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If state lawmakers are able to tackle non-budget matters in the first fiscal legislative session, State Sen. Percy Malone says he will pursue an issue dealing with automobile towing.
The problem, Malone said in a telephone interview Monday, is that towing companies hold unfair liens on the vehicles — forcing their owners to pay a “pretty good-sized bill” before getting back what is theirs.
“If a person has their automobile towed, he is subject to it being confiscated ... and whoever has it in their possession has nothing to do with law enforcement. Maybe it was towed because it was parked where it shouldn’t have been or any number of things.”
But until the person or company holding the car is satisfied with the payment, the owner cannot get it back. “That person is in total control,” Malone said of towing companies. “The owner has the right to get a lawyer, but who can afford all that?”
The second issue, he said, is that most towing companies are closed on weekends. “If you happen to be one whose car is towed and it’s Friday afternoon, you can’t get it on Saturday or Sunday and, by the time you get to Monday, you’ve got a pretty good-sized bill. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think they should be able to charge for storing someone’s property and then not be open.”
Malone said he wants to find out how the towing process works. “Who gets the business? Do they get any kickbacks? I don’t know the answer. Do storage companies pay somebody to bring in the cars? What are we going to about that? I have issues with how people’s property is confiscated.” He also said he does not think the state Towing and Recovery Board does a good job of controlling these issues.
Glenna Butler, chair of that panel, said it governs neither the time a towing company can keep a car nor the “astronomical” bills for storing a car. “We don’t have any control over that.” She said the board does, however, control how abandoned vehicles are scrapped. If someone leaves a car at a wrecker service for an extended period of time, the towing company will eventually destroy the vehicle for scrap metal. The board investigates complaints of scrapped cars, and meetings are scheduled regularly in Little Rock for such hearings.
As for the towing companies that bank on holding vehicles for an entire weekend (while they are closed), Butler said, “That is one of those areas we have tried to address to help the consumer, but it depends on the wrecker company.” Wrecker services governed by state, county or local police are apt to be under a contract which requires them to be available to release the car within a certain timeframe — however, of the six towing companies used by the Arkadelphia Police Department and the six used by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, there is no such time frame written in a contract. This means that a towing company can legally hold a confiscated vehicle and not be open for business, yet still charge the owner for holding the car.
Malone said that, whenever the issue is brought up in the General Assembly, legislators would hear from the towing board, police agencies and the owners of wrecker services to “study how the system works and how we can make it better.”
He said he decided to raise awareness of the issue after hearing complaints from people who had had their vehicle taken away and could not get it back.
A recent case in Saline County further sparked his interest in probing the issue. Five Hispanic males testified in October to being victims of racial profiling after being pulled over in Alexander. According to a story published by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the men claimed that an officer pulled them over in 2007 for minor infractions, then had their cars towed to generate money for the city. The men, listed individually in the lawsuit as plaintiffs, also claimed that the officer abandoned them on the side of the road, and that they had to pay hundreds of dollars in towing fees after having to wait a day to get their vehicles back.
Malone said he realizes that vehicles should be towed for certain reasons, but “the law needs to be tightened to protect Arkansans from any potential abuse. We need to stop that. There’s a reason (the cars) ought to be taken off the highway, but I want to see how well the system is working.”
If state lawmakers are able to tackle non-budget matters in the first fiscal legislative session, State Sen. Percy Malone says he will pursue an issue dealing with automobile towing.
The problem, Malone said in a telephone interview Monday, is that towing companies hold unfair liens on the vehicles — forcing their owners to pay a “pretty good-sized bill” before getting back what is theirs.
“If a person has their automobile towed, he is subject to it being confiscated ... and whoever has it in their possession has nothing to do with law enforcement. Maybe it was towed because it was parked where it shouldn’t have been or any number of things.”
But until the person or company holding the car is satisfied with the payment, the owner cannot get it back. “That person is in total control,” Malone said of towing companies. “The owner has the right to get a lawyer, but who can afford all that?”
The second issue, he said, is that most towing companies are closed on weekends. “If you happen to be one whose car is towed and it’s Friday afternoon, you can’t get it on Saturday or Sunday and, by the time you get to Monday, you’ve got a pretty good-sized bill. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think they should be able to charge for storing someone’s property and then not be open.”
Malone said he wants to find out how the towing process works. “Who gets the business? Do they get any kickbacks? I don’t know the answer. Do storage companies pay somebody to bring in the cars? What are we going to about that? I have issues with how people’s property is confiscated.” He also said he does not think the state Towing and Recovery Board does a good job of controlling these issues.
Glenna Butler, chair of that panel, said it governs neither the time a towing company can keep a car nor the “astronomical” bills for storing a car. “We don’t have any control over that.” She said the board does, however, control how abandoned vehicles are scrapped. If someone leaves a car at a wrecker service for an extended period of time, the towing company will eventually destroy the vehicle for scrap metal. The board investigates complaints of scrapped cars, and meetings are scheduled regularly in Little Rock for such hearings.
As for the towing companies that bank on holding vehicles for an entire weekend (while they are closed), Butler said, “That is one of those areas we have tried to address to help the consumer, but it depends on the wrecker company.” Wrecker services governed by state, county or local police are apt to be under a contract which requires them to be available to release the car within a certain timeframe — however, of the six towing companies used by the Arkadelphia Police Department and the six used by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, there is no such time frame written in a contract. This means that a towing company can legally hold a confiscated vehicle and not be open for business, yet still charge the owner for holding the car.
Malone said that, whenever the issue is brought up in the General Assembly, legislators would hear from the towing board, police agencies and the owners of wrecker services to “study how the system works and how we can make it better.”
He said he decided to raise awareness of the issue after hearing complaints from people who had had their vehicle taken away and could not get it back.
A recent case in Saline County further sparked his interest in probing the issue. Five Hispanic males testified in October to being victims of racial profiling after being pulled over in Alexander. According to a story published by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the men claimed that an officer pulled them over in 2007 for minor infractions, then had their cars towed to generate money for the city. The men, listed individually in the lawsuit as plaintiffs, also claimed that the officer abandoned them on the side of the road, and that they had to pay hundreds of dollars in towing fees after having to wait a day to get their vehicles back.
Malone said he realizes that vehicles should be towed for certain reasons, but “the law needs to be tightened to protect Arkansans from any potential abuse. We need to stop that. There’s a reason (the cars) ought to be taken off the highway, but I want to see how well the system is working.”
