Towed Into Debt Report

TOWED INTO DEBT:
How Towing Practices

in California Punish
Poor People
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTRIBUTORS
Public Law Center Public Counsel
Director of Litigation, Training, Staff Attorney, Nisha Kashyap
and Advocacy, Jorge Alvarado
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Legal Services of Northern California of the San Francisco Bay Area
Managing Attorney, Wade Askew Communications Director, Matthew Kovac
Western Center on Law & Poverty Western Center on Law & Poverty
Intern, Mari Castaldi Associate Director of Communications,
Courtney McKinney
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
of the San Francisco Bay Area Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
Legal Director, Elisa Della-Piana Attorney, Shayla Myers
Bay Area Legal Aid Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Director of Litigation and Advocacy, of the San Francisco Bay Area
Rebekah Evenson Thurgood Marshall Fellow, Jude Pond
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
of the San Francisco Bay Area of the San Francisco Bay Area
Stanford Law School Civitas Fellow, Aaron Forbath Litigation Paralegal, Gladys Rosario
Western Center on Law & Poverty East Bay Community Law Center
Director of Policy Advocacy, Mike Herald Staff Attorney, Miguel Soto
American Civil Liberties Union of California Western Center on Law & Poverty
Legislative Attorney, Maya Ingram lntern, Itamar Waksman
Analysis Group
Sorcha Evenhouse, Page Uriarte, Alex Enrique,
Claire Yin, Deepshekhar Gupta, and Don Lee
SPECIAL THANKS TO
ALL THE CLIENTS AND ADVOCATES WHO SHARED THEIR STORIES WITH US
Central California Legal Services San Francisco Public Defender’s Office
Director of Litigation and Advocacy, Jesse J. Avila Legislative Policy Analyst, Donna Mandel
Steve Bingham California Low-Income Consumer Coalition
Ted Mermin
Community Housing Partnership
Community Organizer, Javier Bremond Voices for Progress
California State Policy Manager, Evan Minton
Homeless Action Center
Managing Attorney, Heather Frienkel Neighborhood Legal Services
of Los Angeles County
Bo Ericsson
Staff Attorney, Kevin Reyes
East Bay Community Law Center
Neighborhood Legal Services
Staff Attorney, Brandon Greene
of Los Angeles County
Bay Area Legal Aid Staff Attorney, Lena Silver
Staff Attorney, Rachel Haverkorn
Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office Public Defender,
Robin Lipetzky
03.18.19 TOWED INTO DEBT: How Towing Practices in California Punish Poor People | 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 4
I. TOWING IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR CALIFORNIANS.......................................................... 7
II. LIEN SALES ARE COSTLY AND INEFFECTIVE.. ............................................................. 12

A. The Cost of Local Towing Programs.....................................................................................12
B. Cost Recovery at Tow-Yard Lien Sales..................................................................................13
III. VEHICLE TOWS HAVE A DEVASTATING IMPACT ON THE LIVES OF CALIFORNIANS. . ....... 16
A. Towing and Lien Sales Leave a Direct Financial Impact that Does Not End
When the Impound Ends......................................................................................................16
B. Vehicle Impounds Significantly Impact Low-Income Workers’ Economic Prospects............16
C. Impounding a Low-Income Worker’s Vehicle Can Negatively
Affect their Public Benefits..................................................................................................18
D. Losing a Vehicle Can Negatively Affect Access to Education................................................18
E. Losing a Vehicle Can Limit Housing Opportunities...............................................................19
F. Impact on Individuals Living in their Vehicles.......................................................................19
IV. GOVERNMENTS REGULARLY TOW CARS EVEN WHERE THERE IS NO PUBLIC

SAFETY RATIONALE.................................................................................................. 22
A. Tens of Thousands of Tows Each Year Are Not Related to Public Safety. . .........................23
B. Poverty Tows Disproportionately Lead to Lien Sales....................................................25
V. NO ONE WINS WITH POVERTY TOWS...........................................................................27

A. Poverty Tows Drain Money from the Public Fisc.. ......................................................... 27
B. Poverty Tows Are Unfair to Low-Income People..........................................................28
C. Poverty Tows Disproportionately Impact Unhoused People,
Immigrants, and People of Color......................................................................................... 29
VI. MANY POVERTY TOWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL....................................................... 32

