It’s big. It’s rectangular. It’s yellow. And if you’ve seen one suctioned onto a car or truck windshield, know this: The Barnacle is no joke.

Barnacles are a new parking enforcement tool the city of Bend started using in January, said Tobias Marx, the city’s parking manager. The Barnacle is a plastic apparatus that suctions to a car’s windshield to obstruct most of the view for the driver.

For years, the city has put a metal boot on someone’s vehicle tire when the driver has accrued too many unpaid parking tickets. The city decided to transition to The Barnacle to make the process logistically less onerous for the driver, Marx said.

With the boot, a towing company had to come out to remove it after the person paid a fine, but depending on when the boot was placed, that could have resulted in a person waiting for several days before a towing company could come out, Marx said.

With The Barnacle, the driver can call the number on the device to pay the fine and then receive a code, which will release it from the windshield, Marx said. Then the driver has to return the device to Diamond Parking Service or receive another fine.

“Then they can get on with their life,” Marx said.

A vehicle receives The Barnacle in the event of someone having five unpaid parking tickets at least 60 days or older, Marx said. The owner of the car gets a warning on the fourth ticket, he said.

Since January, the city has deployed five of the devices, Marx said. For comparison, the city typically deployed eight to 10 metal boots a month for people who haven’t paid parking tickets.