10 ms·

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

102 points by dsl 12y ago

ryan-c 12y ago
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.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- jonathanwallace 12y ago
  This is why most tow truck drivers carry a weapon.
- jonknee 12y ago
  You don't want to fight a tow truck driver.
- deciplex 12y ago
  I don't know why this is being downvoted. It's a very good point. For being one of the most heavily-armed societies on Earth, Americans are awfully resigned to their lot.
  - deciplex 12y ago
    Ah, okay now it's clear why the parent was downvoted. Same reason my post was: some idiot didn't like the sentiment, but being unable to engage the thought or present a counterargument, downvotes instead, and convinces himself this is equal to the negation of the idea. Nice work, anonymous fool.
  - bmelton 12y ago
    To be fair, while Americans at large might be considered 'heavily armed' in general, that statement is proportionally untrue for most Californians. Historically, getting a concealed carry permit was impossible, and open carry is generally prohibited as well. This was recently overturned in _Peruta v San Diego_ as unconstitutional, but the nut of the matter is that except for criminals and law enforcement, the likelihood of a Californian being armed for bear is minimal.
    - spiritplumber 12y ago
      Most of my female friends carry mace. I don't even know if that's legal, but it's a good idea, esp in the east bay.
      - bmelton 12y ago
        So long as the mace is California compliant (which I think means 2.5 ounces or less), and they are not felons, minors, or addicted to any narcotics, it is perfectly legal -- so long as they only use it for the purpose of self defense.
ygmelnikova 12y ago
Baretta said it best. "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
- ryan-c 12y ago
  As I and another person described, you'll also be dealing with an impound lot if your car is stolen and subsequently recovered by the police.
  - brandonmenc 12y ago
    This happened to me about a month after I moved to Phoenix. I paid less than fifty bucks to get my car out of the impound. My insurance company cut me a check for $800 to fix the cosmetic damage, which I pocketed. My story may not be typical.
    - ryan-c 12y ago
      Poor people with older cars generally do not carry insurance that would cover that.
graeme 12y ago
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.
- morgante 12y ago
  I honestly don't comprehend why the prototypical HNer (in their 20s, working as a developer) doesn't have a year or two of expenses saved up. It should be trivial.
  - lukeqsee 12y ago
    > a year or two of expenses saved up. Expenses is the keyword, I think. Most prototypical HNers live life well above what they could live at (e.g., less organically-grown gourmet coffee and more rice). A year or two of true, necessary expenses could be closer to 6 months of income for many here.
    - morgante 12y ago
      Agreed. If there were a scenario where one had to use those expenses for years, I'd expect them to relocate to a lower COL area (ie. not SF) and adopt a somewhat humbler lifestyle. $100k would last a long time in that situation, and it should be well within the ability of most HNers to save up $100k before they're 30.
  - 12y ago
Tortoise 12y ago
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/requiredfees http://www.calgaryparking.com/web/guest/impoundlot/requiredf...
- ronnier 12y ago
  Forgot where I heard this, but this world is made to take your money.
- beachstartup 12y ago
  this article is set in san francisco. it is a completely miserable place if you do not have enough money.
  - getsat 12y ago
    It's also pretty miserable even if you make decent money (mid-100s). Thankfully, I am headed for greener pastures in less than a week. Goodbye to the most dysfunctional and disgusting city I've ever lived in. Amazing place to gain work experience if you work in tech, but a horrible place to live.
    - Cookingboy 12y ago
      Agreed, I've lived at a wide range of places, from nice suburb near Dallas to mid-sized "cool city" like Austin to international metropolis like Shanghai, and SF is by far the least livable place (especially cost adjusted) in my opinion. Nice weather, cool culture, but very, very broken infrastructure and government and pretty much anything that has to do with policy and regulation.
      - beachstartup 12y ago
        i lived there for 2 years during a non-insane period of time (2006-2007) and made 100k, and everything was a pain in the ass. you literally could not even walk down the street a single time without dealing with some kind of fucked up problem. looking back on it in retrospect, it was even worse than it felt, but i was young, and liked to party. like most people there. such a beautiful city, too. it really kind of broke the illusion for me. still wonderful to visit though, because you live in a fantasy-travel bubble instead of having to deal with day to day life.
Spooky23 12y ago
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!
- andrewfarah 12y ago
  This sounds insensitive (I don't mean it as such), he should have taken an uber.
  - deckar01 12y ago
    The point of an ambulance is to receive medical attention on the way to the ER.
    - andrewfarah 12y ago
      I agree. I was referencing this -- https://medium.com/@abhinemani/ubers-as-ambulances-4e3a2db3880b https://medium.com/@abhinemani/ubers-as-ambulances-4e3a2db38...
- dmishe 12y ago
  Was it before obamacare? Out-of-pocket max is ~6000 now
dkarapetyan 12y ago
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.
- ebiester 12y ago
  Many of them live in the central valley and commute via car.
  - kenrikm 12y ago
    Hah, yeah like it's really viable to commute from the central valley. :( it takes me 30min to get from 92 to Ralston (2 exits)
    - dsl 12y ago
      You'd be surprised what people will do to feed their families.
thrownaway2424 12y ago
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.
- ebiester 12y ago
  The authentically poor do drive. They drive over an hour and a half a day to their jobs, praying that their car doesn't break down that day. Because it has before, and they're still paying off the payday loan. Some are commuting daily from as far as Tracy. There are places there you can rent for as low as 800. With a roommate or three you can afford the car to get in to the city or the east bay to work.
  - thrownaway2424 12y ago
    Those people drive to Pleasanton and take BART. All actual data (not your ridiculous anecdote) points to the fact that poor people use transit.
    - Hytosys 12y ago
      So what's your conspiracy theory? The author was lying about all the citizens waiting at the impound lot?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Cookingboy 12y ago
  That is total bullshit, did you not read the article? Plenty of people work in the city and have to drive, because they cannot afford the rent to live there, or needs vehicles since they are part of their livelihood. What do you know about "authentically poor people"? You think everyone drives BMWs and Teslas in SF and our amazing public transportation (note: sarcasm) manages to service everyone with a low-income job in the city but don't live there?
davekeck 12y ago
