If You Want to See Inequality in the U.S. at Its Worst, Visit an Impound Lot

I really don't understand why the laws are such that they can just keep your car, adding fees, until you pay. It's not like these people want to store their car there. Regardless of the outrageous storage and towing fees, you should be able to take your car immediately and pay them later. They can just put collections out or impound your car later if you don't pay.

I can remember few times I was as angry as I was at a tow yard. My car was stolen, found by the police, and impounded at a tow yard. I went to the tow yard to get the car out, they wanted hundreds of dollars to store the car for the few hours it was there. I went to get some belongings out of the car (I foolishly left my wallet in the car when it was stolen, so I had no cash or credit cards to free the car at that moment), and was accused of stealing my own car by the tow yard employee (as if that somehow makes sense). Later, I returned to pick up the car the next day, these tow yard people had stolen my snow chains out of the car.

Perhaps slightly OT, but this is a friendly reminder to everyone here, especially those freelancing or running their own business: keep an emergency fund

You never know what will happen, but you can be very sure that within a year you're going to encounter a variety of unforeseen financial hits. Not having the money to pay for them leads to stress and sometimes a vicious cycle.

For many Americans, an emergency fund can be an agonizing choice between feeding their family and planning for the future. But for most people reading this forum, an emergency fund it not a challenge once you decide to do it.

Yet for the first couple of years starting a business, I didn't prioritize this. It felt like I was putting more money into growth, but really I slowed myself down as I now and then had to hustle to meet relatively small unforeseen expenses.

After you get an emergency fund, you then ought to think about 3-6 months living expenses in a relatively liquid asset.

After that's done, you can sleep much more soundly.

In 2007, I had my car stolen from the Richmond BART parking lot. The police recovered it at something like 2:30am the following Friday night. Since I slept through the call, my car was taken to an impound lot. I had to pay something like $225 to pick it up at 9am the next morning, which included a towing fee, a storage fee (rounded up to 24 hours) and a "fuck you its a weekend" fee. I was only working part time while going to college and it was a painful amount at the time, but I was fortunate enough to be able to put it on a credit card and pay that off from my savings. These impound places seem to be run by people totally devoid of compassion who are more than happy to ruin someones life if there is money to be made doing it.

What, you think that's bad??

You can also be charged fees for being a defendant in criminal court, and for being in jail. And can be sent (back) to jail for not (being able to) pay(ing) those fees.

I found out about jail fees a while back from an election website for one of our local politicians... but I don't recall if they wanted to lower the fees because they're unjust and hard on the poor, or raise them to help pay for things.

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A few relevant search results:

http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fee...

http://nation.time.com/2013/08/21/welcome-to-prison-will-you...

http://www.mccrackencountyjailer.com/$_fees.htm

http://www.co.langlade.wi.us/sheriffjailfees.htm

Reliable, effective, and inexpensive public transit would solve 99% of problems like this. Cars are expensive to own and operate (let alone deal with unforeseen expenses like these). In my city, our "public transit" is a joke that consists of buses that run every hour or so and stop running at 7:30pm—hey, at least they have free wifi?

After seeing Europe's transit system first-hand all summer, it makes little sense to me why the investment has not been made in the USA—especially in larger metropolitan areas like SF.

We treat everyone pretty miserably.

I spoke to a professional in a pretty powerful job who almost died because for various reasons he didn't have the money to go to the emergency room. This person works for a Fortune 500 company, and a visit to the ER could easily cost $3k out of pocket.

He ended up having an emergency, which required an ambulance... The total bill was $8,000 after insurance!

I wonder how many of them are driving beat up old cars that break down seemingly at random, and hit them with even bigger towing and mechanics' fees to get them fixed?

Just another reason why it actually kinda sucks that most of America is impossible to get around without a car.

A much fairer system would charge people based on their income. Parking tickets, speeding tickets, towing charges, and really fines of any kind, would be much more just if they took into account how much money a person has, so that it stings the same for everyone.

As the article mentions, a poor family getting their only vehicle towed could devastate them, while it's only a mild inconvenience for someone that can afford a limo to pick their towed Ferrari up. That doesn't seem like the optimal system.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a fine for parking in no parking areas but these amounts are ridiculous and the author hit it right on the the head. The amounts charged are not in proportion to many people's ability to pay. This imbalance doesn't make society, which we all inhabit btw, any more stable or functional.

