[HN Gopher] Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but ...
___________________________________________________________________
Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action
suit continues
Author : jawns
Score : 85 points
Date : 2022-09-16 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inquirer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inquirer.com)
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Problem is, the city doesn't have a modern, reliable way to
| track the vehicles' new locations, leaving owners wandering the
| streets for days or weeks, looking for their cars.
|
| They could do vastly better than the status quo with century-old
| multi-part paper form technology. "White Copy - Central PD Tow
| Office", "Yellow Copy - Precinct PD Tow Clerk", "Pink Copy - DMV,
| to mail to vehicle owner", ...
|
| This kind of worse-than-brain-dead sh*t-show is why so many
| people emotionally identify with "the government is the problem",
| "de-fund the police", and similar slogans.
| mjhay wrote:
| > This kind of worse-than-brain-dead sh*t-show is why so many
| people emotionally identify with "the government is the
| problem", "de-fund the police", and similar slogans.
|
| Those people are right. That is not just emotional, that is
| rational - that is the only sane attitude towards the fact that
| these groups with the power of violence over society are so
| incompetent or even malicious.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Us people have some nuance and quite a bit of disagreement
| amongst ourselves. Personally I'm all in on defunding the
| police, but (I still feel weird saying this even after almost
| six years as a former anarchist) I don't believe the
| government is inherently the problem, even if this particular
| implementation of it is obviously a problem.
|
| Another version of government could and should use its power
| to _prevent_ these kinds of abuses rather than enable and
| benefit from them. But that form of government would look
| radically different from the one we have.
| bdhess wrote:
| > They could do vastly better than the status quo
|
| But why should they have to? It's 2022, get a LoJack or AirTag
| for your private property that you leave lying around illegally
| in public space.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| The cars are towed away from legal spots.
| bdhess wrote:
| I think the article misstates this. They're normally legal
| spots, but at the time of the special event, they're not
| legal.(Usually temporary signs are placed a day or two in
| advance.)
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| if they were parked illegally, they would just be towed
|
| they were "courtesy towed" because the space became
| illegal after the car was already there
| lostlogin wrote:
| > (Usually temporary signs are placed a day or two in
| advance.)
|
| Based on the stories here, not not sure this is
| happening.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Even if it is, that's not sufficient to inform car owners
| to move their vehicles. Where I live, _all_ public
| parking (whether you have a parking permit or park in
| spots which don't require one) has a 72 hour limit. If
| you put up temporary No Parking signs with less than 72
| hours notice, you're guaranteeing many people will have
| their cars towed inappropriately.
| [deleted]
| lostlogin wrote:
| AirTags are a whole seperate rant - I am not the only user of
| my car, but I can't share my AirTag.
| seibelj wrote:
| You get paid a fixed salary and can't make a penny more until
| your union-negotiated contract says you can (more years of
| labor). You basically can't get fired. Your job never changes
| and you can't improve your job. You do the same thing day in
| and day out waiting for retirement.
|
| So you can screw with some people, maybe get a bribe to help
| them. It isn't unreasonable to see why government employees are
| unhelpful - the system is dumb, wasteful, and nothing they do
| can fix it, and leaving the job means they will never have it
| as cushy again.
| _jal wrote:
| > maybe get a bribe to help them
|
| Can you point to any bribery for common, "retail"
| interactions with local governments? Outside the south? I'm
| actually curious, I didn't think most of the country was that
| far gone yet.
| rmatt2000 wrote:
| I can think of a spec for a simple application that would fix all
| the problems associated with "courtesy [sic] towing". However, it
| also seems pretty clear that any city government that would
| engage in "courtesy [sic] towing" probably has zero interest in
| fixing it.
| reactspa wrote:
| buildbot wrote:
| Do they use flatbeds for the AWD drive cars? If not then they are
| causing huge amounts of damage to the differentials and drive
| train...
| donretag wrote:
| This occurred to me in the 2000s in NYC. Repeated (I kept on
| getting "disconnected") calls to 311 always led to an operator
| that proceeded to victim blame me. "Are you sure you do not have
| parking tickets?", "Are you positive you have no parking
| tickets?".
|
| There were "No Parking xxxday for repaving" that were posted in
| the (somewhat desolate, few residences) area after I have parked.