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.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  The Ferrari is probably safe, it would take a while to rig up for towing, and with a high risk of damage at that. Towing the Civic is a safer bet for the towing company. My perception is that when towing cars unnecessarily (ie: in places where a fine is more than sufficient and a main thoroughfare isn't being blocked), the mid-range cars are preferentially towed, they can pay and they're not hard to rig up.
  - chao- 12y ago
    What determines whether a car is hard to rig up or not?
    - Cookingboy 12y ago
      Some cars are rear wheel drive, some are all wheel drive. Many expensive cars require a flat bed tow truck. Cars with double clutch transmissions do not have a "neutral" setting and cannot be easily towed (when you put a BMW DCT into neutral it becomes park, for example). If towed in the wrong way, it can severely damage an expensive car, and considering Ferrari owners can also afford lawyers, it's safer to tow the Civic, especially the towing fee is the same either way.
      - pandaman 12y ago
        Every time I see LADOT towing a car it's on a flatbed, they don't literally tow it behind some other car. I imagine it's cheaper to use a flatbed if you are in this business.
bagels 12y ago
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.
- tehwebguy 12y ago
  Agreed, it is absolutely insane that you have to pay 100% of their seemingly arbitrary fees before taking your car back. Your credit card company, that you have a written agreement with, would have to jump through such greater hoops to take back the TV you bought if you default (if they can at all). Taking someone's car should be considered more like turning off their water, for many it's not a convenience but a necessary part of life.
- parennoob 12y ago
  > I really don't understand why the laws are such that they can just keep your car, adding fees, until you pay. In the city where I live, this is mainly because the towing people are given contracts saying they can do just that by the City Council. Of course, a couple of people on the City Council are pretty close to owners of said towing companies. Seems like the way to reform this would be to expose these kinds of ties, and get normal people to recognize the viciously corrupt cycle that enables them. Unfortunately, politics like this is seen as the preserve of older, richer people, and most others just go about their jobs and accept it as an unfortunate "fact of life".
- pandaman 12y ago
  Towing costs money. From the towing's company point of view towing a car is an investment they are hoping to recover with some margin. When they have your car as a collateral the chances of a successful recovery are much higher than when they just give you the car back. If they had been forced to do the later they'd have to increase the fees to offset the increased risk of losing their money.
teddyh 12y ago
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-being-poor/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-...)
narrator 12y ago
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.
jqm 12y ago
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?
lukeqsee 12y ago
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.
- ffn 12y ago
  Not everyone has the privilege of being able to work remotely on his/her macbook from the comforts of home; some people need their cars for work. You try lugging several hundred pounds of cement, lawn-mowing equipment, a mattress, etc. through your local subway. And SF has BART, caltrain, and MUNI, and while they all smell like urine, they do pretty much get you exactly where you want to go.
  - lukeqsee 12y ago
    > Not everyone has the privilege of being able to work remotely on his/her macbook from the comforts of home; some people need their cars for work. You try lugging several hundred pounds of cement, lawn-mowing equipment, a mattress, etc. through your local subway. Of course, but most work for the poor (to put it bluntly), does not include carrying things through the subway. It includes showing up on work on-time and working hard—whether that's laying bricks or washing dishes. If your car breaks down, you're out a job. If the subway breaks down (much less likely), your employer or four other employees just might have been on that subway, too. > And SF has BART, caltrain, and MUNI, and while they all smell like urine, they do pretty much get you exactly where you want to go. If usage increased, I dare say they would get cleaned up (public trains in former Eastern European countries are even non-smelly). I don't live in SF, though, so I have no experience to back up my hunch.
    - thrownaway2424 12y ago
      There are no people who are driving and parking their cars in SF so that they can attend their job washing dishes. none.
spiritplumber 12y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlLC1Iy1UkE Or after you win a tug of war with the tow truck...
- tantalor 12y ago
  They try harder, and charge more for recovery. Don't be surprised if they total it in the process, and you still owe them.
ufmace 12y ago
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.
- kenrikm 12y ago
  You can get a Smart Car for $99/mo - not sure why more people don't figure that one out.
suprgeek 12y ago
SF is one of the worst cities for income inequality. Add to this that Towing companies are probably the worst scum suckers when it comes to unethical and downright illegal practices [1] and you have a deadly combination that preys on the weak and the poor. I hear many anaecdotes of Cars being towed in SF for the flimsiest of reasons. These incidents are often the beginning of the death spiral for people who are living on the edge... [1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Beware-illegal-towing-firms-in-San-Francisco-3178707.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Beware-illegal-towing-...
tbrownaw 12y ago
What, you think that's bad?? You can also be charged fees for being a defendant in criminal court, and for being in jail. And can be sent (back) to jail for not (being able to) pay(ing) those fees. I found out about jail fees a while back from an election website for one of our local politicians... but I don't recall if they wanted to lower the fees because they're unjust and hard on the poor, or raise them to help pay for things. . A few relevant search results: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fees-punish-the-poor http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fee... http://nation.time.com/2013/08/21/welcome-to-prison-will-you-be-paying-cash-or-credit/ http://nation.time.com/2013/08/21/welcome-to-prison-will-you... http://www.mccrackencountyjailer.com/$_fees.htm http://www.mccrackencountyjailer.com/$_fees.htm http://www.co.langlade.wi.us/sheriffjailfees.htm http://www.co.langlade.wi.us/sheriffjailfees.htm
splat 12y ago
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-towing-companies-fees-illegal-judge-rules.html http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/04/10/two... [2] http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/20/house-oks-bill-to-tighten-towing-rules.html http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/20/hou...
cliftonk 12y ago
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.
QuantumGood 12y ago
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.

