Clever parking signs begin appearing in L.A. neighborhood after horrible parking practices

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (FOX 11) - You might call him the parking vigilante. A local man took matters into his own hands after seeing the horrible parking in his Angelino Heights neighborhood.

A black and white sign bolted to the signpost right under a "No Parking for Street Cleaning" sign asks drivers to “maximize parking.” Although the sign looks official, it was not posted by the city of Los Angeles.

Derek Boonstra, a resident of the area, got so frustrated with the parking situation that he designed, printed onto aluminum, and then bolted the sign in place.

“I kinda quietly put them up to see what would happen,” said Boonstra.

The signs reads, “Yo, Please maximize parking,” with an illustration showing cars, spaced two to three feet apart and close to the red curb.

“I think it’s kinda cool,” Ruth Bott said. She says parking is at a premium. “Especially, when there’s a game on at Dodger Stadium, there’s always no parking. I think the sign is just saying, let’s be cautious.” 

Boonstra put up the first sign about three weeks ago, he put up others and thinks they may have had some effect. 

“There’s one curb that usually holds four cars, but now sometimes hold five!” 

Fox 11 tried to find out if the city objects to the signs or if the signs are truly illegal. No callbacks when we tried the office of Councilman Mitch O’Farrell.

When Fox 11 pointed out the signs to a parking enforcement officer, he seemed genuinely surprised to see them.

“I don’t know what that is, I’ll have to check with my supervisor,” said the officer. 

Boonstra worried all the attention he was getting for making the signs might lead to the end of his parking activism.

“It will be interesting to see if this wave of media attention kind of pokes the bear a little bit and gets them taken down.”

He’s probably right, by the time we put the story on the Fox 11 5 O’clock news, someone from the Department of Transportation arrived to document and photograph the signs on W. Kensington and Laveta Terrace. Most likely a sign, the "Yo" parking signs days are numbered.