"Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone" tells about a trial in San Francisco that will use sensors to alert drivers to what parking spaces are currently not in use. The article makes mention of Boris Albinder, a teenager who was murdered in SF over a parking spot a few years ago. And then they include this choice quotation from a UCLA urban planning professor:
If the San Francisco experiment works, no one will have to murder anyone over a parking space.
So, um, without this technology people need to murder each other over parking spaces?
You're right, nobody should have to murder someone to get a parking space.
But there's an easier way to ensure that anyone can get a space. Just increase the price of street parking until only ~85% of the spaces on each block are full. UCLA professor Donald Shoup explains in detail in his book The High Cost of Free Parking:
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/1884829988
Oops, just saw that the article already mentions Shoup.