Later this year, the city of Oulu will start implementing wheel boots in its parking policy. A new law enables parking enforcers to use the wheel boots if a vehicle has a minimum of five unappealable, unpaid parking tickets.
Jorma Heikkinen, who oversees parking enforcement in Oulu, says that the new wheel boots are necessary in order to reduce flagrant illegal parking. "This was inevitable because we had to do something about the situation," Heikkinen says.
The city of Oulu is due over 80,000 euros in unpaid parking fines--the majority of which are the outstanding fines of 20--30 scofflaws.
The fine for illegal parking in the city center is 50 euros. Citations of 40 euros are issued elsewhere in the city.
In Kuopio, which already implements booting in its parking enforcement policy, un-booting a car costs the owner 250 euros. In addition, before the boot can be released, the owner must first pay all outstanding parking fines.