I recently learn that it is actually illegal to work on your car when parked on a public San Francisco street. I guess the most you can do is wash it. Any mechanical work is expressly verboten.
Which is crazy because anybody that has lived in San Francisco for a bit have all seen actual projects on the side of the road. I can remember seeing someone perform an actual engine swap, replete with an engine cherry picker, on a stretch of Alemany Blvd. I myself have performed a few oil changes on my vehicles whilst street parked. Never been ticketed, not that I am trying to tempt that fate.
I guess as it is with anything in this city, enforcement is highly selective. Like the rule where you’re not suppose to park a car on a driveway that otherwise blocks any piece of the sidewalk. But you come to my old neighborhood of Visitacion Valley, and you can’t walk one block without being obstructed by a wrongfully parked vehicle. One has to assume enforcement is lax here because people wouldn’t be so comfortable to risk getting ticketed.
Besides, is SFMTA really deploying labor on weekends to look for such infractions? The general public complain enough whenever they release yearly wage statistics for public workers. More MTA employees getting lots of overtime will surely not go over well with taxpayers.
Then there’s the always reliable leftist claim that people of lower income have no choice - but to work on their own cars. And because they are so monetarily constrained, street parking is the best they can afford. The law against mechanical work on street-parked cars is actually discriminatory, am I right? Something something car-dependent society. Driving is a right, not a privilege.
I do understand the rationale. Auto mechanical repairs are incredible messy, and San Francisco does not want that mess - and all the nasty fluids - on its streets. Fair enough.
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