| Even after explaining this situation to the operators, they still
| insisted that the city must have towed my car because I did not
| pay my parking tickets. Three/four operators, same line. They had
| no idea where they towed my car. It took my father and I over an
| hour, splitting the streets, walking the neighborhood and finding
| the car.
| jtokoph wrote:
| A similar thing happened to my wife and me during a vacation. We
| had reserved a car via Enterprise Car Share (like Zipcar). When
| we arrived to the designated car share space, the car was
| missing.
|
| We called Enterprise who said the car had been properly returned
| by the previous customer days before, so it should be there. They
| paid for us to get an Uber to another available car, so we were
| only delayed and hour or so.
|
| They did follow up with us and it turned out that the city had
| done a "courtesy tow" because the car was parked on a parade
| route the previous day. I'm not sure how they eventually found
| it, but they said that they couldn't activate the GPS tracking
| without delay and lots of approvals because of customer privacy
| issues.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Done they put signs or cones up or something? It's crazy that
| this keeps happening.
| 14 wrote:
| That is actually a bit reassuring that they can not just at a
| whim turn on gps tracking.
| abeppu wrote:
| It's good if they can't restrict activating GPS because of
| customer privacy issues but I would think the time between one
| customer returning it and the next customer picking it up ought
| to be fair game?
| gruez wrote:
| That would be the case if you thought it all the way through
| and the manager had discretion, but what probably happened
| was that the company had a blanket policy of "no activating
| GPS trackers without director approval" that prevented that
| from occurring.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| The idea of a courtesy tow is such a violation of justice where
| the government can dole out a punishment worse than the law
| allows without a trial. The police are effectively the judge jury
| and executioner. They find you guilty of some law, sentence you
| to the punishment of finding your car and any consequences of it
| being there, and execute it by hiding it. This is one of those
| weird circumstances where I would rather just be charged with a
| crime.
| linspace wrote:
| > Henin was placed in handcuffs because police in New Jersey
| thought the car was stolen. That was because, months earlier, the
| car had been courtesy towed in West Philly, and she reported it
| stolen as police advised. Henin followed up with Philadelphia
| police when she later found her car, but they mistakenly left it
| in the stolen-vehicle database.
|
| It could be the argument for a sitcom. Not funny in real life
| when police is pointing a gun at you.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| More like a dystopian horror movie
| klodolph wrote:
| I think I've seen this kind of farce happen often enough in
| sitcoms. Odd Couple "My Strife In Court", Seinfeld "The
| Parking Garage", The Golden Girls "Ladies of the Evening".
| People are always getting arrested in sitcoms for dumb
| reasons.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| This also happens in the opening of "Brazil" which is a
| dystopian nightmare with a small amount of humor and plenty
| of farce.
|
| "Oops the dystopian government black bagged the wrong
| person because of a typo. So sorry! Here's a check for the
| inconvenience."
| colpabar wrote:
| The scene with the widow asking about her husband's body
| is foundational in my distrust and hatred of bureaucracy.
| renewiltord wrote:
| They're police, mate. Like all government employees their
| performance is somewhere between incompetence and ignorance
| multiplied by authority.
|
| Primarily their job is to be a resource in union leaders'
| pursuit of power, a job they do with admirable skill.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| They didn't check the license and registration of the vehicle?
| rmatt2000 wrote:
| Who are you gonna believe? Two forms of government issued
| paperwork, or your buddy on the other end of the radio? /s
| sokoloff wrote:
| For a reported stolen car/felony stop, it seems pretty
| reasonable that they'd handcuff the driver before checking
| the driver's license and discovering it matches the
| registration.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| If the driver is otherwise complying and saying "this is my
| vehicle, wtf are you doing?" then: no, I strongly disagree.
| kube-system wrote:
| Thieves don't usually say "you caught me!" when
| confronted by police. They frequently claim they own the
| stolen items.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| After reading the article but before reading the comments,
| I thought to myself, _people will defend all manner of
| awful things, even when they're this clear cut_. Sure wish
| I'd been wrong.
|
| Being forcibly detained is traumatic. Especially when you
| know you're being detained wrongly. I'm speaking from
| experience here, and as someone who has received a
| settlement in a wrongful arrest suit.
|
| There's nothing reasonable about armed officers of the
| state putting someone in handcuffs without any prior effort
| to ascertain the appropriateness of that person being in
| handcuffs. Asking for license and registration is
| _routine_. If anything after that suggests they have
| actually stopped a car thief, the _next_ appropriate action
| _might_ be to forcibly detain them. It might also be more
| appropriate to question them further without force.
