Towed!
My car was towed.
A couple weeks ago, my car started to have trouble starting, and Alan (a friend of my father's who is a mechanic) said he would look at it so I left it parked half in front of my house & half in front of the neighbor's house.
Apparently, it is illegal to park on the street for more than 72 hours. And there is no warning. The hotline you can report offending vehicles to assures the caller that the car will be taken away "as soon as possible." This is one of the "lifestyle laws" that have been created as my town has more & more yuppies. This law seems to be aimed at households with a large number of people (which is common in my neighborhood). Admittedly, parking on the street can be an issue, but I think you should have the right to park in front of your own home. The limit used to be a week (aimed at derelict cars), and they warned you two days before they towed the car. This new policy seems extremely unfair to me - they only have the caller's word that the car hasn't been moved in 3 days (or at least I can't think of any way that they could verify that), and while few people drive their cars as rarely as I do, there are many reasons why you would have your car in one spot for 3 days (vacation, business trips, injury), and most houses in my area have more cars than they have driveway/garage space for.
My car went missing Tuesday, but I assumed Alan took the car after flaking Sunday & saying that he would try to make time Monday. I was out of town for Thanksgiving Wed-Fri, so by the time my father called back Wed. telling me that Alan didn't have the car, there wasn't anything I could really do. I needed the license plate number to even check if the car was towed, and I didn't have anything with the number on me. We returned later than planned Fri., and by the time I called the applicable police department wasn't answering it's phones (although I found out the next day that the operator could have told me which company towed my car).
The towing expense was truly insane. The daily cost of storage was about what a budget hotel room would cost - and the car takes up much less space, and was in the industrial section of town! And the thing that really got to me, was that after paying $468 to the towing company, I discovered a ticket on my windshield issued the same day that they towed it! The ticket alone would be reasonable, but after the towing expense it just felt like an insult.
A couple weeks ago, my car started to have trouble starting, and Alan (a friend of my father's who is a mechanic) said he would look at it so I left it parked half in front of my house & half in front of the neighbor's house.
Apparently, it is illegal to park on the street for more than 72 hours. And there is no warning. The hotline you can report offending vehicles to assures the caller that the car will be taken away "as soon as possible." This is one of the "lifestyle laws" that have been created as my town has more & more yuppies. This law seems to be aimed at households with a large number of people (which is common in my neighborhood). Admittedly, parking on the street can be an issue, but I think you should have the right to park in front of your own home. The limit used to be a week (aimed at derelict cars), and they warned you two days before they towed the car. This new policy seems extremely unfair to me - they only have the caller's word that the car hasn't been moved in 3 days (or at least I can't think of any way that they could verify that), and while few people drive their cars as rarely as I do, there are many reasons why you would have your car in one spot for 3 days (vacation, business trips, injury), and most houses in my area have more cars than they have driveway/garage space for.
My car went missing Tuesday, but I assumed Alan took the car after flaking Sunday & saying that he would try to make time Monday. I was out of town for Thanksgiving Wed-Fri, so by the time my father called back Wed. telling me that Alan didn't have the car, there wasn't anything I could really do. I needed the license plate number to even check if the car was towed, and I didn't have anything with the number on me. We returned later than planned Fri., and by the time I called the applicable police department wasn't answering it's phones (although I found out the next day that the operator could have told me which company towed my car).
The towing expense was truly insane. The daily cost of storage was about what a budget hotel room would cost - and the car takes up much less space, and was in the industrial section of town! And the thing that really got to me, was that after paying $468 to the towing company, I discovered a ticket on my windshield issued the same day that they towed it! The ticket alone would be reasonable, but after the towing expense it just felt like an insult.