A. The Fourth Amendment Prohibits Warrantless Tows.. ..................................................32
B. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment Requires Adequate
Notice and Opportunity to Contest a Tow. . ................................................................. 33
C. The Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines Clause Prohibits Disproportionate
Financial Penalties................................................................................................34
D. The Fourteenth Amendment Prohibits Punishing a Person For Poverty........................... 35
VII. R ECOMMENDATIONS TO REDUCE TOWING OF VEHICLES IN CALIFORNIA......................37
APPENDICES.................................................................................................................. 39
INTRODUCTION
Returning to your parking place only to find your car is missing – and has been towed by the city –
is a terrible surprise in the best of circumstances. Your car will be held hostage until you make the
inconvenient trip to the tow yard and pay astronomical fees to get your own car back. For people
who are low income, however, the consequences of a towed vehicle can be devastating. The cost
to retrieve a car after a city-ordered tow is out of reach for many. Thus, for many Californians,
a vehicle tow means the permanent loss of their car and, along with it, the loss of employment,
access to education and medical care, and, for some, their only shelter. Nonetheless, local
governments throughout California regularly tow vehicles for relatively minor offenses: outstanding
parking tickets, lapsed vehicle registration, and remaining parked in one place for more than
72 hours. Despite constitutional limits on the government’s ability to seize a vehicle in these
non-emergency situations, cities routinely tow legally parked cars that pose no threat to public
safety. The actual and consequential costs to California are too high to allow towing to be anything
other than a tool to protect the public. By these measures, California’s current policies are
not working.
This report reveals the current overreach of government towing in cities across California.
After reviewing and analyzing data on government-ordered tows (not including private tows)
new data and research show that:
ÆÆThe scope of the problem is significant: in just one month in Los Angeles alone, government
agencies towed 9,400 vehicles and sold 2,500 towed vehicles. In 2016, the City of San
Francisco ordered more than 42,000 tows and sold more than 5,300 vehicles at lien sales.
Analysts estimate that public agencies in California towed nearly one million vehicles in 2016.
ÆÆThe most minor reasons for tow are some of the most common, and have the most devastating
results. Statewide, over one fourth of tows are conducted just because the owner had unpaid
parking tickets, lapsed registration, or parked in one place for 72 hours. Vehicles towed for
these reasons are 2-6 times more likely to be sold at lien sale than the average towed car.
ÆÆIn San Francisco, 50% of vehicles towed for unpaid parking tickets and 57% of vehicles towed for
lapsed registration were sold by the tow company, while only 9% of all vehicles towed were sold.
ÆÆGetting a car back after a tow is expensive. As a result of all the add-on and administrative
fees, the average price people must pay after a debt-collection tow is over $1,100.
ÆÆTow fees are often unfair. Daily storage rates at California tow lots are at least twice as
expensive as the daily rate at parking garages in the same part of town, and in some cases,
up to twelve times higher than market rates.
ÆÆCities are losing money on tows, especially when the reason for the tow is someone’s inability
to pay government fines and fees. Towed vehicles sold at lien sale in San Diego generally
accrue over $3,000 in fees and fines, but the average sale price for these vehicles is about $565.
ESTIMATED GOVERMENT-ORDERED TOWS
STATEWIDE BY REASON FOR TOW (2017)
12%
26%
10%
40%
12%
 Poverty Tows  Criminal Investigation  Flow of Traffic  License Suspension  Other/Unspecified

Poverty Tows Criminal Investigation Flow of Traffic License Suspension Other/Unspecified
Estimated based on weighted analysis of eight California cities. See Appendix.
After the for

