Denver boot" after the city of Denver, Colorado, was the first in the country to employ them, mostly to force the payment of outstanding parking tickets.

1 Invention
2 Controversy
3 Legal issues
4 In fiction
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Invention

The Denver boot was invented and patented in 1953 by Frank Marugg. Marugg was an inventor, a violinist with the Denver Symphony Orchestra, and a good friend to many Denver politicians and police department officials. As such, when the police department needed a solution to a growing parking enforcement problem, the sheriff approached Marugg asking for help, and the two came up with the idea for the clamp.^[1]

[edit] Controversy

Wheel-clamping is notoriously unpopular with illegal parkers in the same way that traffic wardens are. However, whereas a traffic warden or police officer only has jurisdiction over public roads, in many countries the law also allows landowners to wheel clamp vehicles parking on their property without permission.

One British man became so annoyed at having his car clamped, that he removed the clamp with an angle grinder. He is now a self-styled superhero called Angle-Grinder Man, offering to remove clamps for free with his angle grinder. [1] This says nothing of any subsequent unlawful removal fees his practice may have resulted in.

Other motorists have taken the action of cutting the clamps off with bolt cutters, or even clamping their own cars beforehand, so property owners will be unable to clamp an already-clamped vehicle and may think that another owner has clamped it.

[edit] Legal issues

Several vehicles wheel-clamped, Texas

In Scotland, wheel-clamping on private land is illegal. It was banned by the case of Black v Carmichael 1992 SCCR 709, when wheel-clamping was found to constitute extortion and theft.

In England and Wales, wheel-clampers operating on private land must be individually licensed by the Security Industry Authority. Operating in such circumstances without a valid license, or in breach of its conditions (which include displaying ID at all times), is a criminal offence under the Private Security Industry Act, 2001.

In many jurisdictions, it is legal to remove a clamp oneself, provided that he does not damage it and returns it to the police station.

[edit] In fiction

In the animated film Cars, Denver boots are used in a fashion similar to handcuffs, leaving the booted vehicle to hobble along instead of driving normally. In the TV series Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer has a friend who carries his own, presumably stolen, boot in the trunk of his car and places it on the wheel whenever he parks, in order to fool parking enforcement officers into thinking his car has already been booted; the movie Coyote Ugly, has a character with a similar premise. In the The Simpsons episode The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, protagonist Homer Simpson's car is taken by town drunk Barney Gumble to New York City, where it is illegally parked at the World Trade Center and eventually equipped with a boot. After unsuccessfully trying to get the police to remove it, he drives with the boot on his wheel, damaging both his car and the road. He finally removes the boot with a jackhammer.