|
| Putting a car's rightful owner in handcuffs because their
| car had been towed without their knowledge, and they
| understandably reported it stolen when it wasn't where
| they'd left it, and then they had the temerity to drive
| their own car after it had been recovered, is cruel. All of
| the prior facts would already be unbelievably stressful for
| most people. And of course no random cop is gonna know all
| of those prior facts, but that's why they should _ask
| questions_ before acting.
|
| Let me reiterate: being forced into constraints by armed
| agents of the state who have broad authority, and get broad
| allowance, to use their monopoly on violence _is
| terrifying_. It's even more terrifying when you know you've
| done nothing to warrant it, and especially when you're
| being treated that way because of other wrongs done to you.
| sokoloff wrote:
| On the spectrum of police behavior, this is left of zero
| for sure, but pretty benign and easy to understand.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| After I posted my comment above, I had to calm myself
| because I had a spike of anxiety remembering the details
| of my own experiences with police aggression, and the
| memory takes me far away from my body into a place of
| distilled fear. I'm remembering more as I type this.
|
| I think the word you're looking for is "comprehend". I do
| comprehend why police act aggressively without cause or
| warning. I don't think it's benign. I do think you're
| very fortunate not to know that.
| pcl wrote:
| Years ago, I was pulled over while driving a rental car
| that had been reported stolen by an earlier renter a few
| weeks prior. I'm certainly glad that the officers in
| Atlanta approached the situation professionally and without
| any cuffs involved.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Was it a Hertz car, by any chance? Because I believe they
| are currently being sued for doing that _thousands_ of
| times.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| It was reported stolen by the owner. Reread the article for
| the full story on that.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Right, but they could have verified that the registered
| owner and person driving the car were the same person.
|
| However, since it was in a different state, perhaps the
| registration database wasn't available - only the stolen
| vehicle database was.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The article says she was handcuffed (detained); it does
| not say she was arrested (which would be absurd).
| jonas21 wrote:
| The quote from the police chief implies she was arrested
| (though it's in brackets, so it could just be sloppy
| reporting):
|
| > _"My sergeant on the scene received information from
| Philly PD, who said, 'Go ahead. Lock her up. It's [a]
| good [arrest],'" Long Beach Township Police Chief Anthony
| Deely said in 2020._
| sokoloff wrote:
| This tweet suggests she was not arrested: https://twitter
| .com/phillyinquirer/status/129427390187110400...
| [deleted]
| lolinder wrote:
| > That's the Philly euphemism for what is formally known as
| "relocation towing" -- when the police department, Philadelphia
| Parking Authority, or a private towing company moves vehicles
| from legal parking spots for special events, construction or
| emergencies.
|
| I can see needing to move a vehicle in an emergency, but for
| special events and construction this shouldn't be needed in most
| cases. The city knows months in advance the date on which the
| streets need to be clear. They should plaster the neighborhood in
| warning notices a month before the event, then go through again
| the night before to check for stragglers who'd forgotten.
|
| If people seriously end up thinking their car got stolen, there's
| a _massive_ failure of communication. My thought should be
| "oops, I forgot about the event", not "where the hell is my
| car?!"
| jffry wrote:
| Maybe the spaces are posted as reserved, and "relocation
| towing" is what happens if you're still parked there at the
| reserved time.
|
| In theory if the city had its act together and had a way to let
| you know where your car had been put (and a process to ensure
| it's not placed somewhere you'll get ticketed), this is a much
| fairer option than carting cars off to an impound lot, which
| are privately run and generally notoriously bad in terms of
| hours / fees / ease of retrieving your car.
| gshulegaard wrote:
| As someone relatively new to Philly, I am not at all surprised
| by the need for relocation towing. In the immediate
| Philadelphia metro area, but outside center city parking is
| extremely sparse. It's not uncommon for me to help squeeze
| neighbors into barely large enough parallel parking spots (by
| waving them in) at midnight. Some of these folks live more than
| 6 blocks away and purportedly were looking for parking after
| getting off work for an hour or longer.
|
| Philadelphia is also the first place I have lived where parking
| in the center median of major thoroughfares is normal:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=philadelphia+center+median+p...
