Philadelphia’s ‘Courtesy Tow’ Loses Cars Instead of Providing a Courtesy – Jalopnik

Getting your car towed and impounded is a huge hassle, but in Philadelphia your car can suffer from something called a “courtesy tow,” where the car ends up not in an impound lot, but pretty much anywhere, and no one seems to keep track of where it goes. It’s a special kind of headache. CBS News tells the story of Jacquie Martin, who took her son to an Eagles game and has since been unable to find her car.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) offers free towing services as an alternative to impounding an illegally parked car. A common situation where this happens is when someone parks their car legally, but the area is then declared a temporary no-parking zone due to construction, an event or some other reason. Because the car was initially parked legally, it is towed to a nearby legal parking lot and left there, rather than impounded. The owner can then retrieve his car from the new parking lot.

At least, that’s how it should work. In reality, the PPA often does not keep track of which cars it moves or where it moves them, even though it should inform the police.

“The problems usually occur when other departments or private contractors do work and use private towing companies to move vehicles,” police said. CBS News. This means that owners have to search the streets for their car themselves, as Martin did. She didn’t even know about courtesy dragging until the police told her about it. The only reference to courtesy tows on the PPA website is a brief mention of it in a list of achievements in 2018.

“The Daily Showeven discussed Philly’s parking fiasco. Gary Isaacs was in a similar situation to Cashman, being parked legally with a permit and then towed to an illegal spot. His car was then impounded, damaged and put up for auction before Isaacs found it. He had to pay $1,469 in fines and repairs. Rachel Sclarsky found her car missing less than 12 hours after legally parking it. While this isn’t the fastest we’ve ever seen, it’s standing up there. In this case, the police were able to tell her where it had been moved. Unfortunately, it was dropped in a turn lane instead of a parking lot and was ticketed, towed, and impounded.

Courteous parking sounds less like politeness and more like legalized extortion. The PPA declined interview requests from every source I could find. The City Council passed a resolution to investigate the practice in October 2023, but has not held any hearings since. As unfair as this is, some Philadelphians now seem to simply accept this as part of life in the city. Getting ticketed, towed and seized the old-fashioned way seems a lot easier. At least that way you can find your car and have a much better chance of getting it back.