Of course, if fines were lowered self entitled assholes would do whatever they please and laugh off the fines. I think the solution is this... first offenses should be a very very small fine and the amounts should double on each subsequent offense. That should stop the self entitlement fairly quickly. Of course, this is assuming the intent is promote proper parking, not to strong-arm money out of people's pockets in order to finance an army of bureaucrats and general wasteful spending. That is the intent...proper parking behavior, right?

I wonder what happens if you make it technically impossible for your car to be towed (for example, if it detects a tow attempt, it "wakes up" and nudges away from the tow vehicle). Or if you make it get out of the impound lot by itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlLC1Iy1UkE Or after you win a tug of war with the tow truck...

Another one of the "one mistake and you're screwed" games, along with health care, and a few others, that the system likes to play with lower-middle class people.

This is basically the same point as the one in this (imho better) article written in 2011: 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor (http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-...)

San Francisco is for the rich. Anyone making less than $100k+ can't really afford to live here and even that is cutting it close. I honestly don't see the appeal but I guess some people like it here. This place is like Hollywood but instead of entertainment it's technology.

Is it just me or do their fees seem incredibly high. I've never had my car towed but my not-small city charges $110-140 to tow the car and another $28/day to store it after the first 12 hours.

http://www.calgaryparking.com/web/guest/impoundlot/requiredf...

Here in Ohio towing fees are regulated by state law. Some towing companies were trying to get around the maximum fees they could charge by tacking on an extra "administrative fee" just because. Fortunately a judge recently ruled that the idea that these fees were legal was "ludicrous." [1]

Even still, tens of thousands of people were charged these fees and many of them will probably never see their money back. Not to mention the fact that having to pay these fees invariably screwed over some fraction of the victims and led to them losing their jobs. Just getting their money back won't fix that.

Luckily the towing fees here in Ohio seem pretty cheap compared to the Bay Area. I had my car towed once (illegally) and it came out to around $130. But towing companies here aren't required to accept credit cards or checks, so they don't. It is cash only and they don't make change, which is especially aggravating given that the total always works out to some odd amount like $134.72. That's perhaps the sleaziest part of that sleazy business.

Fortunately a bill was recently passed aiming to reduce predatory towing practices. [2] Among the changes it's going to bring is to provide a streamlined process to dispute towing charges; victims of illegal towing can collect double the towing fees. Victims of towing will now also be able to retrieve items from there car without needing to pay a fee. And the bill will now (at last) require that towing companies accept credit cards.

[1] http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/04/10/two...

[2] http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/20/hou...

SF is one of the worst cities for income inequality. Add to this that Towing companies are probably the worst scum suckers when it comes to unethical and downright illegal practices [1] and you have a deadly combination that preys on the weak and the poor.

I hear many anaecdotes of Cars being towed in SF for the flimsiest of reasons.

These incidents are often the beginning of the death spiral for people who are living on the edge...

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Beware-illegal-towing-...

This journalist is upset his car was towed even though he was at fault... While getting your car towed is a terrible experience and impound lots are a massive PITA, I think it's out of line to invoke "inequality" and especially bringing up Michael Brown's death.

Our second car was parked for 9 days next to where we live, but out of sight. Law says can only park 48 hours in one place, but not a problem unless someone complains. Someone complained, for no reason we can think of (plenty of parking in the area.)

We went to load the car with supplies for a big annual event we put on, and...no car. Had been towed almost a week previously. Figured it out a day after the event during biggest snowstorm in several years. Towing, ticket, storage, incredible hassle for no discernible reason whatsoever.

Baretta said it best. "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

Psfft, tiny violins. The author apparently wants me to sympathize because his car was towed only 15 minutes into the no-parking period in downtown SF. Probably all of the people who were on delayed buses waiting for his car to be towed out of the way thought that the fine should have been a million dollars, plus having his car dropped into the Bay.

Fact is that authentically poor people do not drive. The population of people who drive and park cars in cities skews hugely toward higher incomes.