You don’t have to prove differently unless you’re trying to press criminal charges. If you’re just suing, you only have to provide a preponderance of evidence.
Jayron32
Man…I wish I lived where you did! In Chicago spots rent for $110-150 per month. If you’re buying a spot an outdoor space will cost you $20,000 and an indoor space near $30,000.
Still, I have no problem with your reaction. You paid for that spot. Those people should be towed. You should have tried for a kickback scheme with the towing company.
Sailor
I don’t know where you live but things aren’t always so clear cut in Chicago. If you read my post you’d see that the one time I got my car towed there was a sign but it was so far away and high-up on a building (and it was dark out) that it hardly drew attention to itself.
On another occasion I was parked legally and still got my car towed. I generally took mass-transit to work so my car would sit on the street for 5 straight days (and yes I eventually figured out this was stupid and sold the car). However, where I lived you rarely got to park next to your house or apartment and usually ended up parking a few blocks away. Occasionally the city would come along and post Street Cleaning signs one day before they’d do it. Since I didn’t walk by my car daily I’d usually collect a ticket (got tons of those for that reason) but on one occasion they towed me. This hardly equates to parking in a handicap zone which I NEVER do (or park next to a fire hydrant and the like).
How about the guys who had their moving van towed that I mentioned in my previous post. Yes they were illegally parked but they were in and out of the van constantly. A simple, “Move your truck, you can’t park here,” would easily have sufficed. Instead the driver waited for them to disappear and then nabbed their truck.
Try talking one out of not towing your car. Once he has so much as a single chain on it it’s his and he will NOT give it up. Sorry but those drivers are real jerks (I’d like to use stronger language here but Sailor was right about this not being The Pit).
For the record, Jeff_42, I live in Chicago, in Old Little Italy near the corner of Taylor and Ashland. My landlord charges me $25 a month for one of the two parking spaces behind my building, which has 7 apartments. I know I get a GREAT deal on parking, but I still feel no sympathy for a dude stealing my spot. And I am sorry about your car getting ticketed/towed from the street on cleaning days. It sucks. But that’s why I snatched up that $300/year parking spot. I pay to not have to worry about those things.
I also never drive my car unless I know that there will be parking where I am going AND that there is no public transportation nearby. It’s so much more convenient(and responsible IMHO) to take the El.
while I was in college, you had to have a parking permit to park in our ample parking lot…
first night we moved in, we were all hanging out, when someone realized that my roomates car was being towed. We run out, the guy has the chins on, but not on the hoist…
“no parking permit, son”
roomate unlocks his car, pulls out the parking tag that had to hang from your rear view, it was on his seat, along with the rest of his apartment paperwork.
“sorry son, has to be displayed on your mirror”
never mind that the tag was in the car. After much arguing, he said it would be $75 to take the chains off, cash. or he could tow it and pick up the car for $150…but either way, he wasn’t budging.
I still get angry when I think about the jerks.
This particular company was notorious for picking on students. About a year later there were numerous news reports on the unethical practices of this company, as well as a boy-cott by the students of any store that displayed this companie “you will be towed signs”
that is all
Well, vandal, I hope you got the answer to the question you asked. If not, feel free to re-ask it. This thread is going to the Pit.
myndephuquer, please refrain from such rants in General Questions.
Just last week i had my car towed to the dealer on a flat bed because the parking bake seemed to be stuck on. $110, but it was quite far to our dealer.
A couple years ago in Chicago they discovered some tow truck drivers were towing cars that were parked legally into illegal spots, disconnecting the truck, taking a picture to prove the cars were parked illegally and then towing them away to the impound lot.
I too harbor not-so-secret fantasies involving a tow truck, a Law’s rocket, 5lb of honey, and a colony of army ants. When I was a starving college student, I usually rode my bike to school, which left my car parked for up to a week at a time. The jerkwater cow town where I lived had a 48 hour limit on street parking which was usually totally ignored. I got lazy about moving the car every other day, just like everybody else on our street.
