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Comment by wyrm | Hacker News Reader

"I’m not going to have the vehicle towed. Amazon should be able to figure this out. So now it’s an act of defiance. I did not follow Amazon’s instructions to just call the cops and have it towed."

There's a simple fix, and he didn't want to do it. Instead, he's whining on the Internet, blaming a company that doesn't own the vehicle and can't do anything about it, either.

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The simple fix you're describing is Amazon or whoever owns the truck abrogating their responsibilities and shuffling them off onto law enforcement and California Man.

Amazon can damn well pay for that truck to be moved and not a single tax dollar should go towards moving it.

This man is correct in publicly shaming Amazon for their inaction.

When police tows a vehicle, owner has to pay for towing to get the vehicle back. If nobody picks up the vehicle then vehicle is auctioned off and proceeds cover the cost of towing and storage. So the only way tax dollars end up being used is if the vehicle is worth less then the cost of towing.

I think it's highly unlikely that towing is guaranteed to be a profit centre vs. a cost centre in police/city budgets but that's besides the point.

There's an opportunity cost to using police for such a mundane activity that could trivially be solved by a responsible individual. Every moment that a police officer spends on this trivial issue is one that they can't spend on a non-trivial issue.

I would much rather see law enforcement do law enforcement and Amazon be responsible citizens in our society.

Imagine I was your neighbour and I left junker vehicles all over your property and when questioned about it by you my response was "yeah just call the cops and get it towed or something man."

Don't make excuses for Amazon and blame the victim in this situation. This kind of behaviour doesn't fly when it's an individual and it sure doesn't fly when it's an organization with the resources of Amazon.

I'm not trying to defend Amazon, but I don't think Amazon can legally tow a vehicle in this case. It's not their vehicle, it belongs to an independent business/contractor. The best they could do is to contact the contractor and offer to cover costs of towing. But we don't know what the situation is, what they tried to do.

> I think it's highly unlikely that towing is guaranteed to be a profit centre vs. a cost centre in police/city budgets

Towing is massively profitable and almost all the companies have a "kickback" arrangement with the local police enforcement.

This kind of thing is in the same bin with "civil forfeiture" in the US. The whole idea that the criminal justice system gets ANY money from the criminals themselves sets up so many perverse incentives it's ridiculous.

This is the real reason why marijuana legalization is taking so long. Removing weed fines from the coffers of law enforcement is going to blow big holes in their budgets so they fight legalization tooth and nail.

Oh I'm aware that someone is making money off towing, I just question the assertion as to whether or not it is a money making activity for local governments, because I have a feeling that on the whole it's a net negative for some places, in part due to the kick-backs you describe.

Yes, the towing racket is a net negative for society, but the kickbacks make it positively pay off for the players involved.

> There's a simple fix, and he didn't want to do it. Instead, he's whining on the Internet, blaming a company that doesn't own the vehicle and can't do anything about it, either.

Except, he's not whining.

From the article: “I also just kind of want to see what happens,” Lou said. “How long is it gonna take them to figure out that they have a delivery truck that’s just sitting somewhere?”

It doesn't seem like it's bothering him and it's now just a game of see how long it takes Amazon to care that they're paying for something stranded in the guys driveway. It's also pointing out the inefficiencies and waste of a company like Amazon, wherein it's cheaper for them to abandon a Sprinter van than deal with the logistics of caring about dealing with it. The reality is very likely that Amazon doesn't own it so they'll just punt it to the leasing / rental owner to reclaim it. This is how companies of Amazon's scale operate - with what would be an unacceptable loss / overhead for a smaller outfit. Most will call this the cost of doing business, but it's unfortunate the waste that is generally accepted as normal.

This brings up an interesting question - do the hyperscalers operate in a similar manner? Having and accepting large inefficiencies in their stacks but that may not be worth optimizing?

It sounds like this is just a van fully owned and operated by an independent contractor though, not Amazon, so I don't really think it speaks to any kind of inefficiency within Amazon. Prime vans generally have graphics on the side, no? And Amazon sometimes just has random people delivering packages from their vehicles.

Seems kind of like talking about the inefficiency of Uber for not dealing with an Uber drivers abandoned car.

I think that the fact that uber and amazon aren't responsible for the fleets is quite appropriate to talk about. No, this isn't the rich megacorp's direct liability. They've offloaded that to a low-margin courier that apparently can't afford to maintain their vehicles. And the schmuck who ordered some toilet paper ultimately suffers for it. I think that's a problem.

That plus the fact that he asked the story to link to his Twitter account, I’m guessing he’s doing this more for publicity than any real concern.

Yeah, I'm not sure why spend hours on the phone with Amazon if they don't want to deal with it, when it should be a relatively quick call with Law Enforcement dispatch and then the problem will be solved whenever they can get around to sending an officer and then a tow truck. +/- if they need to leave a notice for some amount of hours/days.

Assuming Amazon is as with it as ever, they won't pick it up from impound and eventually it'll get auctioned to pay the impound fees, and the registered owner will get a check for the proceeds minus impound and administrative fees, which should be a decent sized check if it's only got 400 miles, has the keys even if it's got an engine issue.

Alternatively, the vehicle probably has a lien, if the registration is in the car, the lienholder contact could be in there too and just call them.

> Assuming Amazon is as with it as ever, they won't pick it up from impound and eventually it'll get auctioned to pay the impound fees, and the registered owner will get a check for the proceeds minus impound and administrative fees, which should be a decent sized check if it's only got 400 miles, has the keys even if it's got an engine issue.

I'd let the towing guys take it for an extra 500$ (finder's fee) that they are welcome to add to the final bill since it was found on my property.

Amazon probably doesn't own this thing. They tend to contract out to 'independent' contractors that need to take care of their own vans, and they can dodge providing employee benefits (think sick pay, holidays etc) at the same time.

Even here in the Netherlands the post company did the same thing :( A lot of package delivery people got the offer of becoming "independent" or being made redundant.

However eventually the law kicked in gear and reversed all this because it's not really independency if you work for only one company.

> There's a simple fix, and he didn't want to do it.

Not everyone considers inviting armed representatives of the State onto your property a "simple fix."

It costs money to have a car towed off your property. So he's supposed to pay to get rid of amazon's (contractors?) illegal dumping?

It costs the owner money. Calling the cops means they call the tow company and the tow operator expects to recover from the owner.

If you call the tow company directly they'll charge you. At least in some places the police will just respond that if it's on private property its your problem not theirs.

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