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Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

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Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#21

Post by quickthrower2 »

beachy wrote: post #8
joebob42 wrote: post #2

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…

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.

The problem with doing this to random cars is some of the people will be rich enough to say no!

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#22

Post by sokoloff »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #7
linspace wrote: post #5

> 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 pol…

They didn’t check the license and registration of the vehicle?

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.

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#23

Post by abeppu »

petesergeant wrote: post #13
abeppu wrote: post #9

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?

> _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.

> 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.

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#24

Post by bdhess »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #12

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…

If they got “courtesy towed” they were already parked illegally. (Used to live in Philly, it happened to me once.)

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#26

Post by sokoloff »

jonas21 wrote: post #20
quickthrower2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was reported stolen by the owner. Reread the article for the full story on that.

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.

The article says she was handcuffed (detained); it does not say she was arrested (which would be absurd).

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#27

Post by jtokoph »

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.

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#28

Post by bdhess »

bell-cot wrote: post #15

> 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…

> 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.

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#29

Post by seibelj »

bell-cot wrote: post #15

> 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…

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.

Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues

#30

Post by lolinder »

> 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?!"

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