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The Fiat that keeps getting towed
By adamg on Tue, 11/29/2016 - 11:13am
Seems Boston has this nifty little search tool that lets you type in a car's license-plate number and see when it was last towed (and to where).
Over on Boston Reddit, mac_question has been using the tool to follow the exploits of a 2017 Fiat sports car (no, that's not an oxymoron), whose owner keeps parking it haphazardly at Summer and High streets downtown. In the past three months, the car has been towed five times from that spot. Maybe it's still cheaper than a deeded parking space?
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Comments
Finally, I Am Towed
Finally, I Am Towed
As somebody who once actually owned a Fiat
I can verify it stands for "Fix It Again, Tony."
This was back in the day, when all Fiats sold here looked like Volvos that had been put in a compactor for about 10 seconds, not like today, when they look like Mini Coopers beaten with an ugly stick (fortunately, I guess, about half of the four or five months I owned it I lived in Waltham, which at the time had a garage devoted entirely to fixing Fiats).
If your preferred sport is finding legal street parking,
say, in the South End after 7pm, the Fiat 500 is indeed a sports car. I often think of it when I have to drive past a spot big enough for it but not my vehicle.
The car in the picture
The car in the picture definitely isn't a Fiat 500. Maybe a Miata?
Fiat just started selling another car here
And guess what it looks like?
The Fiat 124 Spider is based
The Fiat 124 Spider is based off the Mazda Miata
Mmm, both of them have under-91" wheelbases.
Streetparkalicious!
Don't think I'd dig the insurance premium on the jazzier one, though.
I don't understand why there
I don't understand why there aren't more Smart Fortwo cars in Boston. It's not a great car to drive, but it needs only half a parking space. If you park on-street, you can park in places no other vehicle else can. And if you park off-street, you can fit two of them in one space.
It's not a great car to drive
I think you just answered your own question. Plus, a Smaht Cah doesn't have space to carry more than one or two of those flimsy plastic bags the City Council is trying to ban.
You must be really bad at
You must be really bad at bagging groceries if you can only fit two bags into a Smart:
http://pictures.dealer.com/m/mercedesportal/0440/d11ed9d69f1f239d3d81055...
Mazda 2 or Yaris?
Both around 100" wheelbases.
I insured a (at the time, new
I insured a (at the time, new) Mazda Miata for ~8 years in Boston. Insurance (full coverage) was a whopping $60/month. They're not much more expensive to insure than a Toyota Corolla.
The Fiat costs the same as the Mazda. Aside from different fascias, headlamps and interior bits, the only other big change is a Fiat MultiAir instead of a Mazda SkyActiv (from the Mazda 3). $25K stripped before incentives, and typically under $30K out the door -- what you'd spend for a 4-cylinder American, Japanese or Korean mid-size sedan at a non-base trim level with desired options.
What neighborhood?
I'm in the South End. Maybe shouldn't have been surprised, but my City Point insurance was rather higher.
Either that was a while ago
Either that was a while ago or I'm getting screwed - I'm paying $800 a year for a 20 year old Corolla without collision in Somerville.
If it were a bentley,
or any other upscale vert , i woulda thrown an open soda bottle in there . completely satisfied for $2 .
Really?
You don't know the situation, but you'd feel satisfied about committing nasty vandalism?
Tonight I learned what a "vert" is.
Still, vandalism is wrong, even if the car had a "My other car is also a Bentley" sticker and was straddling a handicapped space and a fire hydrant.
This from someone who once thought pulling down clotheslines with my buddies was hilarious. I was 12, and then I got older.
Okay, that's not entirely candid. There was the blinking-orange-light hazard sawhorses we strung across the main street one night, and that dead-dry 12-foot Christmas tree we found in a ditch in March, hauled up the school flagpole, and set on fire. So, putting the cap at 13 years old, I guess.
All right, there was also the bottle-rocket fight with the two teams wearing football helmets and hockey shin-guards for some reason (felt gladiatorial, maybe) and using aluminum trash-can lids for shields that ended when a couple of errant missiles streaked across the hood of a touring police cruiser. 16. We scattered like rats, escaped.
My point is, definitely stop that shit before you get old enough to vote. (I will grant that I'm not arguing from perfect moral standing here. We were goofy, bored teens in a nowhere-MA small town; that level of transgression seems awfully quaint in 2016.)
Meanwhile, city living offers saner entertainments for adults to indulge their nihilistic impulses. I recommend noisy guitar-punk shows at O'Brien's. Half the fun is being an old who makes the kids feel less cool about their hangout.
As a vert owner...
This is why I put my hardtop up before I leave my car even if I'm only going to be gone for 5 minutes.
You're why I can't have nice things.
Yes, malicious vandals. Also,
random seagull and pigeon poop.
Of course, some of nature's intrusions can't be helped by putting on the hardtop. I returned to my street-parked car after a two-week holiday to find an alarming rattle coming from my AC motor. The good folks at Click and Clack found the problem: a mouse corpse, which was cheaper than the likelier issue, a fan motor on its deathbed.
I was happy, my mechanic less so: "We usually have an intern to take care of those, but it's summer, so I had to do it myself."
It Shows The Towing Reason Code "20" — There's No Such Number
" I Don't Know What The Problem Is With That Numba' "
Interesting
1 is Arrest and 13 is Stolen. So, what's the point of 17 "Stolen or arrested?"
Uncertainty
Tow to arrest: 1
Tow to stolen: 13
Tow but you don't know or can't remember if was for arrest or stolen: 17. /s
20 =...
20 = parking like an @$$hole
Code 20
BTD Code 20 is "No Parking - $55"
I don't blame them for
I don't blame them for parking on High Street. (I know they're parked on Summer in this picture, but in other posts they've been on High.) The left side is signed as valet parking after 5 pm, with no other restrictions. If some overpriced restaurant gets to use the parking lane during the evening rush, the public should be allowed to use it mid-day.
Maybe one day he'll learn
Parking by fiat is not allowed in a civilized society.
What you did there
I see it.
Posted on reddit, and will
Posted on reddit, and will cross-post here.
I see that 124 Spider rather regularly on my daily walk, presumably parked at its home. Won't say where they live (obviously), but what I can say is its home is a normal tenement that is probably four or six units, and that it's a ~14-minute walk from the closest T station.
Using Google Maps... driving at best case might save 5 total minutes in each direction at off-peak times, and is basically a wash at peak times (if not a bit slower). Honestly don't understand why they even bother driving into the city.
T station
As a daily reader of UH, as well as someone who sometimes can't avoid taking the T, I can't blame anyone for not wanting to take the T.
And not everyone can walk 14 minutes.
Not that this is an excuse
Not that this is an excuse for illegal parking, but maybe they also drive to some third location besides home and High/Summer.
Maybe they don't want to walk
Maybe they don't want to walk 15 minutes every day without knowing whether their portion of the T will even be running. Driving may not be any faster on typical days, but it's easier to estimate the expected transit time.