Legality Of Getting Your Vehicle Towed!!!!

[ILS1]

Is there anything I can look up for any legal rights for having your vehicle towed away? Or am I just SOL?? Friday night after a tough loss,I met my best friend and some other friends @ Baby A's in Austin for a few drinks and maybe go down to 6th Street. The place was packed. I don't EVER park @ the hotel next door because I know they tow for sure. I park 2 blocks away at a Copier place that was closed with 4 other vehicles. I don't see any sign about being towed away (some genius turned the sign around so no one could see it). Had a purple Margarita and 2 shots of Patron,then we decide to leave after about an hour. Low and behold,I get back to my truck and it is gone along with the 4 other cars. I swear they were waiting around the corner and waiting for someone to park. I finally see the sign (turned around) and call the number. I'm very upset and call them the lowest form of scum on Earth and other choice words. I get directions to that place. I'm cussing up a storm and calling the tow truck operator a few other choice words. Then I have to pay $200 to get my vehicle out. I signed the receipt F@#% YOU!!!! They just looked at me and gave me truck back!!! Anything I can do or file a complaint? Or am I just SOL?? Thanks for any feedback.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[bullfrog_alumni_02]

do you want the legal answer or what i would wanna do? (not the same thing, infact, they would be worlds apart)

[ILS1]

How about both? I got a feeling the legal answer is: SOL. Anyway,what would you do? Thanks.


:D

[shankbear]

Put it in the HARD LESSON section of your mind. Legally, they can do it. The towing companies are city regulated and can charge what the city allows. Paid or public parking is always the way to go unfortunately.

[ILS1]

Thanks Shankbear!! I had a feeling that was the answer. My first whole weekend off in 3 months and this happens!!! Damn,I swear I'm cursed!!!!!!! "If it weren't for bad luck,I'd have no luck at all"- Buck Owens :mad: :mad: :mad:

[bullfrog_alumni_02]

or, if you see the guy out in town somewhere by chance, walk by his truck and stick some nails under a few of his tires. you may not get to see the outcome first hand, but you will know in the end that you made his day a living H-E-DOUBLE -HOCKEY STICKS like your's. so in lue of not getting to see the satisfaction of that, punch him in the face and say i hate you and scowl at him very menacingly.

[Chief Woodman]

Originally posted by shankbear
Put it in the HARD LESSON section of your mind. Legally, they can do it. The towing companies are city regulated and can charge what the city allows. Paid or public parking is always the way to go unfortunately.

Not to sound like I am getting on you too hard but the truth is this- you are mad at someone else who did what they had the right to do and were supposed to do (tow your truck) because you did what you were NOT supposed to do (try to park for free on someone else's private property). Every bit of anger and frustration you have should be directed to the person responsible for what happened- at yourself. Learn from this and next time do the right thing. By the way, IMHO you should call the tow place back and appoligize for acting in such an inapproprite manner. After all, you were the one who was wrong not them. They did not deserve to be beratted because you parked on someone else's property.

[Chief Woodman]

By the way I re-read your post. You are lucky they did tow your vehicle. Having 3 hard liquor drinks in 1 hour should mean that you did not need to drive. The results might have been far more tragic if you did. The tow company may have saved your life or your future.

[SWMustang]

Originally posted by Chief Woodman
Not to sound like I am getting on you too hard but the truth is this- you are mad at someone else who did what they had the right to do and were supposed to do (tow your truck) because you did what you were NOT supposed to do (try to park for free on someone else's private property). Every bit of anger and frustration you have should be directed to the person responsible for what happened- at yourself. Learn from this and next time do the right thing. By the way, IMHO you should call the tow place back and appoligize for acting in such an inapproprite manner. After all, you were the one who was wrong not them. They did not deserve to be beratted because you parked on someone else's property.

I agree with Woodman except that the sign was turned around. There's no sense in following up on that angle due to the time and money required to fight something like this.

[Bull's-eye]

If you suspect that the tow drivers were turning the sign around, it may be worth doing a little surveilance. A video tape of them doing that might get you some justice.

[Ranger Mom]

Originally posted by Bull's-eye
If you suspect that the tow drivers were turning the sign around, it may be worth doing a little surveilance. A video tape of them doing that might get you some justice.

I didn't think of that aspect of it. When I first read it, I automatically blamed it on someone who parked there who thought that could be their "out" if they were caught, so they turned it around themselves!

[WestTXLonghorn]

Have fun with that. . .especially since they just jacked up the price of towing all across the city.

It's even worse trying to park on campus.

[Da Mules]

I am amazed at the BS that is allowed by the Towing Racket. They must have a very strong lobby (i.e., slickers in charge of bribery of elected officials) in Austin. It's literally highway robbery. I hate those bast**ds worse than lawyers. Well maybe as bad as lawyers-- it took some lowdown SOB's working in cahoots to come up with a scheme like this.

[luvhoops34]

Here's another towing horror story for ya'

My daughters freshman year in college she lived in some apartment across from the campus. Each apartment had two assingned parking spaces. If you missed out on those, you were SOL. She was LEGALLY parked in one of the spaces, but two of the other girls in her apartment weren't. To make a long story short, the citizen of Mexico who had an apartment next to hers called the towing company assigned to the apartments and had her car towed. Apparently, their was a communication error on the space he told the towing company to tow the car from.

The "illegal alien" as I like to call him then threatened the girls because one of them had parked in his space. Of course, the apartment manager was gone at the time, and I'm at home in Poth.

I called the campus police, the Brownsville PD and everybody else I could think of to bitch and raise hell. And believe you me, they got an earful. I asked the Brownsville PD, how an "illegal alien" had the right to have MY car towed just on his say so.

We got the car back the next day, with no damage thankgoodness. And we didn't have to pay, because they towed the wrong car. But it was a total pain in the butt, and I got no sleep all night worrying about my car.

My husband was out on the big road making a living and the next time he was home it was all I could do to keep him from paying the "illegal alien" a visit.

[Gobbla2001]

I've driven in Austin quite a few times in my day, the thing you do is look for signs that say "towing enforced" etc...

if you don't see one, you park... these signs should be made very clear...

maybe you're SOL in your own personal case, ILS, but making people more aware of it is a positive thing that you should do...

they'll provide signs saying "you can't smoke in here", they should also provide signs that meet a certain standard in making sure the normal citizen is aware of what they can and cannot do...

[Gobbla2001]

basically this is an issue that needs to be addressed in any city...

If you're an out of towner in Victoria, and you go to the sportsbar in the mall and have a few to drink, decide you can't drive so you get a taxi back to your hotel, you may find your car to be gone the next day if you left it... there are no signs saying you cannot park there... the best you can do is find one of the security guards who drive the golf-cart etc... and they'll write your name down etc... and you can keep your car there... sometimes they're hard to find because they're watching girls walk out of the movie theatre in the back, and plus an out of towner isn't supposed to know that there is security around that mall...

it should always be posted...

[STANG RED]

Make no mistake about it. The towing industry is a huge racket! Lots of kickback payments to those making the calls. You would be surprise at how many business managers actually get kickbacks from towing services, just by allowing them to be the one to tow from their lot. Also, alot of security guards dont make a big hourly wage, but some make a small fortune, just by making calls to towing services. Some get as much as $50 per call.
I'm sure theres a few cops that pad their income by this sort of activity as well.

[PPHSfan]

You could find an old junker car. Rig it up so that the axle will fall off after it is towed about four blocks. Fill the inside of the car with dead fish about a week before you put it in the parking lot and then "Hide and Watch".:D