This text was produced for ProPublica’s Native Reporting Community in partnership with The Connecticut Mirror. Join Dispatches to get our tales in your inbox each week.
The Connecticut Senate on Friday overwhelmingly handed probably the most vital reform to the state’s towing insurance policies in many years, a measure lawmakers mentioned would assist defend drivers from predatory towing.
Home Invoice 7162 overhauls the state’s century-old towing statutes and is available in response to an investigation by the Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica that confirmed how state towing legal guidelines have come to favor tow corporations on the expense of drivers. It takes a number of steps to make it tougher to tow automobiles from non-public property and simpler for drivers to retrieve their automobiles after a tow.
The invoice, which handed the Home of Representatives final week with huge bipartisan assist and little debate, sailed via the Senate on a 33-3 vote.
“It’s reform that ensures transparency, it ensures equity and accountability, however does all of this with out undercutting the important work that moral {and professional} tow operators do every day for us, protecting our roads protected and our properties accessible,” mentioned Transportation Committee Co-chair Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford. “We’ve discovered over time, and significantly during the last 12 months because of some investigative reporting, of some significantly egregious circumstances.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont mentioned the governor plans to signal the invoice into regulation.
Republican Sen. Tony Hwang, rating member of the Transportation Committee, additionally spoke in favor of the invoice. The invoice obtained a few half hour of debate forward of passage, and there have been no feedback in opposition.
Hwang, who represents Fairfield, mentioned the invoice strikes the fitting stability between the pursuits of towers and shoppers.
“I wish to acknowledge that our press had an necessary half to convey out transparency and a number of the unhealthy actions, and I believe on this invoice we tackle a few of these points,” Hwang mentioned. “We took measures to make sure that there’s due course of, and what has been found to have occurred in a prison motion, I consider, ought to by no means, ever occur once more, to undermine the belief that we’ve to have on this course of.”
Connecticut’s regulation permits tow corporations to start the method to promote automobiles after simply 15 days. CT Mirror and ProPublica discovered that it is likely one of the shortest home windows within the nation, and that the regulation has significantly impacted folks with low incomes. Reporters spoke with individuals who mentioned towing corporations required them to pay in money or wouldn’t enable them to get private belongings out of their automobiles. Many couldn’t afford to get their towed automobiles again and misplaced transportation or jobs due to it.
After weeks of negotiations, lawmakers mentioned they got here to a compromise with the towing trade. Two payments have been merged to incorporate large reforms to towing procedures from non-public property and charge will increase for freeway tows that usually observe automotive accidents.
The invoice that handed and would take impact Oct. 1 requires tow corporations to just accept bank cards and doesn’t enable them to tow automobiles instantly simply due to an expired parking allow or registration. Autos can’t be towed from non-public property with out discover except they’re blocking site visitors, hearth hydrants or parked in an accessible spot.
Below the invoice, towing corporations can nonetheless begin the gross sales course of for automobiles value $1,500 or much less after 15 days, however they might now should take extra steps to provide the proprietor an opportunity to say the automobile. The Division of Motor Autos can be required to examine whether or not the motive force filed any complaints concerning the tow earlier than approving the sale, and the tower must ship a discover forward of the sale to the registered proprietor and lienholders through licensed mail, with receipts of supply.
The precise sale couldn’t undergo till 30 days after the tow.
The invoice additionally requires that towers take at the least two pictures earlier than they tow a automobile — one of many violation that resulted in a tow and one other of any injury to the automobile. Cohen mentioned this might assist decide if automobiles had any lacking elements earlier than the tow, a seeming nod to the information organizations’ story a few DMV worker who the company’s investigators discovered schemed with a towing firm to undervalue automobiles and promote them for hundreds in revenue. (The worker denied he did something flawed, and the company in the end took no motion in that case.)
The invoice additionally establishes a working group to check find out how to deal with proceeds from the gross sales of towed automobiles. State regulation requires that towing corporations maintain income in escrow for a 12 months in case the automobile proprietor claims them, then remit that cash to the state. However CT Mirror and ProPublica discovered the DMV by no means arrange a system for that course of to happen.
Moreover, it requires the DMV to work with the state’s lawyer normal to develop a shopper invoice of rights on towing.
Tow corporations should be obtainable after hours and on weekends to permit folks to get their automobiles or private property. In a narrative printed this month, CT Mirror and ProPublica reported that tow truck corporations typically maintain onto folks’s belongings to strain them into paying their towing charges.
Below the brand new regulation, drivers can be allowed to retrieve their belongings from their automobiles, even when they haven’t paid the towing charges. State rules presently enable automobile house owners to retrieve solely “private property which is crucial to the well being or welfare of any individual.”
Cohen listed lots of the points outlined within the information shops’ reporting as “a number of the worst abuses of predatory towing practices.”
Timothy Vibert, president of Towing and Restoration Professionals of Connecticut, mentioned the trade initially opposed the invoice as a result of towers believed it could impede their means to tow automobiles and clear site visitors. He additionally mentioned towers weren’t concerned sufficient within the authentic draft. However they labored with lawmakers on the invoice over a number of weeks, and he issued an announcement in assist this week.
“The folks of Connecticut deserve security, accountability and transparency when their automobiles are towed, and so do the individuals who work for Connecticut’s towing corporations who danger our lives each day to make our roads protected,” Vibert mentioned. “All of us want clear, easy-to-follow guidelines.”
DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera recommended the Home and Senate.
“The DMV absolutely helps this initiative, because it not solely enhances the framework for truthful and equitable enforcement of towing legal guidelines but in addition gives a transparent path ahead for our company to advance these efforts,” Guerrera mentioned in an announcement.
Cohen mentioned that the invoice goals to “repair a damaged course of,” and that lawmakers had labored on some features of it for years earlier than the invoice handed.
Information of the invoice’s passage introduced reduction to Melissa Anderson, who was featured in a CT Mirror and ProPublica story after her automotive was towed and bought from her Hamden house due to an expired parking allow.
The invoice requires a 72-hour grace interval earlier than a automotive may be towed for an expired parking sticker to permit folks time to get a brand new one.
“I’m glad we made a distinction,” Anderson mentioned. “That is going to assist lots of people.”
The invoice subsequent heads to Lamont’s desk.
“The Governor appreciates all of the work that went into this laws, which gives higher protections for the general public and their automobiles,” Lamont’s spokesperson, Rob Blanchard, mentioned in a textual content message. “He plans on signing the laws as soon as it reaches his desk.”
