Towing Tribulations Tip

Tribunal it

Car-parker takes on towies and wins
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780516

They must make some good money, all you need is a tow truck then hello… but must be really competitive or wonder if it’s like hookers they each have their own designated areas to hit.. or if they work together? Hrmmmm

biggie to BG your annual towies thread has arrived

All this scenario shows is that the $230 was excessive. If he still doesn't understand he should probably go back to law school and read up on property rights.

sam.o isn't a 26 y/o lawyer is he?

Actually no, it doesn't even show that the charge was excessive.

I had a car transported from welly to aucks for $200. Puts tingz in perspective no?

^ Pre-arranged freight forwarding =/= the same as illegally parking and being towed

I really don't see that $230 is all that excessive for towing a far...is an easy $60+ for basic parking tickets (here anyways), $170 on top of that for a drivers salary/wages, petrol for the truck, registration, wear and tear, WOF, rental/power/rates of the storage yard etc isn't fuck all. I know people who got towed over 12 years ago and had to pay well over $300

Whinging Kiwi's in this news article

"But you don't understand how hard things are here! The money, oh the money, blah blah..." don't fucking park in clearly marked towing areas then, douchebags!

$170 is excessive there's a fuckton of fat on that charge that can be trimmed

They're not there to be a charity, they're there to be a profitable business

VERY PROFITABLE

Out of pre-arranged contracts with car park owners. Don't have to drive far either.

No fine involved in this particular case too.

Thoughts on thiis?

Parked in Tournament carpark a couple months ago. Payed and displayed. Was 20 minutes late back to car.

Had been ticketed 17 minutes past the expiration time on the ticket.

Fine was $70

I ranted about similair situation on here years ago gummi

8 mins late back....car was GONE

$170 at Mt Eden towing tyvm

so I think $70 is fine

* was at Wilson Parking. Downtown

It cost a mate of mine thousands. His van towed and towtruck stopped and inspected at Stanley St as suspected of being overloaded. Cops also checked mate's van and noticed lack of RUC's for mileage recorded. Result, triple whammy.

I used to work with that dude.

Pay & Display is designed for maximum revenues through fines imo. I can see why you'd do it on the street, but in a car park building? Fuck off you profiteering nazi scumbags.

Well no that's not what pay parking is designed for at all. It's designed to preserve a level of available spaces, via pricing and length of stay restrictions. You overstaying your prescribed time in a space means no one else can use it.

And that's with the council running it. When you knowingly park your car in a privately run carpark, which we all know are run by scumbags, what the fuck do you expect?

Lots of interesting stuff around recently on the true cost of providing parking - it's phenomenal. The Albany Park N Ride extention? 550 extra spaces of just plain sealed carpark, ends up costing something like $10,000 PER SPACE. That price goes up stupidly as soon as you have to dig down or build up. (AKL CBD Parking spaces generally sell for $50-70k and above).

Those acres of "free" carparks outside malls and shit? Cost you a fortune, just indirectly.

there is nothing particularly special about this case

it's pretty simple: any fee or charge has to be justified i.e it must reflect the ACTUAL cost incurred by the person charging the fee

supermarkets will frequently try to pin a $300-odd fee on shoplifters as allegedly the "enforcement" costs, but it is unlikely such a fee would stand up to scrutiny in a court of law

the standard advice lawyers give is simply "don't pay it"

How the fuck do specialised dentists get away with what they charge then?!?! $220 for a 15 minute consult and gum line clean...FUCK RIGHT OFF THAT'S JUSTIFIED! :p

No x rays? No hygienist? You are being ripped.

I think you misread my post. Pay and display i.e. pre-pay. In parking buildings it's not needed, you can pay for your time before you leave. But they still use pay and display.

When I was a kid I woke up one morning at the gf's place to my alarm going off. A towie had broken in to my car to pop it in neutral. I ran out but he had already lifted it and wanted $180 to put it back down. "Lifting fee."

What would you do in this case? Obviously it didn't cost him $180 to lift my car off the ground. Is there not a deterrent fraction to the amount charged, or is it only cops etc that can do that?

I guess what I'm asking is who can actually issue fines? Most people would view a towage fee a fine and think nothing of it, but is a towie, a private company, allowed to issue a fine, or just reclaim costs?

a private entity cannot impose a fine

people who have committed a parking infringement and get towed of course get the towing fee added to their fine

So a $180 "lifting fee" was pretty much extortion then? Man I wish I was smarter when I was younger

That's totally irrelevant because it's not a fine, it's a towing fee. It's a penalty you've been charged for being towed, on top of any fine issued by an appropriate authority in the case of on-street public parking.

In the case of a private parking structure, you'll find they have their terms and conditions displayed either in the carpark, or on the parking ticket. In those, they'll cover all the bases in terms of having your car towed when you over stay.

Who can issue fines doesn't matter, because only those that can, do.

Get in the car.

As an aside, I'm pretty sure this guy could argue he didn't actually know it was a private car park as he couldn't see the sign without his glasses.

defending cunts on any level is why your world (and mine)is full of shitheads.

so yesyerday we had tow truck company boss taking the moral high ground referring to 'overheads'

today, stories of kickbacks to spotters, lucrative enough to pay weekly rents

there is no moral high ground for towies

they is bottom feeders the lot of them