|
| Speaking of, I live a block off South Broad Street (most of the
| images in the link) and not too long ago there was a marathon
| that required clearing of that street of all parked cars for
| its entire length. It _was_ well communicated, well in advance
| but you can imagine that if parking is tight when the street
| side parking _and_ the center median is chalk full of cars,
| relocating is difficult. I don't know if any cars were
| relocation towed, but I know the night before the event I still
| saw some cars parked on Broad.
|
| I still think there are communications issues, the city should
| have a way for owners to find their car. But I also think it's
| a bit more complex than your first take. Communication is hard
| and at the scale of Philadelphia I am not too surprised that
| there are cases where things can go awry between all the
| various bureaucracies you have to interact with in something
| like this. I also think it's pretty reasonable that the lawsuit
| is looking to force improvements, not do away with the system.
| mindslight wrote:
| Was this comment written by GPT-3, or is it simply FUD for
| contrarianism's sake? Posted signs stating parking
| restrictions is the standard way of communicating parking
| restrictions, temporary or otherwise. The notice window
| doesn't even have to be that long, although it's nice for it
| to be so that people can plan ahead. For example, in Boston
| it is illegal to park in the same spot for more than 72
| hours, so the city puts up signs at least 3 days ahead of
| time. If a car is still parked somewhere, it has either
| violated the temporary restriction or the 72 hour rule. Also
| if a car is towed, it's towed to a city lot rather than a
| random street. Getting your car out of a tow lot sucks but at
| least it's predictable. Problem solved - there is nothing
| "complex" about this.
| tylermenezes wrote:
| > They should plaster the neighborhood in warning notices a
| month before the event
|
| I grew up in Seattle but lived in Philly for 2 years and this
| was one of the strangest things to me. In many cases they don't
| post _any notices at all._
|
| I knew enough people who got "courtesy" towed with no records
| that I added a GPS tracker to our car to make sure I could find
| it.
|
| See also: https://www.inquirer.com/news/courtesy-towing-south-
| philly-p... https://www.inquirer.com/news/towing-philadelphia-
| parking-au...
| hinkley wrote:
| Seattle, for anyone who hasn't lived there, has a set of
| folding barricades marked 'No Parking' with a blank space to
| put dates and times. I believe you can even go to the city
| and borrow a set yourself for things like sidewalk repairs,
| taking down a tree, moving vans, or having a forklift show up
| to move something into your yard, though these seem to go out
| pretty close to the event whereas I saw city ones show up two
| weeks before something major.
|
| From a smaller data sample, parts of Oregon also do this as
| well.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's what happens in my area. Signs go up a week or so in
| advance saying you'll be towed if parked there past date X.
| avn2109 wrote:
| The "posted signs" thing is an unimpressive solution in 2022
| imho and they should really email you or text you "hey move
| your car please" etc.
|
| As a thought experiment, imagine that the city government was
| motivated to find a car's owner for some reason, perhaps as a
| suspect or witness of a serious crime etc. Meaning if they
| have your plate number and think you're a murderer, they will
| definitely find you and communicate with you (the message
| that they communicate will be "come to the police station").
|
| I claim this is a proof by construction that they could
| communicate with you by some method other than posted signs,
| if they actually wanted to. And they just choose to do the
| laziest possible "post signs" solution because of basically
| incompetence/laziness, not because there's no other way for
| them to identify and communicate with a car's owner.
| acomjean wrote:
| In my city at least the weekly street cleaning requires you
| to move your car weekly. So signs posted a week ahead are
| typically not as bad. Though the police did once us my
| apartment buzzer to tell me to move my car, it didn't
| always happen (I've been towed twice in my 2 decades in the
| city)..
|
| Also when they tow you it's to a lot, they don't just dump
| you on some other street like in Philly.
| macksd wrote:
| That said, it still seems helpful to know immediately as
| you're getting the space what the timeframe is for leaving.
| If the're going to start clearing the street in an hour,
| I'll probably park elsewhere right off the bat and not wait
| for an email.
| thewebcount wrote:
| How is the city supposed to know my cell phone number or
| email? I don't generally give them out. I give out my
| landline whenever I have to give out a phone number. And
| heck, there are plenty of people in a big city like Philly
| that don't have a cell phone, too. (And yes, some of them
| have cars, believe it or not.) Plus cell phones break,
| emails get sent to spam, etc. Putting a sign up at the
| place where you are likely to do the illegal thing seems
| pretty sensible to me.
