“There ought to be a law!” A popular refrain you might recall hearing a time or two. Perhaps you’ve even uttered it yourself? Consider the following true-life, fairly recent vignette.
A Seattle mom parks her car outside a day-care center, races inside hoping to clutch her kids before the $10-a-minute late-fee kicks in. They come outside and — what is this?! — her car’s been towed away. It’s been snatched away, that is, by an opportunistic towing firm only too happy to prey on such unfortunates. The woman and her children are left high and dry.
Gerry Pollet was there, too, picking up his own youngster. It occurred to Pollet that neither a parent nor anyone else, for that matter, should face the choice of either paying a month’s rent or mortgage — or forking over the bucks to spring the family ride from a tow yard. Realizing that it doesn’t have to be this way, Pollet a few months later went to Olympia as a newly elected state representative and got down to the business of righting the aforementioned wrong.
This past session Pollet won full legislative support and the governor’s signature for stronger towing-rules to protect consumers. Under his House Bill 1625, “an in-city tow of 45 minutes (including half-day storage) should cost only $213 for a person to get his or her car back. Most in-city tows take under 45 minutes, and often only 30 minutes.
“My legislation sets private-property tows at 135 percent of the Washington State Patrol’s rate,” he explained, “which is based on the cost of an easy tow, such as when the tow truck can just pull up and do its number on the shoulder of a freeway. Tows from private lots are often more difficult and take more time than towing from the side of a highway. Our new state law makes it illegal for a towing company to charge for two or more hours for a tow that takes only 30 or 45 minutes, which is precisely what happened in the infamous Seattle case when my fellow day-care parent was slammed with an $800 tow-charge.”
The Seattle Times has run a series of reports documenting that some predatory-towing companies have charged from $700 on up to as much as $2,000 for people to get their cars back, Pollet noted. Costs of $500 have been typical.
“Our new state law gets that figure down to well under $250 for a majority of tows,” the Seattle legislator said.
For more information, folks can:
• Access consumer-protection details in the state Attorney General’s Office.
• Call 360-664-6466 at the state Department of Licensing to talk with someone about specific tow-job questions.