jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Porter-Cable has gone out of the router business. Unfortunately, like many other industries, selling tools is nothing more than a way to make as much money as possible. You probably know that Stanley, B&D, Porter-Cable, and Craftsman are all just one big company. The ones in charge decide which brand gets to sell which products.

In other news, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled that tire marking with chalk, etc., is a No-No. This involves Minnesota and several nearby states. MN has been fighting this for years (your tax dollars at work ), and it looks like they have reached the end of the road. Cops can look at your car, but they are not allowed to mark it. Will they come by later and remove the chalk mark? MN argued that the chalk marks showed that the police were on the job and watching out for your car.

I've never seen chalk marking in practice - just heard about it.

Somewhat (slightly) related, coming back from town yesterday, I saw three cars almost run off the road by a local ambulance. He had the lights on but not the siren. Although the cars pulled over, he almost rear-ended one of them. Not good practice for someone trying to save lives.

nicksr1125 Loc: Mesa, AZ

It’s been years since I saw a meter maid driving down the street with a chalk stick marking tires. We’ve been in the Phoenix area for 2 years & i still haven’t been to downtown Mesa, Chandler, or any of the other surrounding cities.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

So, if your car gets marked and you go to another location,
your car has already been marked?????? Unless each officer would use a different color or mark style.

happy sailor Loc: Ontario, Canada

no it hasn't, the chalk comes off in a few revolutions of your tire. people used to see their car get marked then go out and drive around the block while a relative stood in the parking spot and then park right back in the same spot. others would come out of their houses and wash all the chalk marks off. The smart officers would then chalk and place a stone on top of the wheel, when they came back 3 hours and 15 minutes later if the chalk mark was gone but the stone was still there they would write the ticket.

it really is a big game by the cities that have no parking for all the houses that they have. then the cities went to permit parking, basically renting the homeowner a spot on the street. the same cities made it illegal to park on your front yard, go figure.

between my formative years of 18 and 21, I chalked thousands of cars and wrote thousands of parking tickets because that was my job as a Police Cadet.

Frankly the court ruling has just removed the municipalities ability to enforce any timed parking other than on a meter, get ready for parking meters or those horrible little pay parking machines on your residential streets

this is a municipal taxing scheme, always was, always will be and they have no intention of giving up revenue.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I didn't know that. I never had a tire chalked, that I can remember...

pendennis

The only states in which this ruling has an effect are those within the 6th Circuit - Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. And the ruling was issued by a judicial panel, not the en banc court, and remanded back to the district court for further review. The case originated in Saginaw, MI. It can still be appealed to the full court.

Tom DePuy Loc: Waxhaw, N.C.

They still chalk tires in my town, but the funny thing is, is that they only do it in one area, the parking lot for our courthouse, 2 hour time limit. They have a field day writing tickets....

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That's funny. You bring the incriminating mark with you to a new parking spot. I can't imagine the police department stocking different colors of chalk. Do the officers get a choice of color? Does that go by seniority? I can see departments having to go into serious negotiations to decide which police department can use which color. Let's form a committee!

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

When the police around a supermarket where I worked while in college marked tires on the street* with chalk it was the position of the mark. Then later they would come by after the legal time to park had passed and see which cars had marks in that position - those had not been moved and got a ticket. We developed a system, one or two employees who were on break or lunch would take a bunch of our car keys and go move the cars around checking to make sure the marks were now in a different position. And once my now wife who drove a Pinto with a "tiny" engine volunteered to move my car. I drove a '69 Chevelle SS with the high performance version of the 350 and "highway patrol cruiser package" = that thing could accelerate like a bat out of hell and then fly low out on the interstate. I warned her to just barely give it any gas to start it moving but she did her normal "mash it to the floor" and laid rubber backwards for over two parking spaces before she hit the breaks-fortunately there were 3 empty spaces and the extra wide driveway into the store lot behind my car. Her eyes looked like an owl on a dark night when she gave me back my keys.

*On busy days we were not allowed to park in the store lot because it was too small for all the customers. In fact the store was a rather old one in the chain and too small for our volume of business but there was no land to expand it or the lot. We had stock clerks, bakers etc. working all day to keep shelves replenished and the company used to send people from other areas to us for a few weeks to learn how to work a store where an over sized crew that was "hustling like hell" was a normal day. Often during a sale on something we couldn't even get it on the shelf. Bring out cases on a hand truck and cut off the tops and customers reached over your shoulder to empty the cases before any got on the shelf, repeat until end of shift.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

I knew a guy that carried a box of chalk in is car and would mark his tires in four different places when he parked in a time limited parking place.
It worked very well for him most of the time

HOHIMER

Did this keep him from getting a ticket? How did this work?

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Yes "where selling tools is nothing more than a way to make as much money as possible". Where would you be with out companies who made things for money? Try it some time.

sheldon minsky Loc: iron mountain michigan

The only thing you have missed is the never ending traffic on the road.

polonois Loc: Lancaster County,PA.

I've had my tires chalked many times when a neighbor complains that you didn't move your car for two days. What I do when I see a chalk mark on my tire is I go out with a piece of chalk and put 10 or 15 marks the whole way around the tire. I've never gotten a ticket after I did that. You need to have yellow chalk. In recent years the police have been using a yellow marking crayon in my town. That doesn't wash off easily.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

You mean they aren't allowed to make that chalk outline of the body? Oh no!