Reason demonstrations in Ferguson,
Vehicle Tows Statewide Missouri,
(2017) annualized data in 2015, courts, opinion-makers, and politicians
are increasingly listening to what advocates and organizers have been saying for a long time. When
governments target people of color and low-income people for minor violations, when they fund
their programs by charging unreasonable fines and fees for these minor violations, and when
they punish people because they can’t afford to pay, it is unconstitutional, unfair, and ultimately,
counterproductive. Towing has become part of this nationwide problem: cities are taking cars
as a means of municipal debt collection, causing economic devastation over a few parking tickets.
There are numerous ways in which California towing policy could be improved, to better hew to the
principle that government should only take private property from its constituents when it is necessary
for public safety. This report provides an overview of reasons for municipal tows in California, how the
current towing system works (and doesn’t), and the cost of municipal towing to local governments and
to Californians who lose their vehicles. After reviewing data from cities and counties across the
state, and interviewing hundreds of clients, community groups, and legal service providers, this
report shows that towing fines and fees are too expensive for most Californians and that cities lose
money when they tow cars that are safely parked. It then focuses on three unfair and counterproductive
reasons for towing someone’s car: (1) tows for unpaid parking tickets; (2) tows for unpaid or overdue
registration; and (3) tows for parking longer than 72 hours in one spot.
These three types of tows are not the only way that current policies are flawed, but they are the
most blatantly problematic. Of more than 30 allowable reasons for government tows in the state
Vehicle Code, these “poverty tows” are three of the least serious. They do not promote public
safety. They comprise a significant portion of tows statewide: approximately 26 percent based
on an analysis of eight California cities. And people are most likely to lose instead of recover their
vehicles when they are towed for these reasons, meaning these tows are both the costliest for
taxpayers, and have the worst impact on vehicle owners.
With simple changes in policy and practice, California could make tows about public safety,
and end tows that punish and disproportionately harm low-income Californians.
MARY LOVELACE MIGUEL
Mary Lovelace is an interior designer Miguel is 74 years old, uses a walker,
who relied on her vehicle to visit her and relies on his partner to care for
clients’ homes. She was laid off from him. Together, they live on Miguel’s
her job and struggled to pay the bills. monthly benefits of $910. In 2018, they
While she was out of work, she received were evicted from their apartment and
parking tickets she couldn’t pay. As a began living in Miguel’s vehicle. The
result, the city booted and then towed vehicle registration on Miguel’s car
her car, charging over $500 in boot lapsed after he was unable to pay the
and tow fees. Ms. Lovelace eventually fines from traffic tickets, and the County
needed at least $1,800 to retrieve her of Los Angeles placed a hold on the
car. Because she could not afford vehicle. While Miguel was at a medical
this cost, the tow yard sold her car at appointment, his car was towed from
auction and filed a lien against her for the county hospital’s parking lot. When
the balance, damaging her credit. The he could not pay the cost of the parking
city, after towing her car and causing tickets, registration, towing and storage
severe trauma in her life, never collected fees, the vehicle was sold at auction,
any money Mary owed from the tickets. and he received a $1,674 deficiency bill
Without a vehicle, it became impossible from the towing company. With the help
to find a new job as an interior designer, of a county social worker, Miguel and
and Ms. Lovelace found her options his wife got temporary housing. But,
restricted. She declared bankruptcy, without his car, he has no way to get
remains unemployed and is still without to his medical appointments or look
a car needed to do her job. for permanent housing.
Mary Lovelace and Miguel’s stories are typical of what happens

to tens of thousands of low-income Californians every year. They
lose the car that they depend on solely because they cannot afford
to pay for the high cost of towing related to parking tickets, DMV
registration, or simply because they left their car parked on a
street for too long. In an attempt to get people to comply with
minor traffic laws, California imposes draconian punishments
that far exceed the offense. Worse yet, the punishment is
ineffective as a debt collection tool and leads to outcomes for all
parties that are unproductive and avoidable. We can do better.
PART ONE: TOWS AND LIEN SALES IN CALIFORNIA
I. TOWING IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR CALIFORNIANS
Middle-class and low-income vehicle owners suffer devastating economic consequences

when their cars are towed and impounded. Cities and counties across California typically require
vehicle owners to pay about $500 to retrieve a car from a tow yard. If the car was impounded
because of unpaid parking tickets or expired registration, the vehicle owner must pay the tickets
or registration fees before retrieving the car, which can substantially increase the total cost.
All these fees and fines along with the daily storage fees from the tow company can easily
balloon the cost of retrieving a car to $2,500 or more. According to a recent federal report, 46%
of American adults lack the savings necessary to cover an unanticipated expense of $400 or
more.1 An unexpected impound can be one of those unanticipated expenses. Thus, for many
vehicle owners, a single impound may put their car out of reach for good: they will not be able
to pay to retrieve their car from the tow lot, and the car will be sold.
TABLE: AVERAGE TOWING FEES IN CALIFORNIA 2
TYPE OF FEE AVERAGE FEE
Tow Fee $189

