My Nissan Leaf Forum

In just a long weekend, every time I visited a garage with designated EV charging parking spaces (once in San Jose and twice in Redwood City) I saw the EV reserved spots being abused.

In San Jose, a Mercedes driver must have thought that EV stands for "Expensive Vehicle".
In Redwood City, both times a big SUV was taking two parking spaces (in this case EV must have been mistaken for "Enormous Vehicle").

Should we start taking pictures and report violators to the police?

It needs to be reported-- the parkign areas that have installed the expensive infrastructure for charging need to take action to see that the investmetn isn't wasted.

Put a copy of this on the windshield.
http://www.evchargernews.com/parkingnotice.htm

Which specific parking lots are these, btw?

In Palo Alto, the two I know of (Hihg street garage; City hall garage) are never taken by anything else. AFAICT because Palo Alto views parking ticketing as their main revenue source (They are quite often taken by Leaf, Volt and Teslas, though -- and I once saw a homemade conversion)

This is not a big problem in Phoenix with only a small number of public chargers available.
I can only think of one -Matta's- in downtown Tempe.

Since this forum seems to be a source for other news and blog organizations, I'd think that uploading an offender vehicle photo with location information here in this thread would get some attention should we build a large enough library.

Of course I would always add a disclosure that guilt or responsibility is never assumed, or some other legal jargon.

I'm sure the parking cops are swamped with disabled parking violators. From what I've seen laws are not as standard or even exist to legally cite someone for parking in front of an EV charger. I guess some cities are more progressive and have addressed the issue (City Code-State Veh. Code) making a citation a viable option whether civil or criminal.

My vote is Public Humiliation and just a fun thread to watch.

Do you have the ZEV decal issued by the DMV designating your car as acceptable according to California VC section 22511?

http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc22511.htm

I don't think I've seen any of these decals, but I haven't been looking.

In San Jose, the lot next to the Amici's Pizzeria
In Redwood City, the lot under the Cinemark Theater.

I've seen one. My application has been submitted and I am waiting for my sticker. You need the sticker if the parking spot is posted EV only and cites the vehicle code

I'm not sure that the parking decal apply to these spots.
They are paid parking garages, and the spots are marked for EV charging (with Coulomb L2), and there is no indication that a special EV sticker is required.

I experienced the same thing at the EV charging stations in the San Jose convention center.

Problem with what I saw was that there were no signs saying that the spots were reserved for EV's only. (Even though it's pretty obvious to us all)

I doubt that the city will move quick enough to have a law similar to the $240 violation on handicapped parking violation. Probably the most practical approach would be to have private towing companies to act as the penalty for violation. If only Column can add a "violator will be towed" message with each installation...

As long as we can't guarantee ourselves a charging spot we can never drive more than 50 miles to anywhere.