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Comment by Teever | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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