Storage Fee $53/day
Administrative Fee3 $150
FEES AFTER THREE DAYS 4 $499
ADDITIONAL COSTS TO RECOVER VEHICLES TOWED FOR DEBT COLLECTION 5
CITY AVERAGE PARKING PARKING CITATION MINIMUM ADDITIONAL COST

CITATION FEE LATE FEE OF DEBT-COLLECTION TOW
Los Angeles $68 $68 $680

Modesto $33 $41 $370
Berkeley $47.40 $80 $637
ADDITIONAL COSTS TO RECOVER VEHICLES TOWED FOR LAPSED REGISTRATION

• DMV registration fees (varies based on vehicle value)
• DMV late registration fees ($20 to $100)
• Traffic fine and fees for driving with expired registration (approximately $288)
• Civil assessment for failure to pay traffic ticket ($300 if imposed)
The fees that a vehicle owner pays to retrieve an impounded car generally fall within three
categories: (1) fees associated with the tow; (2) storage fees (which increase daily); and (3)
administrative fees associated with the release of the vehicle. These fees are in addition to the
outstanding parking or registration fees that must be paid before retrieving the car. If a vehicle
owner does not have the money to pay these ever-increasing fees within 30 days of the tow, the
car can then be sold at a lien sale, often for a fraction of its value. The City of San Francisco waives
its $283.75 administrative fee and three days of storage fees for low-income drivers, but does not
waive its $229 towing fee or any subsequent storage fees. The authors are unaware of any other
city that waives any portion of their towing fees for low-income drivers.
A person working full time at minimum wage in California makes approximately $96 per day,
before taxes.6 This means the average cost of one tow in California is more than a week’s worth
of pay for many Californians.
LOS ANGELES TOWING FEES 7
TYPE OF FEE FEE
Towing Fee $133

City Release Fee $115
Storage Fee8 $45.65/day
Mileage Rate $7.50/mile
MINIMUM COST AFTER THREE DAYS $384.95
MINIMUM COST AFTER ONE WEEK $567.55
MINIMUM COST AFTER TWO WEEKS $887.10
MODESTO TOWING FEES 9
TYPE OF FEE FEE

Tow Fee $225
Storage Fee $55/day
Administrative Fee $160
Vehicle Release Fee10 $120
MINIMUM COST AFTER THREE DAYS $670
MINIMUM COST AFTER ONE WEEK $890
MINIMUM COST AFTER TWO WEEKS $1,275
SAN JOSE TOWING FEES 11
TYPE OF FEE FEE
Basic Towing Service Fee $215

Towed Vehicle Impound Release Fee $122
After Hours Gate Fee (if applicable) $85
Storage Fee 12
$87.50
MINIMUM COST AFTER THREE DAYS $599.50
MINIMUM COST AFTER ONE WEEK $949.50
MINIMUM COST AFTER TWO WEEKS $1,562
Retrieving a car from a tow lot is not only too expensive for many people, but it also can be
prohibitively time-consuming, requiring vehicle owners to take time off of work or school to
bounce from office to office to obtain the necessary paperwork. If a car is impounded for expired
registration, the vehicle owner must run through an obstacle course of bureaucracy before they
can go to the tow yard to pay for the car’s retrieval. First, the vehicle owner may only become aware
the car was impounded after they call the police to report the car was stolen. Once they realize the
car was impounded for expired registration, the vehicle owner must go to the DMV to renew their
registration. Then, the owner often must go to a local police department or transit authority to have
a “hold” removed, and then the owner must go to the tow yard to get their car back. Statewide, the
average wait time at DMV field offices is about seventy minutes, but this can easily double in busy
offices.13 Police department tow desks that process holds are often closed on weekends, posing
challenges to vehicle owners who work or attend school during the week.14 Vehicle owners who
need to resolve outstanding parking tickets before retrieving their car may face a similar challenge.
The tickets may be from different cities or counties, forcing the vehicle owner to take care of each
ticket at a separate location, without the use of their car.
Meanwhile, every day that the car remains impounded, storage fees accrue. Many people
have reported that they have begged, borrowed, and sold belongings to raise the money to pay
tow-related fees, only to take the cash to the tow yard and find their efforts futile, because the
tow bill has gone up. A Los Angeles Grand Jury report found that 32% of city-towed cars stayed
on the lot for at least a week.15 In San Jose two weeks of storage fees add an additional $1,225
to the cost of the tow. The ever-increasing fees create a Sisyphean challenge for cash-strapped
middle and low income families.
Nor do the fees reflect the fair market value of the storage. Tow yards charge daily storages fees
that are at least double, and sometimes twelve times the daily parking rate charged by commercial
lots in the same neighborhood. A survey of 17 cities across California found that tow yards charge
a daily storage rate that is an average of five times more than market rate parking.16 Overall, the
high cost of tows to vehicle owners means that when municipalities order tows, they are creating
significant financial burdens for their residents.
EXORBITANT STORAGE FEES