So this frat house opens up across the street. I don’t like frat pukes on a good day, but these pampered momma’s boy punk fucks decided that the peice of curb in front of my place was where they needed to park. We played snag the parking spot for a month or so until I screwed up and left my car one night too long. Needless to say I woke up to an empty curb. OK, so that’s the law and I got burned. I can deal with that.
When I went to get my car back, I found out that the towing outfits charged THREE TIMES as much as they normally would just because they could. The car was worth slightly more than the towing bill, so I grabbed my ankles. Cost me half a month’s rent at the time and caused me to lose a few pounds over the next couple months while making up the expense out of my grocery budget.
Well I’m normally a nice guy (no laughing there in back), but I can’t let a thing like that slide. About twice a month for the next year I would stop at some random phone booth, make up a name and license number, and call them to ‘tow my broken car to the shop’. I tried to make sure the location was as far away from their lot as possible. Sometimes I would hang out nearby to watch the driver troll up and down the street. I estimated each call cost the miserable whoreson bags of chameleon gizz about an hour including driving time. After a year I figured we were about even and let it go.
Well I would be pissed too if bastards were parking in my spot. But you better be thankful that they didn’t confront you while your car was blocking them in. I would seriously fuck over anyone’s car who did that to me - keying, slashed tires, maybe a window or two. At a later date, of course.
I’ve been lurking for a while now. Who knew it’d be tow trucks that would inspire me enough to jump in the fray? I worked my way through college (and a couple years beyond) as a tow truck dispatcher and trainer for AAA in Los Angeles for 5 years and San Francisco for 2. I thought I’d jump in and address a couple of the things mentioned earlier and explain a little bit. First of all, on most two wheel drive cars putting the car in park only locks up 2 of the wheels, which means they are perfectly safe to tow. Most drivers will slim jim the door and take off the parking brake if they need to in order to move a car. If they can’t get in that way they will put the wheels up on dollies and tow it that way. Nobody mentioned it, but FYI they can’t tow a car with the transmission locked up, or no wheels (or anything that could cause it not to roll) on a flatbed truck because while you can drag them up there with the winch, if they don’t roll there’s no way to get them back off the bed.
As to the cost service, these guys are not becoming millionaires by charging you a couple hundred bucks for services. I know that most of them make an average of $11/hour in San Francisco including commissions. The pay is much closer to minimum wage in smaller cities and rural areas. Tow shops are ridiculously expensive to run. Most of those trucks only get 8-10 miles per gallon, have their 3000 mile oil changes every 10 days or so, go through transmissions every 6 months and cost 2-3 times what a regular superduty pickup truck would cost to purchase in the first place. Additionally they are paying rent on their impound yards in cities where office space and parking is at a premium and the landlords keep jacking up the rent to try to push them out. The landlords could make more money with something else on that space. Insurance for all those trucks, drivers and random pieces of heavy equipment is not cheap either. Finally, you aren’t paying $150 for 10 minutes of work, you’re paying it for the above costs as well as the cost to keep the driver sitting in the truck doing nothing for 8 hours just so that he could be on call for you when you lock your keys in your car at 3am.
Somebody mentioned the synchronized towing that happens in the afternoons in major cities. This isn’t organized by the truck drivers. What you probably don’t notice is the cop on the street directing them which cars to pick up, after they’ve been ticketed. Most of these lanes are being cleared for rush hour. Would you want to be stuck in traffic twice as long because some bozo didn’t move their car at 3:00? I don’t, I’m happy to see them go. It saves me gas and time to have that extra lane opened up.
