Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Very much this. Towing by the police should only be something done when the car is in violation of something. If the police has a search warrant for your home and you're not there, they can break in, even if you're not "in violation of something". I don't see how this is any different.
I don't have to make arrangements to go get my home when it is searched. Also, if you're searching my house, more than likely, I'm directly involved in something. They don't break into my house to get my Ring footage, which is much more equivalent in your attempt equating these disparate concepts. You've now made an innocent civilian incur ridiculous fees to get their car out of impound when there was no reason to im…
They could however, break your door (if you're not there to let them in), and AFAIK they're not responsible for getting it fixed.
>Also, if you're searching my house, more than likely, I'm directly involved in something.
That's irrelevant. The standard for a search warrant is "probable cause" regardless.
>They don't break into my house to get my Ring footage, which is much more equivalent in your attempt equating these disparate concepts.
...because the ring footage isn't in your house, it's in the cloud. Moreover, if you have an on-premise system and you're on vacation or something, it's plausible that they get a search warrant and break in, especially if they think time is of the essence (eg. your system has limited retention and the footage is going to be wiped).
>You could just as easily boot the car and wait for the owner to return.
If you read the article the police claims that it's only used if they can't locate the owner. It's unclear what that exactly means, but it's not like they're towing every tesla near the crime scene.