102 points by dsl 12y ago

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.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jonathanwallace 12y ago
This is why most tow truck drivers carry a weapon.
jonknee 12y ago
You don't want to fight a tow truck driver.
deciplex 12y ago
I don't know why this is being downvoted. It's a very good point. For being one of the most heavily-armed societies on Earth, Americans are awfully resigned to their lot.
- deciplex 12y ago
  Ah, okay now it's clear why the parent was downvoted. Same reason my post was: some idiot didn't like the sentiment, but being unable to engage the thought or present a counterargument, downvotes instead, and convinces himself this is equal to the negation of the idea. Nice work, anonymous fool.
- bmelton 12y ago
  To be fair, while Americans at large might be considered 'heavily armed' in general, that statement is proportionally untrue for most Californians. Historically, getting a concealed carry permit was impossible, and open carry is generally prohibited as well. This was recently overturned in _Peruta v San Diego_ as unconstitutional, but the nut of the matter is that except for criminals and law enforcement, the likelihood of a Californian being armed for bear is minimal.
  - spiritplumber 12y ago
    Most of my female friends carry mace. I don't even know if that's legal, but it's a good idea, esp in the east bay.
    - bmelton 12y ago
      So long as the mace is California compliant (which I think means 2.5 ounces or less), and they are not felons, minors, or addicted to any narcotics, it is perfectly legal -- so long as they only use it for the purpose of self defense.

ygmelnikova 12y ago

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

ryan-c 12y ago
As I and another person described, you'll also be dealing with an impound lot if your car is stolen and subsequently recovered by the police.
- brandonmenc 12y ago
  This happened to me about a month after I moved to Phoenix. I paid less than fifty bucks to get my car out of the impound. My insurance company cut me a check for $800 to fix the cosmetic damage, which I pocketed. My story may not be typical.
  - ryan-c 12y ago
    Poor people with older cars generally do not carry insurance that would cover that.

