Oregon To Consider Predatory Towing Ban After Meals-On-Wheels Is Almost Towed During Delivery

[Are_grits_groceries]

Remember Andrew? His car was towed from Starbucks while he was inside sipping a latte. He isn't alone. In mid-August, a predatory tow-truck driver set up shop outside a retirement community and waited for local meals-on-wheels driver Marie Phillippi to leave her car. As she made her deliveries, the tow-truck driver latched on and prepared to tow. He was stopped only when a retiree ran out and splayed herself across the car's hood until the Marie could return. The tow-truck driver's actions were entirely legal under Oregon law, although that may soon change...

Under Oregon law, towing companies can sign contracts with property owners for the exclusive right to patrol private lots and haul off improperly parked vehicles. Drivers, typically, are paid on commission — the more cars they tow, the more money they make.

It is at once the most widespread and controversial towing practice in Oregon. And it is big business. In Portland alone, tow-truck drivers seized 10,864 vehicles from private property last year and collected a minimum of $161 each time, not including storage fees.
http://consumerist.com/5143770/oregon-to-consider-predatory-towing-ban-after-meals+on+wheels-is-almost-towed-during-delivery

Towing MOW!! The lowest of the low!! Hope the bill to limit this passes.....

[depakid]

1. This has been a big problem for YEARS

This was the last straw:

Wilsonville assault victim made to pay tow truck 'drop fee'

First, the young woman bolted from her Wilsonville apartment, blood streaming down her face.

Next, she frantically drove across the parking lot, got out of her car and ran into her grandmother's apartment, where she called 9-1-1 and reported that she had just been assaulted by her boyfriend. After providing a statement to a Clackamas County sheriff's deputy, she went outside to find a tow truck preparing to haul away her car.

Not even the deputy could persuade the tow driver to leave the car without making the woman pay a "drop fee."

"I explained to the tow driver that the woman was the victim of domestic violence," said Clackamas County sheriff's Deputy Wes Hall. "I told him there was no place to park, so she left the car with its four-way flashers going, because she was trying to get away. And I told him that she couldn't move the car because I had her keys. But that didn't seem to matter."

Hall estimated that the car was parked unattended "for 10 to 15 minutes."

Charging a drop fee, in effect, victimized the woman twice, he said.

The deputy didn't know how much the woman paid, but Charles White, general operations manager for Retriever Towing, said it could have been up to $160.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/wilsonville_assault_victim_mad.html