I feel compelled to respond to the Herald’s May 28 story about booting cars. Booting someone’s car for $20 worth of overdue parking tickets seems to be the definition of unreasonable search and seizure in the Fourth Amendment. What is reasonable about seizing a person’s vehicle, worth thousands of dollars, for overdue parking tickets that can simply be dealt with when a person goes to register his vehicle every year? You have overdue parking tickets? OK. You must pay that fee when you register your vehicle.

That booted vehicle could prevent someone from driving to the hospital to deliver a baby or prevent someone who relies on her vehicle for her livelihood, a means to earn money that day.

I’m not advocating that people do not pay their parking meters or their tickets. I’m simply questioning the reasonableness of booting vehicles for a pretty small amount of money that could be collected by other means.

Booting cars is seizing a person’s property and another means of collecting more revenue for the city (there’s a fee associated with unbooting). Booting after one ticket seems extra unreasonable.

Ryan Montgomery

Durango