Across the state, cities and city-contracted towing companies gouge California drivers by
charging storage fees that are on average five times greater than the daily rates charged
at nearby parking lots. San Jose’s towing providers charge the highest rate of the fifteen
cities analyzed: $87.50/day. The average daily parking rate for nearby garages/lots is less
than $10. In Oakland, the disparity is even more glaring. The tow company charges vehicle
owners $85/day to store their impounded vehicles, but private garages nearby offer daily
parking for only $7.
COMPARISON OF TOW YARD STORAGE FEES WITH
OVERNIGHT PARKING RATES WITHIN 3.5 MILES
CITY TOW-YARD DAILY OVERNIGHT DAILY COST PRICE-

STORAGE FEE MARKET RATE DIFFERENTIAL GOUGING
PARKING RATE
Bakersfield $50 $7 $43 7.1

Berkeley $75 $14 $61 5.4
Chula Vista $51 $16.50 $34.50 3.1
Fresno $45 $7.40 $37.60 6.1
Garden Grove $45 $11.20 $33.80 4.0
Huntington Beach $60 $16.70 $43.30 3.6
Irvine $43 $20 $23 2.2
Long Beach $55 $18 $37 3.1
Los Angeles $39 $8.50 $31 4.9
Modesto $55 $10.40 $44.60 5.3
Oakland $85 $7 $78 12.1
Oxnard $40 $8 $32 5.0
Sacramento $50 $10.40 $39.60 4.8
San Diego $38 $11.10 $26.90 3.4
San Francisco $58.50 $18.50 $40 3.2
San Jose $87.50 $9.50 $78 9.2
Santa Ana $55 $8.90 $46.10 6.2
STATEWIDE $55.87 $11.95 $42.91 5.2
AVERAGES
ANATOMY OF A POVERTY TOW
II. LIEN SALES ARE COSTLY AND INEFFECTIVE
FE BATLE
Lien sales often prevent people from working. Fe Batle has been homeless off and on
for years, until she finally secured a spot in transitional housing. She thought that she
caught her lucky break when she received a car as a donation. She immediately signed up
to be a Lyft driver. Unfortunately, the car could not pass a smog test, and, therefore, she
could not register the vehicle. While Ms. Batle was saving money for repairs, her car was
towed because of its lapsed registration. She could not afford to get it back, and it was
eventually sold at lien sale. In addition to losing her car, Ms. Batle will now have to remain on
government-funded public benefits. When she first got her car, Ms. Batle felt like she had
finally climbed to the top of a mountain. When she lost it, it was like rolling right back down.
Everyone loses when a government-impounded vehicle is sold at lien sale. For the owner, a lien
sale means they have lost their car forever. This can lead to a cascade of negative repercussions
discussed in Chapter III: lost jobs, fewer educational opportunities, and a higher risk of
homelessness. But cities lose as well. By the time the car is sold, the city and towing company
have already spent a considerable sum to tow it and to store it for at least thirty days. Lien sales
themselves create additional costs: more paperwork, more DMV fees, and more staff hours. An
analysis of thousands of vehicle tows and lien sales in multiple California cities suggests a simple
conclusion: the revenue from a lien sale is unlikely to cover the cost of towing, storing, and selling
a car. Vehicles towed for debt collection and lapsed registration—not for public safety—account
for a disproportionate number of lien sales. Many of these losses, therefore, are unnecessary and
avoidable. Cities are taking away many people’s most valuable asset and, in all likelihood, losing
money in the process.
a. THE COST OF LOCAL TOWING PROGRAMS

