Predatory Towing

[Ericandblueboy]

Article on predatory towing. Don't park in empty lots unless you're sure there's no one towing.

[jayandstacey]

No lie...About 3 weeks ago I had the oddest dream.

There was some important place (sports complex?) at the top of a wooded hill. Parking was very limited, but just below the important place was a small townhouse cluster. There were maybe 10 houses connected, facing another 10, with a lot between them and some parking on the end of the rows. Maybe 50 spots. There were a few cars in the lot, maybe 10. A few spaces were reserved, most not. Cars were randomly in the reserved and non-reserved. There was a small but barely readable sign at the entrance to the townhouses, which was very inviting.

OK, so the weird part: The one row of 10 townhouses was really just one house with a family inside. The other row of houses across from it was really just a disguised garage housing 2 towtrucks and a sophisticated indoor garage stacking system - like a filing cabinet for cars.

As first cars pulled in and the drivers went into the event - they'd discreetly get the cars moved into the garages without tow trucks, making it look like residents were just parking their own cars in their own houses. The garage system then lifted the cars high up into the 'townhouse' to make room for the next one. More cars come into the townhouse area unsuspecting, until the townhouses are full (cars stacked 5 high, unseen) and the lot then fills. While people were in the event and the townhouses were filled, they'd tow the street level cars off the hill to...somewhere else nearby.

When the event ended, the townhouse family was gone and what was left was the "towing company" phone number, not answered until the next day. It turns out the cars that were already sitting the townhouse lot were just permanent seed cars that didn't really run but made people think it was Ok to park there. When they called, people had to schedule a time and place to pick up their car, usually not far from (but never in) the townhouse area.

At the end of the event though, when people needed a ride as their car was locked up, there were a number of ready-to-help cabs that just happened to be driven by members of a single family that knew the area really well.

[TedE]

"Predatory towing" is a completely loaded description. These are private property owners enforcing the rights to land that they pay for (or lease). It would be more aptly titled "higly efficient towing". These guys make a lot of money off of people who risk bending the rules or who aren't very observant of where they park. Granted, the allowable fees payable to get your car back are the real issue here. I have no problem making the argument that those are usurious and should be better regulated. This situation is exactly analogous to the DC speed camera arguments, but the simplest solution to both is the same: don't speed and don't assume that "free" parking spaces are yours for the taking.

[DonRocks]

"Predatory towing" is a completely loaded description. These are private property owners enforcing the rights to land that they pay for (or lease). It would be more aptly titled "higly efficient towing". These guys make a lot of money off of people who risk bending the rules or who aren't very observant of where they park. Granted, the allowable fees payable to get your car back are the real issue here. I have no problem making the argument that those are usurious and should be better regulated. This situation is exactly analogous to the DC speed camera arguments, but the simplest solution to both is the same: don't speed and don't assume that "free" parking spaces are yours for the taking.

I was with you until the last sentence. "Don't speed" requires consciously thinking about your speed 100% of the time which is humanly impossible - it's equivalent to saying "think about every breath you take." These speed cameras (as well as radar traps) are often placed in locations where the natural driver's instinct is to drive "35 in a 25" because the road is wide open - a perfect example is the one on N. Glebe Road on the way to the Chain Bridge - driving 25 at that precise location feels like you're crawling, the radar trap is around a curve, and just a few seconds before it, the speed limit is much higher. A blinking warning sign would slow people down there quite nicely because it would jolt them into conscious thought (I'm a huge advocate of these signs for precisely this reason - likewise, red-light cameras, because each and every time a driver goes through an intersection, 100% attention is and should be required - running a red light is nearly always a conscious decision); as things stand, this well-established N. Glebe Road speed trap is nothing more than a predatory moneymaker.

I'm all for purposely subverting the law in instances such as this, and I'm still waiting to silently raise my glass to the first person who gets away with paint balling DC speed cameras. When that speed trap isn't there on N. Glebe Road, I purposely speed up for several seconds - it's my little way of giving this abuse of authority a hand signal, and saying, "what we've got here ... is failure to communicate."

[Pat]

I was with you until the last sentence. "Don't speed" requires consciously thinking about your speed 100% of the time which is humanly impossible - it's equivalent to saying "think about every breath you take." These speed cameras (as well as radar traps) are often placed in locations where the natural driver's instinct is to drive "35 in a 25" because the road is wide open - a perfect example is the one on N. Glebe Road on the way to the Chain Bridge - driving 25 at that precise location feels like you're crawling, the radar trap is around a curve, and just a few seconds before it, the speed limit is much higher.

The new speed cameras DC has on 395 at Maine Avenue were expertly placed, managing to be at the bottom of a down slope in both directions. It's very hard to go 40 there. Even if you are at 40 starting out, you're going faster than that by the time you've coasted downhill to the Maine Ave. exit, unless you are riding the brakes. Then there's the matter of people who are going much faster than 40 who don't seem to care about the cameras and are cutting in and out around cars going the speed limit. I'm convinced I'm going to get hit driving along there, so I have to make a conscious decision as to how much above the speed limit I'm willing to risk driving for it to be safe for me. Unlike other jurisdictions, DC won't say how much above the speed limit one has to be going to trigger a ticket.