| Parking Wars | |
|---|---|
Parking Wars title screen |
|
| Genre | Reality |
| Directed by | Daniel Elias Po Kutchins |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 85 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Daniel Elias David Houts |
| Producer(s) | Dan Flaherty Po Kutchins Andrew Dunn Laurissa James Kendall E Canner Laura Fleury Rob Sharenow Jordana Hochman |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | A&E |
| Picture format | 16:9 HD |
| Original run | January 8, 2008 – Present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Parking Wars is a reality television series which airs on the A&E television network.[1] The program follows traffic enforcement employees as they ticket, "boot," and tow cars as part of their parking enforcement duties.
The show began airing on January 8, 2008. The 5th season premieres February 11, 2012 featuring both the Detroit Municipal Parking Department and the Providence Parking Division of the Providence, RI police department.
Contents |
The series' original focus was on the employees of the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) and their daily work: ticketing, booting (via wheel clamp), and towing cars, and dealing with the issues that arise with the public when they try to retrieve their vehicles from the impound lots.
Each episode consists of three segments, shown either in chronological order of a car entering the PPA violation system (ticket, boot/tow, impound) or reverse chronological order. Many of the "Booting" segments feature the favorite team of Steve (better known by his last name, "Garfield"), a longtime PPA employee and self-professed "gadget geek," and his partner Sherry, who has "the fastest fingers on the Eastern Seaboard" according to her partner, as they travel on their assigned beats to track down cars with three tickets or more, all at least six months old and "boot" them so that the owner cannot continue to drive the car until they pay the outstanding fines.
One of the PPA tow truck drivers featured in the series, Martin, died shortly before the show's debut. The show's official page at aetv.com has a section dedicated to his memory.[2]
The first four seasons of Parking Wars were filmed on location in Philadelphia. Beginning the third season, Detroit's MPD (Municipal Parking Department) was added as a location as well, in addition to the PPA.[3] The current fifth season has added the Providence, Rhode Island parking enforcement division of the police department.
The series was based on a 2001 documentary of the same name about the PPA, produced for A&E and Britain's Channel 5, about a day in the life of the PPA, from morning to late night, taped in April 2001. The documentary featured off-screen narration by Daniel Jenkins, as well as all elements of the PPA's operation—ticketing, booting, impounding, towing, adjudication and auctioning. When the series debuted seven years later in 2008, the narrator was dropped in favor of the employees telling the stories themselves, each episode had three separate segments, and the adjudication and auctioning aspects were no longer featured (with towing only featured very occasionally). Some of the staffers that appeared in the documentary, such as boot crew member Steve Garfield, would later be seen in the series. When this documentary was rebroadcast after the start of the series, it was listed in television listings as "The Lost Pilot".[4]