OU Unveils Obnoxious New Parking Enforcement Device

The University of Oklahoma began its Spring 2020 semester this week and wasted no time introducing their latest concocted scheme to scrape more money out of college students. In general, parking on campus is a joke. Unless you have an overpriced parking pass, it’s best if you invest in comfortable shoes for that mile-long walk to class. Instead of improving parking on campus, OU staff had a more fun approach.

Check this out:

OU Parking Services will implement a new tool called the Barnacle beginning Jan. 21, 2020. Check out this video to learn more about it: pic.twitter.com/AYfaAZmAVI — OU Daily (@OUDaily) January 14, 2020

WTF. Here are more details via OU Daily:

OU Parking and Transportation Services is phasing in a new enforcement device this semester as an alternative to towing.

The device is called the Barnacle, and the administration plans to begin implementation next Tuesday. Currently, OU is renting five units of the device.

Kris Glenn, OU’s director of Parking and Transportation Services, said the Barnacle is an effort to use new technology to reduce towing, which can be costly and inconvenient to motorists.

“(With towing), a student would have to go all the way to the other side of town and try to find a ride to pick up their vehicle,” Glenn said. “(The Barnacle) is just a friendlier way than putting a boot on a vehicle and towing a vehicle.”

Leave it to the parking pricks at OU to find a “friendly way” to either make students pay or tow their car. Why fix the problem, when we can just as easily suction cup a Little Tike top to their windshield and make them pay additional fines for it?

Here’s more:

Motorists will receive a warning notifying them if they have three 30-day outstanding fines. If the driver fails to contact Parking and Transportation Services within three business days, officials will deploy the Barnacle on the car. To deploy the Barnacle, parking enforcement officials place the large plastic cover on the windshield of a car, and the Barnacle attaches itself using 750 pounds of suction. Drivers cannot see around the Barnacle to drive. If a driver tries to tamper with the Barnacle or drive with it still stuck to the windshield, it will sound an alarm and alert parking enforcement. A GPS tracker records the car’s location, make, model and tag number for officials on the Barnacle’s Enforcer app.

So your answer to someone not being able to pay their fines is to make their car immovable? Why not call it the Herpes instead of the Barnacle? Much like the STD, they’re impossible to remove and only treatable through money and resources.

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Update: Not too long after OU broke the barnacle news, they retracted due to it being an tone-deaf, idiotic idea…