‘Can’t afford it,’ cries driver towed from visitor parking and charged $170 – ‘predator’ trucks prowl lots every 15 mins | 16S1KSG | 2024-04-28 12:08:01
'Can't afford it,' cries driver towed from visitor parking and charged $170 – 'predator' trucks prowl lots every 15 mins | 16S1KSG | 2024-04-28 12:08:01
COLLEGE students have engaged in local government meetings to fight against a towing company that prowls student lots.
One student was promptly towed and charged nearly $200.
Shailey Desai was a sophomore at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, in December 2022.
She parked in what she assumed was a visitor's parking spot when visiting a friend, and within a few hours, her car was towed.
To retrieve it from the lot, Desai had to pay $170.
She said that towing could be easily prevented if more guest parking was provided.
"If they want to prevent towing, they should make visitor parking more available, and I don't know about anyone else, but I can't afford to Uber all the time," she told the Indiana Daily Student.
Desai, in addition to other students, felt that the fee to have her car returned was too high.
Sophomore Conner Wright said the local towing practices inspired him to run for city council in the third district of the city to combat the owing problem.
Wright also believes a student representative would help resolve student issues since college students make up a large portion of Bloomington's residents.
Steve Volan, a city council member, began recruiting and encouraging students to be active in their city's government.
"There has never been a student on city council who was an active undergraduate," Volan said.
<!-- End of Brightcove Player --> "It's really expensive to build parking, so when people are asking where they can park it depends on where they're going, what time of day."
If Wright gets voted in, he vowed to implement stricter towing and parking policies to help struggling students.
He told the outlet that towing practices could be considered stricter than normal.
"The term predatory towing means not just enforcement of parking regulations, but it's going above that and seeking people who are violating rules just so they can tow and charge them," said Wright.
In his apartment complex, Wright noted that tow trucks have been spotted waiting and patrolling the lot every 15 minutes seeking violators to tow and charge.
Natalia Galvan, the president of the Monroe County Chapter of the National Organization for Women, also noted a lack of student voices in local politics.
<p class="article__content--intro"> Wrongfully or not, retrieving a towed vehicle can be a hassle. </p> </div> </div> "I was so frustrated by the inequity of parking options for renters in the city and the lack of student voices on our city's parking commission, I personally asked students to apply when there were vacancies on the city's parking commission in 2022," she said.
Conner Wright was elected as part of the city's environmental commission and was in office from August 2022 to January 2024.
In June 2023, the city of Bloomington announced several changes to the city's towing ordinances, which Michelle Wahl, the parking services director for the city, announced online.
"The City of Bloomington, within the last year, implemented a new towing policy which is quite different than what this community has experienced in the past," she wrote.
"We now have a very straightforward process that has been vetted not only with our Parking Commission but through our council."
In addition to other violations, the city will tow vehicles for parking in a reserved space if the vehicle is abandoned, or if the registered owner has outstanding violations.
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