I’m not sure how it works from city to city, but I know here legally you cannot tow a parked car from a private lot unless there has been a sign posted with the vehicle code for at least 48 hours. They do have contracts to tow away from these spaces, but they can’t just go pick up the car unless there is an attendant or store manager (or similar) to authorize it. Most people who call for impounds from private lots take every precaution to not offend their customers. The example was about a lot near a sports arena, they probably have a couple of people walking the lot on foot for an hour before an event, writing down plates of people who jump out of their cars with 3 kids and walk across the street. That’s it. In my 7 years I only saw one instance, out of thousands, where the car was towed inappropriately. The owner of the car showed the manager of the store a receipt to prove that he had done business there, the manager of the store drove the man down to the impound lot and the car was released. It was still not a good experience for the poor guy, but all told it took only 20 minutes to clear up and get his car back to him.
This brings me to damage claims. There is a standardized “previous damage” form that drivers fill out before they pick up a vehicle for impound. This is specifically to cover their butts, and is the reason why they wait for the cop to clear the ticket or for the store manager to arrive to tell them to go. The person ordering the tow has to sign the ticket stating what damage had been done to the car before it was hooked up. So Jeff, you should contact the owner of the lot that had your car towed and see if they signed off on anything like that. Another possible recourse is to check if the towing company is affiliated with AAA, Amoco, or one of the other big auto clubs. Most companies are affiliated with several of these clubs. You can then call the club to complain, especially if you are a member. The clubs certainly don’t have to take a complaint or help you out on a private tow, but if you are NICE when you call the dispatcher could start the ball rolling on a complaint, or at least point you in the right direction for dealing directly with their insurance company. There are people at these clubs whose full time job is to mediate damage claims for members, again, they don’t have to if it was an impound call, but if you are cool when you call in, they might. Can’t hurt to try.
Last thing, there are good and bad people in every business (blah blah blah) the majority of the guys I worked with were good people doing a very tough job. Would you be willing to change somebody else’s tire in the rain for $5 in take home pay? I know I wouldn’t.
I would have gotten in the car, locked the door, and told them that I wasn’t budging. Just to see what would happen…
Thanks for the info on your rights if your car is damaged while towing. I didn’t know that (wish I had). Had the towing company done what you said about the damage form I’m sure they would have waved it in my face and said, “See…already damaged…you’re tough luck,” but they didn’t. There is NO question in my mind they trashed my car. Unfortunately this happened to my car about 10 years ago so it’s a moot point now.
On the other hand I think the stories here show that most people’s experience with tow trucks aren’t good. I agree with Sailor and others that if you park in a space paid for by someone else or a handicap space and the like you deserve to be towed. In my case I did park in a private lot (but believe me it looked anything BUT private…great big dirt lot with other cars parked there) but the ‘warning’ was not well posted. I have no doubt that this was no accident so it afforded them the chance to tow more cars. How about the guys who had their truck towed when they could have easily been told to simply move? How about the guy I saw who ran to his car just as the tow truck got ONE chain on it? The driver refused to unhook and give the guy his car even though he was standing there and took the car to the pound.
They may have been nice guys to YOU when they returned but they aren’t so friendly when they’re out there.
As to the economics in the end it has to be profitable or they wouldn’t do it. Maybe the drivers get screwed but I bet the towing company makes out like bandits. Not only do you have a $150 towing fee but they charge you $75/day to STORE your car. This got me when I didn’t know my car was towed for two days. Cost me $300 to get my car out of hock! As someone else pointed out this reversed economics. Instead of getting to shop around for the lowest price I’m stuck paying damn near anything they feel like charging. The only thing probably keeping prices down is fear of government regulation if they start to REALLY douge customers (congresspeople get their cars towed too).
Also, if you saw the car pounds in Chicago I doubt their taxes are too high. Those areas are scary…especially at night out on the fringes of the city. They’re hardly sitting on Gold Coast property. In addition the yard I went to, which was quite large, was FILLED nearly to capacity. It didn’t look like these guys were lacking for cars to tow. As for insurance and the like EVERYBODY needs that. It’s a common business cost so I doubt they are somehow unusual in that regard. I will give you the transmission thing though. That’s gotta suck to replcae every 6 months. The caveat to that, however, is that the transmission is ONLY being stressed while towing so in effect the new transmissions should pay for themselves. If the tow truck never towed a car and just drove around I bet their transmission would last years.