| kube-system wrote:
| > They should plaster the neighborhood in warning notices a
| month before the event, then go through again the night before
| to check for stragglers who'd forgotten.
|
| Did they not do this?
| xattt wrote:
| On-street parking is an absurd concept in itself. There are no
| other social equivalents where you can occupy a general public-
| use space for free (!) for several days (!) without facing some
| form of consequences.
| macksd wrote:
| The side of the street is hardly general public-use. In most
| places it's explicitly for parking. And many (certainly
| almost all where I am, albeit not in a major city) parking
| lots don't enforce time limits or ensure you're there for
| some specific use of the space.
| mbil wrote:
| Ah yes, reminded me of when my motorcycle was parked near 7th and
| South St. There was construction I guess, and my motorcycle was
| apparently courtesy lifted to the sidewalk. I returned from
| vacation to ~$700 of tickets for the bike being on the sidewalk.
| johndoughy wrote:
| Did you end up paying the tickets or fighting it?
|
| Reminds me of when my motorcycle was towed from my apartment
| complex. It was held by a private towing company, but for some
| reason the city suspected the bike was stolen, so the tow lot
| (allegedly) couldn't release it until the city completed their
| 'investigation'. Meanwhile I was on the hook for every day that
| it sat in the tow yard (not to mention the rental car to get to
| work), but powerless to get it out. Eventually the city cleared
| it and I owed like 2k. I desperately wish I fought it but for
| some reason I just paid it...
| mbil wrote:
| I fought it which basically entailed me going to some city
| government building and showing the guy I was out of town for
| some of the days and so wasn't able to keep an eye on my
| bike. He essentially told me to pound sand and so I ended up
| paying it. The absurdity tempered the fury.
| hayd wrote:
| did you fight it?
| daveoc64 wrote:
| This is relatively common in the UK, although there are clearer
| requirements to put up signs in advance of restrictions being
| imposed.
|
| London has a centralised system where you can check if your
| vehicle has been removed to a pound/relocated:
|
| https://trace.london/
| abeppu wrote:
| The article mentions two women who had each reported their cars
| stolen after the "courtesy" tow which makes one wonder -- _is_
| this theft? If not, why? Does it matter if it's done by a private
| towing company?
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Here in Sweden it would have been a theft-adjacent crime which
| is translated into English as 'criminal conversion', and it
| seems that criminal conversion fits.
|
| A crime where someone does something to somebody's property
| without intending to actually take the property, or not to take
| it permanently.
|
| Not being familiar with this jurisdiction I can't say whether
| that's the actual law though. Depending on how it's defined it
| could easily be theft.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No it can't be _theft_ in a legal sense, since it 's legal per
| statute. And no it doesn't matter if it's a private towing
| company as long as it's acting on behalf of the state (which it
| is/was).
|
| But what the plaintiffs are arguing is that it's failing _due
| process_ at the _constitutional_ level, which to perhaps
| oversimplify means the city isn 't being responsible/fair with
| its law.
|
| Nobody disputes it has the right to move vehicles for
| legitimate reasons (which these seem to be), but obviously it
| ought to be able to track where it moved them to and ensure
| it's not leading to fines and/or damage without recompense --
| which it is clearly _not_ doing. Their lawyers know the city
| isn 't following due process, which is why the city is offering
| these payouts.
| exolymph wrote:
| Morally, yes it's theft. Legally, probably not.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > _is_ this theft? If not, why?
|
| No, the asset is being moved, not retained by the mover, and
| it's ostensibly being done for the public good (edit: see the
| link further down the thread for why this matters). If _eminent
| domain_ isn't theft, this definitely isn't.
|
| > Does it matter if it's done by a private towing company?
|
| Not if they're deputized.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| With eminent domain can they move a house to a new location,
| the first the owner hears of it is when they see their house
| missing?
| abeppu wrote:
| > No, the asset is being moved, not retained by the mover
|
| I don't get this argument. If I take something which doesn't
| belong to me, say from a store, and move it two blocks away
| and put it down, I would still be stealing right? Is the
| perpetrator required to 'retain' something for it to be
| theft? If I'm caught while stealing and drop the item, "I
| just moved it without the owners consent" probably isn't
| going to cover me.
|
| > If _eminent domain_ isn't theft, this definitely isn't.
