Wheel clamp

[4] While primarily associated with law enforcement and parking violations, a variety of wheel clamps are now available to consumers as theft deterrent devices for personal use as an alternative to the steering-wheel lock.

Dan Stills, head of the city's traffic division, thought an immobilizer would avoid the expensive towing problem and approached Marugg with an idea to improve on the device to keep the cars where they were parked.

Marugg later sold the device to parking lot owners, hotels and ski resorts, as well as a Jumbo version for farm equipment and larger vehicles.

While a traffic warden or police officer has jurisdiction over public roads, in many countries, the law allows landowners to clamp vehicles parking on their property without permission.

He subsequently received publicity as a self-styled "superhero" called "Angle-Grinder Man", offering to remove clamps for free with his angle grinder.

[citation needed] A New Zealand wheel clamper made national headlines in 2013 after he secretly recorded a police officer allegedly threatening to not help if an aggrieved member of the public attacked him.

Outside that statutory authority, clamping on private land was found to be unlawful in the case Black v Carmichael (1992) SCCR 709, which held that immobilising a vehicle constitutes extortion and theft.

Writing in dismissal of parking contractor Alan Black's appeal to the High Court of Justiciary, the Lord Justice General (Lord Hope) cited case law which said "every man has a right to dispute the demand of his creditor in a court of justice" and himself wrote "it is illegal for vehicles to be held to ransom in the manner described in these charges".

[17] In England and Wales, The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 criminalised certain wheel-clamping activity on private land without lawful authority from 1 October 2012.

For example, a person cannot lawfully be clamped on property such as a hospital site, private driveway, car park not operated by a local or government authority, etc.

Landowners who seek to enforce 'Parking Charge Notices'[20] (contractual payment terms) establish the contract through the use of onsite signage[21] detailing the 'conditions'.

Existing statutory provisions are due to be replaced by the Vehicle Clamping Act 2015, passed as part of the Fine Gael–Labour coalition's 2011 programme for government.