A man found himself in an interesting predicament when his Toyota was booted—and there was seemingly no way to pay the ticket and get it off.
Finding his own solution, TikTok user Cesar O (@chesareo007) posted a viral video of himself removing a car boot on his own.
In his video, which has 1.3 million views at the time of publication, Cesar calls out Charleston for making it difficult to figure out where to pay, and shows viewers at home how easy it apparently is to escape the issue altogether.
A boot you can’t shake
The video opens on footage of a tire leaned up against a car, a red-and-yellow boot attached to it. “The City of Charleston thought it’d be funny to put a boot on the car and then not give me any way to pay it,” Cesar states.
“Called three or four different numbers, texted a bunch of weird numbers, QR codes—no answer, he adds. He also notes that he waited at the lot for two hours, hoping to find a parking attendant to speak to, but never found anyone.
“So—” Cesar zooms in on the tire with the car boot. The tire is detached from the car itself. Behind it, a boot-less tire is attached where the first tire used to be. “—spare tire,” he explains.
“They’re not entirely that bright, though, to be honest,” Cesar says as he begins letting air out of the tire with the boot on it. As the tire deflates, the boot begins to loosen. “My goodness, you can’t tell me it’s this easy,” he says.
The video cuts to footage of Cesar standing above the now-flattened tire, wrenching the boot off of it. He holds the detached boot up to the camera, shrugs, and throws it offscreen. Then, he reinflates his tire.
Cesar ends the video with a thumbs up.
Advice in the comments
The video’s comments overwhelmingly agreed with Cesar, offering tips and advice concerning the man’s mystery boot.
“Sir thank you so much for your sacrifice and this very nice educational video,” a user joked
“Keep it until they call you to get it back,” one commenter suggested. “It’s a $25 for them to get their boot back, with an additional “storage fee” of $5 per day.”
Others were worried the boot wasn’t from the “city” at all.
“That doesn’t seem like a city boot,” said another user. “They have a plate to stop you from taking the wheel off.”
“Was it actually the city?” someone asked. “I thought city boots had the plate that goes over the lug nuts.”
“That’s probably not an official boot,” a third person added. “That looks like one you can pick up at Harbor Freight as a ‘trailer immobilizer’ for like $60.”
@chesareo007 ♬ original sound – user Cesar O
So was it an official boot?
The boot from Cesar’s video, or at least some similar ones, are widely sold online. available for the general public to purchase on sites like Amazon, or specialty internet storefronts.
While that alone is not enough to guarantee that Cesar’s parking boot was likely private, there’s also the fact that the City of Charleston began shifting away from using boots altogether over the past few years.
Now, the city is using car barnacles.
Car barnacles are large folding rectangles that attach to the offending vehicle’s windshield via suction cups. According to News Radio 94.3 WSC. The barnacles, all a standard caution-tape yellow, are “GPS monitored, so an alarm will sound if a driver attempts to move their vehicle with the Barnacle in place.”
The City of Charleston began using barnacles in 2022, and after a few months of using them, Tyrone Lawrence, Charleston’s Director of Parking Services, told ABC News Four that the new technology was essentially the way of the future.
“The goal is for the city to use the barnacle 70 percent of the time and the traditional boot the other 30 percent,” ABC News Four reported. The city still uses older boot styles, but usually only “if someone’s windshield is cracked or a car is too big.”
How do you pay these fees?
Citizens pay barnacle fees through an app or sometimes a phone number. When it comes to old-school car boots, the city requires a less-convenient method of payment.
“Payment must be made in person at the 180 Lockwood Drive location during business hours Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. or at the Charleston Police Department, 180 Lockwood Drive after hours,” says the City of Charleston’s parking portal.
The Daily Dot reached out to Cesar O. via TikTok direct message and comment.
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