|
| Clearly I'm not especially acquainted with the law, but when
| the government exercises eminent domain doesn't it have to go
| through some legal process? And my understanding is that
| owners must be compensated for the property that is taken
| under eminent domain.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| I think a better example than eminent domain would be civil
| asset forfeiture (at least as practiced in the US).
| Although I guess a lot of people would say that is theft.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| IANAL and haven't read the laws of Philly but it seems
| pretty obvious that moving your property off a public
| street is not considered theft.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| But if a private _individual_ did that, surely you would
| consider it theft? So where 's the line, why's it OK for
| a private company but not a private individual? If I'm
| self employed and registered as my own company, can I do
| it then?
| kareemsabri wrote:
| The private company versus individual has nothing to do
| with it. The private company / individual is acting on
| behalf of the state, and the state provides itself the
| authority to take your property without your consent.
| abeppu wrote:
| As a followup on the "ostensibly being done for the public
| good" part, the article describes the courtesy towing
| practice in a way that sounds like it's sometimes for
| private uses: "moves vehicles from legal parking spots for
| special events, construction or emergencies". I have to
| assume that the organizers of those special events or the
| firms involved with that construction have paid for some
| permit which is meant to give them exclusive use of the
| street parking, in which case it sounds like the public
| good is only indirectly from the revenue from those
| permits. Apparently the ability of municipal governments to
| exercise eminent domain solely for the purpose of
| increasing its revenue was only established by a court case
| in 2005. So in 2004 would you have agreed that courtesy
| towing for a private special event or private construction
| project was possibly theft? Or at least possibly a 5th
| amendment violation?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
| umanwizard wrote:
| > If I take something which doesn't belong to me, say from
| a store, and move it two blocks away and put it down, I
| would still be stealing right?
|
| No, not if you don't intend to deprive the rightful owner
| of it (although good luck convincing anyone that you lacked
| such intent).
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/theft
|
| > Theft is the taking of another person's personal property
| with the intent of depriving that person of the use of
| their property
| abeppu wrote:
| Thank you for highlighting the key distinction and
| referencing a source with more information.
|
| > although good luck convincing anyone that you lacked
| such intent
|
| So it sounds like in the courtesy towing context, the
| city claims that it doesn't have any intent to deprive
| people of the use of their property, but it's behaving in
| a way which a reasonable person would totally anticipate
| would lead to people being unable to use their property
| (by dropping vehicles in locations which are never
| communicated to the owner).
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| That's what I was thinking. I'm sure a good lawyer could
| argue that, if they have a reasonable way of informing
| the owner, but they don't do so, they are in fact
| intending to deprive them of the vehicle.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Temporarily depriving somebody of their property counts,
| these towings are clearly theft.
|
| The actually interesting legal question revolves around
| who (if anybody) is liable in this situation.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Do you have a source for that? My googling suggests the
| opposite.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Sorry, I should have been more clear: it often isn't
| "theft" (or "larceny"), legally speaking, but it usually
| is some lesser crime under a name like "unauthorized
| use/borrowing" or "misappropriation".
|
| I'm not aware of any jurisdiction that doesn't have a law
| that covers unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, so I can
| practically guarantee it is illegal.
|
| In Philadelphia I believe the relevant statue is https://
| www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/18/00.039.02... -
| although I'm actually unsure if towing would count as
| "operating" here? That's a question for their lawyer.
| [deleted]
| umanwizard wrote:
| I hate free street parking but this is so bizarre and unfair that
| I actually feel sympathy for the parkers.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It is amazing how much land is taken over for the parking of
| private vehicles.
| furjrudjrufurrj wrote:
| lostlogin wrote:
| It is amazing how much public land is taken over for the
| parking of private vehicles.
| gruez wrote:
| It's public land used for the purposes of facilitating
| transportation using private vehicles. If you think about it
| that way there really isn't anything different between what
| you described and using public land to provide thoroughfares
| for private vehicles.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > using public land to provide thoroughfares for private
| vehicles
|
| Yes, we should also largely stop doing that (or at least
| frantically reduce how much land is dedicated to that
| purpose).