alifornia law prohibits cities from charging a driver fees that are more than the actual cost of a
C
tow. 17 Unless it violates the law, the most a city can expect with respect to tow and storage fees
is to break even, and that would only be possible if every person whose vehicle was towed could
afford to pay the full cost. However, evidence shows that a majority of Americans cannot afford
to pay $500, which is less than the average amount required to recover a vehicle after a tow.18
Towing programs are expensive and resource-intensive for local governments of all sizes.
The City of Garden Grove ordered approximately 6,500 vehicle tows between September 2015
and October 2018. The city estimates its personnel cost-per-tow as $326, resulting in a total
expenditure of over $2.1 million during that time period. In 2017, the Los Angeles Department
of Transportation and Los Angeles Police Department towed over 100,000 vehicles.19
San Francisco spends approximately $25 million annually on its towing program. This includes:
• Approximately $12.8 million in fixed and variable fees paid to the city’s private contractor,
AutoReturn, for the management and administration of the city’s tow yards.
• Approximately $2.7 million to lease property for its downtown tow yard and its long-term
storage lot in Daly City.
• Approximately $9.8 million in administrative costs for SFMTA’s towing program, including
labor costs for towing enforcement and post-tow hearings. (The city has projected that
it will spend over $5 million in fiscal year 2018 for the salaries and benefits of the SFMTA
employees that implement its towing program.)
b. COST RECOVERY AT TOW-YARD LIEN SALES

Towing companies must give 30 days’ notice before selling any vehicle worth more than
$500.20 This means that tow yards usually incur the expense of 30 days of storage, plus the
costs of auctioning a vehicle or selling it for parts, before a lien sale. As a result, vehicles
that the owners do not, or cannot, retrieve, represent the most costly kind of tow.
GARY WELCH
Some people lose their vehicles at lien sale while hospitalized. In 2017, Gary Welch was
suddenly hospitalized because of a brain hemorrhage. When he woke up in a Daly City
hospital unable to leave his hospital bed, an administrator told him the city had ordered his
car towed. He called the tow company to ask if they could release his car, but they refused
to release it unless Gary paid $9,000 in fees. Even though Gary told them he was indigent
and hospitalized, the city’s tow company repeatedly harassed him with phone calls between
Christmas and New Year’s, demanding that he pay tow and storage fees. By the time he was
released from the hospital, they had sold his car at lien sale.
In 2018, Gary was lucky to find legal assistance—legal services for tows are very limited
across the state. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
helped him file a claim against the city and tow company and a judge ruled that the city
should not have towed and sold his car.
Nothing in state law guarantees that public agencies receive any portion of the revenue
from lien sales, and the available evidence suggests that these sales impose a substantial
drain on city and county budgets. While few cities track the outcome of vehicle tows, and
even fewer track the results of lien sales, data from three diverse California municipalities
shows that towed vehicles are usually sold for at least $2,000 less than the towing, storage,
and lien fees that have accrued.
AVERAGE SALE PRICES AND ACCRUED FEES (SOLD CARS) IN SAN DIEGO (2016-18)
REASON FOR TOW AVERAGE FEES DUE AVERAGE SALE PRICE
Debt Collection $3,271.13 $797.17

Registration $3,184.79 $495.67
72 Hour Ordinance $3,206.33 $487.92
Criminal Investigation $2,865.33 $553.02
Flow of Traffic $3,145.66 $498.02
ALL REASONS $3,134.65 $566.36
As the table above demonstrates, the average price of a vehicle sold at lien sale in San Diego
is about $560. At the point of sale, however, the owners of these cars have accrued an average
of about $3,100 in towing, storage, and lien sale fees. A similar trend holds in San Francisco,
where the average price for vehicles sold at lien sales is just over $700. While San Francisco
does not track the exact amount of fees owed on vehicles sold at lien sale, most drivers whose
car was towed, stored for thirty days, and then sold at auction would owe at least $2,600 in fees.21
TOWING, STORAGE, AND LIEN SALE FEES IN SAN FRANCISCO 22
TYPE OF FEE AMOUNT
Administrative Fee $283.75