graeme 12y ago

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.

morgante 12y ago
I honestly don't comprehend why the prototypical HNer (in their 20s, working as a developer) doesn't have a year or two of expenses saved up. It should be trivial.
- lukeqsee 12y ago
  > a year or two of expenses saved up. Expenses is the keyword, I think. Most prototypical HNers live life well above what they could live at (e.g., less organically-grown gourmet coffee and more rice). A year or two of true, necessary expenses could be closer to 6 months of income for many here.
  - morgante 12y ago
    Agreed. If there were a scenario where one had to use those expenses for years, I'd expect them to relocate to a lower COL area (ie. not SF) and adopt a somewhat humbler lifestyle. $100k would last a long time in that situation, and it should be well within the ability of most HNers to save up $100k before they're 30.
- 12y ago

Tortoise 12y ago

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

ronnier 12y ago
Forgot where I heard this, but this world is made to take your money.
beachstartup 12y ago
this article is set in san francisco. it is a completely miserable place if you do not have enough money.
- getsat 12y ago
  It's also pretty miserable even if you make decent money (mid-100s). Thankfully, I am headed for greener pastures in less than a week. Goodbye to the most dysfunctional and disgusting city I've ever lived in. Amazing place to gain work experience if you work in tech, but a horrible place to live.
  - Cookingboy 12y ago
    Agreed, I've lived at a wide range of places, from nice suburb near Dallas to mid-sized "cool city" like Austin to international metropolis like Shanghai, and SF is by far the least livable place (especially cost adjusted) in my opinion. Nice weather, cool culture, but very, very broken infrastructure and government and pretty much anything that has to do with policy and regulation.
    - beachstartup 12y ago
      i lived there for 2 years during a non-insane period of time (2006-2007) and made 100k, and everything was a pain in the ass. you literally could not even walk down the street a single time without dealing with some kind of fucked up problem. looking back on it in retrospect, it was even worse than it felt, but i was young, and liked to party. like most people there. such a beautiful city, too. it really kind of broke the illusion for me. still wonderful to visit though, because you live in a fantasy-travel bubble instead of having to deal with day to day life.

Spooky23 12y ago

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!

andrewfarah 12y ago
This sounds insensitive (I don't mean it as such), he should have taken an uber.
- deckar01 12y ago
  The point of an ambulance is to receive medical attention on the way to the ER.
  - andrewfarah 12y ago
    I agree. I was referencing this -- https://medium.com/@abhinemani/ubers-as-ambulances-4e3a2db3880b https://medium.com/@abhinemani/ubers-as-ambulances-4e3a2db38...
dmishe 12y ago
Was it before obamacare? Out-of-pocket max is ~6000 now

dkarapetyan 12y ago

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.

ebiester 12y ago
Many of them live in the central valley and commute via car.
- kenrikm 12y ago
  Hah, yeah like it's really viable to commute from the central valley. :( it takes me 30min to get from 92 to Ralston (2 exits)
  - dsl 12y ago
    You'd be surprised what people will do to feed their families.

thrownaway2424 12y ago

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.

ebiester 12y ago
The authentically poor do drive. They drive over an hour and a half a day to their jobs, praying that their car doesn't break down that day. Because it has before, and they're still paying off the payday loan. Some are commuting daily from as far as Tracy. There are places there you can rent for as low as 800. With a roommate or three you can afford the car to get in to the city or the east bay to work.
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  Those people drive to Pleasanton and take BART. All actual data (not your ridiculous anecdote) points to the fact that poor people use transit.
  - Hytosys 12y ago
    So what's your conspiracy theory? The author was lying about all the citizens waiting at the impound lot?
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Cookingboy 12y ago
That is total bullshit, did you not read the article? Plenty of people work in the city and have to drive, because they cannot afford the rent to live there, or needs vehicles since they are part of their livelihood. What do you know about "authentically poor people"? You think everyone drives BMWs and Teslas in SF and our amazing public transportation (note: sarcasm) manages to service everyone with a low-income job in the city but don't live there?

davekeck 12y ago

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.