As a final nail in their jerk-coffin Yabob posted to a link where someone dedicated an entire song to the predations of tow truck drivers in Chicago (Lincoln Park is in Chicago). Obviously I’m not the only person who has bad experiences with Chicago tow trucks.
On the whole I still hate them.
Jeff,
You’ll get no argument from me about the asshole nature of some of these guys, but even the owners aren’t making a ton of money. I know that those storage rates are set by the city in San Francisco. One of the shops I worked with actually charged $10 less than everybody else for several months, because nobody told the owner that the numbers had gone up. The other reason for big storage fees is that about half the impounded cars never get picked up, and for good reason. They’re junkers, been abandoned, been in an accident and the insurance company totals it out but never bothers to pick it up. Chances are nobody is going to want to buy these cars at lien sales either so the yard is just stuck with them and sells them for scrap.
The fees are generally set for hook up and tow to the shop, to drop a car once they’ve touched it it is 50% of the hook up fee, then there is the storage fee that kicks in at midnight after the car is towed in. They can also charge a gate fee if you decide you want to pick up your car at 4 in the morning, because usually the shop is unmanned at that time and it takes one or two guys some time to come in and reshuffle the cars to get yours out.
For most of these companies their bread and butter is service contracts for auto clubs. They get paid a flat rate per service call (anything that does not involve a tow and takes less than 30 mins) plus a little more if it takes longer, requires a second guy or there is a tow.
FWIW they weren’t nice to me all the time, and I’ve actually driven beater cars for years and have been towed or received other service 'anonymously’at least 3 or 4 times a year for the last ten years. They may have worked with me every day, but I was only a voice on the radio. They wouldn’t have a clue who I was when they rolled up for service. I had mostly good experience, but a few bad ones.
Anyway, I’m certainly not going to dispute crappy service and ripoffs - it does happen a lot, but I will say, protect yourself. The best way to do that is join a club so you do have someone to advocate for you when the time comes. The memberships (especially through your insurance company) cost about the same or less than one service call and could save you a lot of grief in the long run. And if you find that you’ve broken down and you don’t have a membership, call AAA or one of the other clubs first, most of them can sell you a membership over the phone in about 5 minutes with a credit card and all your benefits will be good immediately.
And thanks for not flaming me my first time out!
Slackergirl seems to know a little about the towing industry so what’s the deal with trap lots. When I was towed in Boston, I had parked in the empty parking lot of a an optometry school which was closed on Sundays. I was out of my car for about 1 minute as I ran in to my church to find a friend and ask him to move his car as he was taking up two spaces in the VERY small church lot. I looked out the window and saw the tow truck pulling away with my car, there was no one there to authorize a tow, call a tow truck, ticket the car, or fill out any “existing damage form”. I am not exagerating when I say it was 1 minute (60 seconds) between leaving my car and being towed. They towed my car all the fucking way to Roxbury (the very worst neighborhood in all of greater Boston). I noticed the tow truck drive by as I was looking for a place to park, he must have noticed me and come back to see if I had parked in the empty private lot. WTF is the purpose of this, who was I inconveniencing? If I was in somebody’s spot and they came back and wanted to park, then I could understand but the fucking lot was empty. It wasn’t a park and pay lot, it was just the parking lot of a school that was closed on Sunday’s, what excuse do they have for towing cars except pure greed?
Dunno what to say about Boston, I have no idea what the laws are there. If this happened recently you should contact the school that owns the lot and ask them. If they don’t have a contract with the company that towed you, you probably do have recourse. The bottom line on most of these problems is, it’s not the towing companies that make the rules. Owners of private parking lots seek out towing companies to clear their lots. They could have problems with vagrancy, or just be snotty. There’s no way to know, but if you start with the owner of the school, you can work your way up the chain from there.