Parking Barnacles Are Like Facehuggers From Alien (And Might Violate California Law)

If you go out to see an "Alien" movie, you have an idea of what you're in for. Not just any alien-themed sci-fi film — we're talking films from the franchise universe that followed Ridley Scott's 1979 movie, "Alien." And if you're in the theatre, you won't be surprised to see those angry little facehugger things, but you'd be pretty ticked off to return to your car after the film and find a big, yellow nasty suction device plastered on your windshield. 

The device we're talking about is called the Barnacle, an alternative to towing or the much-reviled parking boots Atlanta officials pushed to outlaw. Like a parking boot and its approach to parking enforcement, a Barnacle makes it nearly impossible to drive your car.

Instead of clamping down on your wheel, these devices work by employing giant suction cups to attach to a vehicle's windshield – according to the manufacturer, they do so with 1,000 pounds of force. Unorthodox solution, right? Here's the thing: they might not be squeaky clean in a legal sense. At least in California, that is. 

We asked James Rubinowitz, a civil litigator and founder of the legal tech firm Execute.law, about the legality of these steroidal suction cup sets, and he set the record straight. As it turns out, the Barnacle might violate the California Vehicle Code, especially when it's a private business slapping the sucker on your car. 

Think of the California Vehicle Code as "the book" when it comes to driving (and parking) in the Golden State. It's brimming with rules. Rules like the one that bans forward-facing red lights on cars. There's also CVC section 22651.7, the very rule that makes the Barnacle a gray area. 

According to Rubinowitz, "Vehicle Code section 22651.7 lets only police and salaried municipal parking employees immobilize a car, and only on public streets, and subsection (b) says nobody else may do it." Normally, when you find a Barnacle on your windshield courtesy of a police agency or municipal traffic enforcement, you'd have to pay to remove it and then return it to a drop box. If it's a private company that's placed it there, though, things are a bit different.

Private companies certainly can't immobilize your car, and they can't do it in private lots, even if there are signs that warn of immobilization. Rubinowitz went on to say that "Section 10852 separately makes tampering with someone's car without consent a misdemeanor." So, what if a business puts one on your car in California? Rubinowitz says you may be in your rights to remove it, but take care not to destroy it; otherwise, you may rack up a vandalism charge.

Is that business on the hook for any damage or the cost of removal? "If the immobilization was unlawful, the fee, the windshield damage and the cost of removal are on them," the lawyer added. "You can't break the law and then bill the victim for undoing it." Of course, that business might not pay up if you damage your own car in the process of de-barnacling it. And depending on what kind of car you drive, windshield replacement could cost a small fortune.

We know what you're thinking. You're wondering if you should just copy Jim Carrey's crazy character from "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and drive with your head sticking out of the window while one of these facehuggers clings to your windshield. Well, there's a law forbidding that, too. "Section 26708 of the Vehicle Code bans driving with any object affixed to the windshield at all. It doesn't ask whether you can still see," Rubinowitz told us. "You're also going to have to pay for it since you'd be trading a parking dispute for a moving violation."

On the subject of money, the removal fee of a Barnacle applied by a party other than police or official parking employees can also be problematic, according to Rubinowitz. "There's no cap, and that's the whole story. The Legislature never wrote a fee schedule for private barnacles because it never authorized private barnacles. Compare towing, where the Vehicle Code caps the rate, makes knowing overcharges a misdemeanor, and lets the owner sue for four times the overcharge."