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I feel this validates my "no Philly" policy.
|
| I grew up in NYC, and have a certain immunity to deal with aloof,
| hostile or otherwise obnoxious city officials. I've been to
| Philly on business and pleasure a few times and... forget it,
| it's a whole other level. One wedding, literally 30% of the guest
| had a ticket, tow or other drama.
|
| Life is too short. Philly makes Jersey look good.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| PPA is somehow simultaneously notorious for overzealously
| ticketing and for completely ignoring cars parked in
| crosswalks, bike lanes, sidewalks, etc. It's the most bizarrely
| inconsistent government agency.
| tzs wrote:
| > That's the Philly euphemism for what is formally known as
| "relocation towing" -- when the police department, Philadelphia
| Parking Authority, or a private towing company moves vehicles
| from legal parking spots for special events, construction or
| emergencies.
|
| > Problem is, the city doesn't have a modern, reliable way to
| track the vehicles' new locations, leaving owners wandering the
| streets for days or weeks, looking for their cars.
|
| This would normally be the part where I (and probably half the
| other people reading HN) would say that building a modern,
| reliable way to track this is not hard. We'd go on to outline
| something involving a database, probably a mobile app for the tow
| truck drivers, and probably a web site for car owners. We'd
| probably say this is a small project that could be done by a
| handful of developers in a few weeks and would be fairly
| inexpensive.
|
| Others would then tell us that we are vastly underestimating the
| difficulties of dealing with the mess that city IT tends to be,
| and that "fairly inexpensive" would still be expensive enough
| that there would have to be budget meetings and studies, and
| maybe the web site would need to support multiple languages, and
| a ton of other things we've overlooked.
|
| So I'm not going to suggest that a modern, reliable way to track
| this would be easy.
|
| But why does it have to be modern? What would be wrong with an
| old-fashioned approach?
|
| Require the tow truck drivers to report the license plate numbers
| and drop off locations and drop off date/time to the police or
| perhaps some other government entity which can add the
| information to a list.
|
| When an owner finds their car missing and contacts the police,
| the police can check the list and tell the owner where the car is
| and remove it from that list, and add it to a log of past
| courtesy tows along with a timestamp.
|
| If the owner finds that their car got ticketed at the new
| location before they could reasonably retrieve it the log of past
| courtesy tows could be used to prove that the owner did not park
| at the new location.
|
| This requires:
|
| 1. Tow truck drivers have a way to report the information. Voice
| or text from their cell phone to a phone number maintained by the
| police specifically for this would cover that.
|
| 2. The police need to maintain a list of these reports. This can
| be handled by having them copy the information to an index card
| and file the card alphabetically by license number in a card
| file.
|
| 3. Car owners or police called by car owners need a way to check
| the list. They can call the same number from #1, and the people
| that file incoming reports can also handle checking the card
| file.
|
| 4. The police needs to maintain the log. That's another, bigger,
| card file.
|
| So basically we need a phone line, someone who will answer that
| phone, a file clerk with enough time to handle these, enough card
| files to hold the recent records, probably a shelf or two in an
| office to hold those card files, and a bigger card storage system
| for the historical log.
| petesergeant wrote:
| In related "money changes police tactics" news:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...
| metadat wrote:
| Truly disgusting. Submitted:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32872437
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| So it sounds like car towing is outsourced to some kind of bounty
| hunting operation of private companies and no one know their arse
| from their elbow about where cars are moved. Pretty stupid. It
| would be easy to fix even with pen, paper and phones. But there
| should be a signed paper trail about the move.
|
| And dropping the cars off in illegal spots, well the fine should
| go to the "driver" not the car.
|
| I guess they are too lazy to change this or it is profiting
| someone personally?
| bdhess wrote:
| If they got "courtesy towed" they were already parked
| illegally. (Used to live in Philly, it happened to me once.)
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| I'm inclined to believe the article which lists other
| criteria that are out of the control of the driver for
| reasons of a courtesy tow.
| joebob42 wrote:
| It's weirdly both such a big number and such a small number.
|
| 15k is a ton for many people and probably well more than the
| inconvenience this one guy suffered.
|
| But it's insubstantial compared to the cost of this case turning
| into a class action and getting the city to actually have to
| change something, and it sounds like it's insubstantial compared
| to the total harm of this program. Especially cases like the
| woman who was nearly arrested.
| abraae wrote:
| Sounds like it was too small at the end of the day. 2 people
| accepted and 2 others are proceeding with class action suit.
| They failed in their goal of snuffing out the class action
| suit. Maybe $30k would have been enough. Though that might have
| attracted new litigants.
|
| Clearly a lose lose for Philly, which is not surprising with
| such a shit show of a policy.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The problem with doing this to random cars is some of the
| people will be rich enough to say no!
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