Bill Franklin was chatting with me in his Tannery Creek booth as we were setting up for a video filming. He told me that there was an aspect of chalking of which he wasn’t aware. He learned that in Santa Barbara a woman doing chalking in the traditional manner had her hand nearly amputated when the person in the car she was driving by opened the door as she passed. He added the many enforcement officers tell tales of dislocated shoulders, broken side mirrors, and dints and scratches that go in forever.
I had never heard of such things, but Bill claims that they are not uncommon. Automated chalking, whether you use hand held or vehicle mounted systems is much safer. And when you think about it, it makes sense. You are driving with a foot or two of a row of vehicles, leaning out of your open cart, marking tires with a piece of chalk at the end of a long pole. I can think of a dozen things that could go wrong.
Automated systems bring technology and speed to the party, but they are safer, too.
JVH