Scoundreller 12y ago
The Ferrari is probably safe, it would take a while to rig up for towing, and with a high risk of damage at that. Towing the Civic is a safer bet for the towing company. My perception is that when towing cars unnecessarily (ie: in places where a fine is more than sufficient and a main thoroughfare isn't being blocked), the mid-range cars are preferentially towed, they can pay and they're not hard to rig up.
- chao- 12y ago
  What determines whether a car is hard to rig up or not?
  - Cookingboy 12y ago
    Some cars are rear wheel drive, some are all wheel drive. Many expensive cars require a flat bed tow truck. Cars with double clutch transmissions do not have a "neutral" setting and cannot be easily towed (when you put a BMW DCT into neutral it becomes park, for example). If towed in the wrong way, it can severely damage an expensive car, and considering Ferrari owners can also afford lawyers, it's safer to tow the Civic, especially the towing fee is the same either way.
    - pandaman 12y ago
      Every time I see LADOT towing a car it's on a flatbed, they don't literally tow it behind some other car. I imagine it's cheaper to use a flatbed if you are in this business.

bagels 12y ago

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.

tehwebguy 12y ago
Agreed, it is absolutely insane that you have to pay 100% of their seemingly arbitrary fees before taking your car back. Your credit card company, that you have a written agreement with, would have to jump through such greater hoops to take back the TV you bought if you default (if they can at all). Taking someone's car should be considered more like turning off their water, for many it's not a convenience but a necessary part of life.
parennoob 12y ago
> I really don't understand why the laws are such that they can just keep your car, adding fees, until you pay. In the city where I live, this is mainly because the towing people are given contracts saying they can do just that by the City Council. Of course, a couple of people on the City Council are pretty close to owners of said towing companies. Seems like the way to reform this would be to expose these kinds of ties, and get normal people to recognize the viciously corrupt cycle that enables them. Unfortunately, politics like this is seen as the preserve of older, richer people, and most others just go about their jobs and accept it as an unfortunate "fact of life".
pandaman 12y ago
Towing costs money. From the towing's company point of view towing a car is an investment they are hoping to recover with some margin. When they have your car as a collateral the chances of a successful recovery are much higher than when they just give you the car back. If they had been forced to do the later they'd have to increase the fees to offset the increased risk of losing their money.

teddyh 12y ago

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-being-poor/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-...)

narrator 12y ago

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.

jqm 12y ago

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?

lukeqsee 12y ago

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.

ffn 12y ago
Not everyone has the privilege of being able to work remotely on his/her macbook from the comforts of home; some people need their cars for work. You try lugging several hundred pounds of cement, lawn-mowing equipment, a mattress, etc. through your local subway. And SF has BART, caltrain, and MUNI, and while they all smell like urine, they do pretty much get you exactly where you want to go.
- lukeqsee 12y ago
  > Not everyone has the privilege of being able to work remotely on his/her macbook from the comforts of home; some people need their cars for work. You try lugging several hundred pounds of cement, lawn-mowing equipment, a mattress, etc. through your local subway. Of course, but most work for the poor (to put it bluntly), does not include carrying things through the subway. It includes showing up on work on-time and working hard—whether that's laying bricks or washing dishes. If your car breaks down, you're out a job. If the subway breaks down (much less likely), your employer or four other employees just might have been on that subway, too. > And SF has BART, caltrain, and MUNI, and while they all smell like urine, they do pretty much get you exactly where you want to go. If usage increased, I dare say they would get cleaned up (public trains in former Eastern European countries are even non-smelly). I don't live in SF, though, so I have no experience to back up my hunch.
  - thrownaway2424 12y ago
    There are no people who are driving and parking their cars in SF so that they can attend their job washing dishes. none.

spiritplumber 12y ago

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

tantalor 12y ago
They try harder, and charge more for recovery. Don't be surprised if they total it in the process, and you still owe them.

ufmace 12y ago

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.

kenrikm 12y ago
You can get a Smart Car for $99/mo - not sure why more people don't figure that one out.

suprgeek 12y ago

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-firms-in-San-Francisco-3178707.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Beware-illegal-towing-...

tbrownaw 12y ago

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. . A few relevant search results: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fees-punish-the-poor http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fee... http://nation.time.com/2013/08/21/welcome-to-prison-will-you-be-paying-cash-or-credit/ http://nation.time.com/2013/08/21/welcome-to-prison-will-you... http://www.mccrackencountyjailer.com/$_fees.htm http://www.mccrackencountyjailer.com/$_fees.htm http://www.co.langlade.wi.us/sheriffjailfees.htm http://www.co.langlade.wi.us/sheriffjailfees.htm

splat 12y ago

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-towing-companies-fees-illegal-judge-rules.html http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/04/10/two... [2] http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/20/house-oks-bill-to-tighten-towing-rules.html http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/20/hou...

cliftonk 12y ago

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.

QuantumGood 12y ago

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.