Image via KING 5

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m a chalk checker. Oftentimes, I’l park my car in a two-hour zone, and then return to the spot as time is about to expire to make sure that a traffic cop has not chalked my back tire. But that parking strategy won’t fly in Kirkland.

The city is wiping out the chalking of tires, choosing instead a high-tech system that utilizes cameras on top of parking vehicles which take pictures of license plates and then incorporates the images with GPS data to see if the vehicle has moved.

The system is designed to discourage chalk checkers like myself who’ve been known to wipe the chalk off their tires or move the car a few inches in order to hide the markings. (I used this parking strategy for years while working at the Seattle P-I).

Joe Fryer at King 5 reports that the Kirkland traffic cops are just learning the new system, but over time they are hopeful that it will lead to more tickets of illegal parkers.

Ugh, there goes my scheme for extending my parking time, which was already starting to disappear in Seattle where more spots are moving to meters that require a parking slip (complete with expiration time) to be displayed in the window.

Here’s Fryer’s full report.

Editor’s note: King 5 is a GeekWire media partner.

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