Life can be quite expensive, and despite reports of the world economy improving, the average Joe on the street might feel squeezed out of life as everything starts to go up in price, and salaries remain stagnant. Heck, owning a car these days can be considered to be a necessity, but with your ride comes plenty of responsibilities. The service schedules, fuel, as well as parking in city centers that could add up to quite a handsome amount. Parking being an issue in congested areas, some of us do take our chances with the long arm of the law to complete an errand like paying a bill or purchasing some medication over the counter, only to return to our car with a ticket on the windscreen. Enter MetroMile and their app that intends to help drivers avoid one of the most common parking citations which actually cost San Francisco drivers millions every single year – that is, parking in a street sweeping area.
This app has a new, free feature that will work in tandem with a connected car device that is known as the Metronome. The Metronome will remain plugged into the OBD-II port of a vehicle, where it communicates with the free iOS app. Using the Metronome’s onboard GPS to capture the existing location of the parked vehicle, it will send you a push notification a dozen hours ahead of the street sweeping timeframe, as well as a reminder an hour before street sweeping occurs.
The cost of parking tickets prices have increased drastically in the past few years in San Francisco, where drivers pay up to $64 per ticket when one forgets to move their car that remains on the wrong side of the road for street cleaning. For instance, a regular parking ticket in Paris costs only 17 euros, and is increased to 33 euros should you fail to settle the balance of the ticket within 45 days.
Even when the car is parked in a forbidden area (such as a fire lane) or disturbs the traffic (like in the middle of the street), the parking ticket price starts at 35 euros and goes all the way to 75 euros. The cost of living in Paris can be comparable to San Francisco, or even more expensive when you take the exchange rate into consideration, but they seem to pay less in parking tickets there. Of course, there is no perfect system in this world, but at least this offers food for thought. [Press Release]
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