Just before lunch, we asked you: "In Which of These Categories Does Oakland Best San Francisco?"  What did you guess? Here are the options:

A) Super Bowl Titles

B) 21st Century World Series Titles

C) Potholes per Mile of Roadway

D) High-Tech Self Releasing Smart Parking Boot Implementation

E) All of the Above

The answer is: D)

While Oakland comes in a distant second place to San Francisco in many categories, including Super Bowl titles and 21st  century World Series titles, and only joins San Francisco for the 2nd worst streets in the country, there is one category in which it beats San Francisco hands down.  High-tech self-releasing smart parking boot implementation.

That's right.  Oakland has bragging rights and leaves San Francisco's parking boot technology way back in the mid 20th century dust.  San Francisco is still using the same Denver Boot that was patented and invented in 1953 by a violinist Frank Marugg. In SF, the process of having your parking boot takes hours and sometimes days.

However, in Oakland, it takes as little as 5 minutes to have the boot removed. How can that be? When a vehicle in Oakland is identified for non-payment of delinquent parking tickets, a SmartBoot immobilization device will be attached by Oakland police officers or parking officers. The SmartBoot has an electronic lock that may be unlocked by the motorist after payment on the outstanding tickets is made.  The driver unlocks it, pulls it off, and then has 24 hours to return the 16 pound contraption to the Oakland Parking Department.  The whole process can literally be dealt with in under 5 minutes. 

But don't get too cocky Oakland. San Francisco may still be in the dark ages in boot technology, but at least when the SF Department of Parking and Traffic gives out street sweeping tickets, they actually come by to sweep the streets.

For more fun parking facts that you never wanted to know, or to find out how to never get a parking ticket again, click here.