This text was produced for ProPublica’s Native Reporting Community in partnership with The Connecticut Mirror. Sign up for Dispatches to get our tales in your inbox each week.
The Connecticut Senate on Friday overwhelmingly handed probably the most important reform to the state’s towing insurance policies in a long time, a measure lawmakers stated would assist shield drivers from predatory towing.
House Bill 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 laws have come to favor tow companies 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 passed the House of Representatives final week with broad bipartisan help and little debate, sailed by 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, conserving our roads secure and our properties accessible,” stated Transportation Committee Co-chair Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford. “We’ve realized through the years, and notably during the last yr because of some investigative reporting, of some notably egregious circumstances.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont stated 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 received a couple of half hour of debate forward of passage, and there have been no feedback in opposition.
Hwang, who represents Fairfield, stated the invoice strikes the precise stability between the pursuits of towers and shoppers.
“I wish to acknowledge that our press had an vital half to deliver out transparency and a few of the dangerous actions, and I feel on this invoice we tackle a few of these points,” Hwang stated. “We took measures to make sure that there may be due course of, and what has been found to have occurred in a prison motion, I imagine, ought to by no means, ever occur once more, to undermine the belief that now we have to have on this course of.”
Connecticut’s regulation permits tow firms to start the method to promote automobiles after simply 15 days. CT Mirror and ProPublica discovered that it is without doubt one of the shortest home windows within the nation, and that the regulation has notably impacted folks with low incomes. Reporters spoke with individuals who stated towing firms 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 stated they got here to a compromise with the towing business. Two payments had been merged to incorporate large reforms to towing procedures from non-public property and fee will increase for freeway tows that sometimes comply with automobile accidents.
The invoice that handed and would take impact Oct. 1 requires tow firms to just accept bank cards and doesn’t enable them to tow automobiles instantly simply due to an expired parking allow or registration. Automobiles can’t be towed from non-public property with out discover except they’re blocking site visitors, fireplace hydrants or parked in an accessible spot.
Underneath the invoice, towing firms can nonetheless begin the gross sales course of for automobiles value $1,500 or much less after 15 days, however they might now need to take extra steps to present the proprietor an opportunity to say the car. The Division of Motor Automobiles could be required to test 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 not less than two pictures earlier than they tow a car — one of many violation that resulted in a tow and one other of any injury to the car. Cohen stated this may assist decide if automobiles had any lacking elements earlier than the tow, a seeming nod to the information organizations’ story a couple of DMV worker who the company’s investigators discovered schemed with a towing firm to undervalue vehicles and sell them for thousands in profit. (The worker denied he did something improper, and the company finally took no motion in that case.)
The invoice additionally establishes a working group to review deal with proceeds from the gross sales of towed automobiles. State regulation requires that towing firms maintain earnings in escrow for a yr in case the car proprietor claims them, then remit that cash to the state. However CT Mirror and ProPublica discovered the DMV never set up a system for that course of to happen.
Moreover, it requires the DMV to work with the state’s lawyer common to develop a client invoice of rights on towing.
Tow firms need to 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 companies sometimes hold onto people’s belongings to stress them into paying their towing charges.
Underneath the brand new regulation, drivers will likely be allowed to retrieve their belongings from their automobiles, even when they haven’t paid the towing charges. State rules presently enable car homeowners to retrieve solely “private property which is important to the well being or welfare of any particular person.”
Cohen listed lots of the points outlined within the information retailers’ reporting as “a few of the worst abuses of predatory towing practices.”
Timothy Vibert, president of Towing and Restoration Professionals of Connecticut, stated the business initially opposed the invoice as a result of towers believed it will impede their capacity to tow automobiles and clear site visitors. He additionally stated 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 a press release in help 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 firms who danger our lives every single day to make our roads secure,” Vibert stated. “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 honest and equitable enforcement of towing legal guidelines but in addition offers a transparent path ahead for our company to advance these efforts,” Guerrera stated in a press release.
Cohen stated 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 automobile was towed and bought from her Hamden condominium due to an expired parking allow.
The invoice requires a 72-hour grace interval earlier than a automobile will 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 stated. “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 offers better protections for the general public and their automobiles,” Lamont’s spokesperson, Rob Blanchard, stated in a textual content message. “He plans on signing the laws as soon as it reaches his desk.”
