Excellent question and i tried to dig up some insight on it (in particular i’m curious of the logistics behind horses and buggies in metropolitan areas) but i’m drawing a blank on my google searches. Mainly getting stuff about cars, but nothing preceding the advent of motor vehicles.
Edit: Some info here, but not a lot.
I do not speak Portuguese, but unless I’m very much mistaken the onlookers wish him a good trip (“Boa viagem!”) as he pulls out.
Maybe there’s a bug bounty on boots and this dude is just a kind of grey hat hacker? 
This wins the Internet for December 2017.
Not far from here is a pub which was run at one time by the retired policewoman who introduced the Denver Boot to this country. I am not sure if this bears any relation but the pub is, I believe, currently up for auction and finding no takers.
[wiltshire accent]Full Moon at Rudge be cursed with turrible curses of many drivers, few enter and leave it without paying a turrible penalty, you want to hear the story squoire? Oi needs a pint or two to make moi vocal chords work proper[/wiltshire accent].
It’s called “civilisation”.
I’ve always thought that since Chicago sold all their parking meter collections to a private party, they should now reduce the fines for not paying a meter, so that it becomes cheaper to pay the fine (to the city) than to pay the meter (to the private company). Everybody wins, except the people who bought the parking meters.
It seems awfully likely that whoever put that boot on his car made a record of the license plate for the vehicle it was placed on. When he gets back from his trip he might find both the front and rear wheels booted.
You’re thinking like an economist. The sort of economist who doesn’t get paid by lobbyists on behalf of outsourcers.
That’s not my understanding in San Jose, CA. Municipal Code seems to indicate that tows from parking in violated spots makes the city exempt from action. Maybe the code is illegal, but the section is printed on all the parking signs here and seemed legit to me (I’m not a California lawyer).
Check out this thread at Jalopnik:
Towing operators are required by cities to be insured. If the city doesn’t do this and your car is damaged by a towing operator that has no insurance, you will win in court against the city.
I saw a guy posit an interesting work-around idea for dealing with an overzealous booting authority.
Buy the same model of boot and put it on your car every time you park in those areas. You can get a standard-looking one off amazon, I think they’re like $60. When the boot guy comes, he figures the last shift got you and passes you by.
I guess it might not work depending on the individual doing the booting, but $60 is way cheaper than a boot fine.
… which explains why, since almost 19 years ago, boots have been designed so that they cover the wheel nuts to prevent exactly that.
Nah, the “Denver Boot.” But in Denver we just call it a boot 
That hasn’t happened everywhere:
I’ve only ever seen “boots” on tv. Maybe they don’t do that in Canadia, instead just towing or w/e.
I’ve seen them used here by collection agencies and sheriffs when enforcing liens and the like.
Said no bicycle-riding Vancouverite ever …
I once found two tire boots on the lawn of the apartment complex where I was living. I threw them in the trash, then sent the security company a note telling them that the fifty-dollar ticket they’d given me had cost them upward of 400 bucks in revenge.
