A federal appeals court ruled Monday that “chalking” of car tires — a common practice by parking enforcement officers across the US — violates the Constitution.

A three-judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that putting a chalk mark on tires in order to track how long a vehicle has been parked was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects people against unreasonable searches of their property.



Chalking is usually done in places where there are no parking meters to enforce time limits. In such areas, a parking officer will mark a car tire with chalk and then return to the car after the parking time limit has passed. If the chalk marks are still on the tire — a sign that the vehicle has not moved — the officer will issue a citation.

The 6th Circuit Court panel issued its opinion with regard to a 2017 case in which Alison Taylor, a Michigan woman who received 15 parking citations in three years, sued the city of Saginaw and its parking enforcement officer for violating her Fourth Amendment by chalking her car tires without her consent or a valid search warrant.

Taylor’s lawsuit was dismissed by a Michigan district court, which ruled that the practice of chalking amounted to a “reasonable” search of Taylor’s car because people had a lesser expectation of privacy with cars and because the search was to protect the public’s safety under the “community caretaker exception.”

However, the three-judge federal appeals court panel reversed the district’s court decision, finding that the chalking of Taylor’s car tires amounted to an unreasonable search of the car under the Fourth Amendment and one that would require a search warrant. The 6th Circuit Court covers the states of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

The panel’s opinion, written by Judge Bernice Bouie Donald, states that officers can search a vehicle without a warrant only if they have probable cause to believe that the car contains evidence of a crime — which was not the case with Taylor’s car.

Donald also wrote that Taylor’s lawfully parked car did not pose any risk to public safety, and so the city was not acting as a “community caretaker” by chalking her car. The city chalked cars to raise revenue, not to protect the public’s safety, Donald wrote.