Philly Residents Form Group to Collect Illegal Parking Cones

If you live, work or drive through Philadelphia often you understand the common frustration about parking cones. Parking is scarce in the city, we all know that. But what isn't fair is when people put down cones in a parking space to try and reserve it for themselves or a friend.

This doesn't just happen in public areas, it also occurs on residential streets as well. It is already bad enough that the majority of the street lights in Philly are out and need to be replaced. But to come home late at night from work, see that a parking spot is being reserved with cones that force you to park 6 blocks from your house in the dark is frustrating and scary.

There have been multiple threads on Reddit formed specifically to talk about the hatred of people who put down illegal cones in the city. Apparently, there are frequent offenders of this act that have done it so much, their cones show up on Google Street View.

It seems as though some people have had enough. As of recently, a group has been formed dedicated to fighting illegal cones in the city. Someone formed a group called "The Cone Rangers." Their mission is to go around the city of Philly and collect all of the illegal cones that have been put down by residents.

The group has an online chat room where they discuss all the cones they collected. They also post locations of cones they have seen in passing for someone to go and pick it up if they can't do it themselves.

There has been talk about whether or not the act of taking cones is illegal itself. Well here's the deal. Taking private property is considered to be illegal, cones included. Despite the fact that it is illegal to block streets from car traffic without a permit plus it is also illegal to block a parking space, according to Silive, you can technically still get in trouble for taking the cones away. It’s only “legal” if the cones are stolen from a municipality.

The safe thing to do is to simply report any illegal cone sighting to city officials. You can send in a tip to the police or call 1-800-FIX-ROAD.