I’ve been lucky that I haven’t had my car towed to an impound lot (yet). When they tow a car from a tow-away zone do they leave a ticket or something to indicate it was towed? How does one know where to pick it up?
At least here, the towing companies have to report the tow to the police. So if your car ends up missing, call the police and they can tell where the car should have been towed to.
Ditto stpauler, in NYC. They leave the ticket on the car in the tow lot, so you have to go out to the tow lot to pick up the ticket… to fight the ticket to get your car out of the tow lot.
Of course, one time my car was towed and some clerk mis-entered my license plate number, so the cops denied having my car. After a month or so, they checked the VIN number on this “abandonded” car, and contacted me with the information that they had had the car all along. Then they tried to charge me a month’s storage fees, at $20 a day. I would have raised holy hell, but the judge agreed with me that the original tow was illegal, so they couldn’t charge me anything. 
mischievous
I had my car towed from a “no parking in this lane between 7 & 9 am” area. Rather, I woke up late one morning and my car was gone.
I called the number on the street sign that said “no parking” in hopes that it was towed, not stolen. They told me to look around the neighborhood for it. Forty-five minutes later, I found it, with a $100 parking ticket on it, and a $150 towing charge disguised as a parking ticket.
How could they? They aren’t going to nail it into the street.
That’s the first thing I thought, too…
Usually, if you’ve parked in a private lot and have been towed, just look around and you’ll find the name of the towing company that works the area.
If it’s the city doing the towing, call the auto pound headquarters to locate your vehicle. In Chicago, you can even search for your vehicle by VIN or license number on-line.
I was thinking of them maybe taping it to the ground or curb or something.