Towing Fee $229.00
Transfer Charge $32.50
Storage Fee (first 24 hours) $50.75
Storage Fee (subsequent 29 days) ($60.75/day after first 24 hours) $1,761.75
Lien Initiation Fee23 $35.00
Lien Completion Fee24 $35.00
Auction Fee 25
$166.50
TOTAL FEES TO BE COLLECTED AT LIEN SALE $2,594.25
Therefore, in San Francisco, like San Diego, the average towed vehicle is likely sold for about
$2,000 less than the city hopes to collect from its owner.
Cities are likely to lose money on lien sales regardless of whether and how a city contracts
out its towing program. Some cities may structure their towing programs to pass the risk of
loss on lien sales to contracted towing operators. But, even under these contracts, cities are
unlikely to recover the resources they spend ordering and administering vehicle tows because
under state law, contracted towing companies have priority to recover their tow and storage
costs before any remaining proceeds are passed to the municipality that ordered the tow.26
When the lien sale proceeds are insufficient to cover the towing company’s costs,
the municipality receives nothing.
More lien sales likely lead to higher tow fees. Indeed, some municipalities appear to have
raised administrative fees to offset losses from lien sales. For example, in 2018, the City of
Garden Grove increased its administrative vehicle release fee from $120 to $150 because it
was recovering only a portion of its towing costs.
San Francisco’s towing budget suggests a similar trend. The analysis above suggests that the
city loses money – hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of dollars – with every vehicle sold at lien
sale. San Francisco’s analysts, however, maintain that the towing program recovers 87% of
its total annual costs, meaning that it recovers about $22 million of its $25 million annual
budget through fees and lien sales. In the 2017 fiscal year, the city sold more than 6,100 towed
vehicles and released 33,067 towed vehicles to their owners. It seems very likely, therefore,
that San Francisco made up for some of its lien sale losses by charging higher fees on the
released vehicles.
Whether or not charging one vehicle owner for the cost of another person’s tow is legal, it is
not the only — or best — way for a city to reduce towing costs. As discussed in Chapter IV below,
if cities eliminated tows for non-urgent reasons that are not related to public safety, it would
disproportionately reduce the number of costly lien sales, likely saving money for both cities
and vehicle owners.
III. EHICLE TOWS HAVE A DEVASTATING IMPACT
V
ON THE LIVES OF CALIFORNIANS
For many Californians whose vehicles are towed, the financial impact can continue long after the
car is recovered, or more often for low-income people, after the car is sold to pay off the towing
fees. If a person does manage to scrape together the money to get their car back, the direct cost
of the tow exposes those without a financial cushion to an economic shock from which they cannot
easily recover. If they don’t get back their vehicle -- often the most significant asset they have--this
loss can be devastating. As illustrated by each of the Californians who shared their story for this
report, the economic ripple effect of a tow and the resulting loss of a vehicle too often means the
owner and their family lose access to employment, school, medical care, and even housing.
a. TOWING AND LIEN SALES LEAVE A DIRECT FINANCIAL IMPACT

THAT DOES NOT END WHEN THE IMPOUND ENDS
California’s municipal towing programs assume an upper-middle-class safety net that does
not exist for most people. A single tow can immediately set a family back hundreds of dollars.
If the owner cannot get the car back, the fees can pile up, day by day, until the total bill is over
$2,500. This kind of unexpected expense is simply devastating for low-income Californians.
A quarter of American households have difficulty saving any money in most months.27
Forty-six percent of Americans would struggle to cover an emergency expense of $400.28
Sixty percent of Americans experienced a large unexpected financial shock in the past
calendar year, and almost half had not recovered from that shock six months later.29
For many facing these charges, there is no other option than to lose the vehicle to a lien sale.
But as Miguel’s story — detailed on page 6 — illustrates, that often does not address the direct
financial impact of the tow because the proceeds from the lien sale too often do not cover the
costs of the tow. When that happens, the towing company can still seek to recover the rest of
the towing and storage bill. So for Miguel, even after a towing company sold his car in a lien sale,
he faced a deficiency bill of $1,674. And if an individual owes money on parking tickets, that
debt also does not go away when the car does. Like any consumer debt, the resulting debt
from the lien sale can lead to wage garnishment and have a negative impact on a person’s
credit for seven years.
Continued debt after a tow can also be exacerbated by car lenders who repossess the vehicle
and call in the loan, rather than have the car sold at a lien sale. This leads to new charges, in
addition to the loss of the vehicle. Mr. H’s car was towed for unpaid parking tickets. While it was
impounded, his car lender repossessed his vehicle. The lender then sought immediate payment
of the vehicle’s entire loan balance, plus $3,742.50 as “the costs of repossession.” The insult
to Mr. H’s injury has driven him further into debt.
b. VEHICLE IMPOUNDS SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACT LOW-INCOME WORKERS’

ECONOMIC PROSPECTS
Beyond the direct financial impacts of towing and lien sales, the loss of a vehicle can have
far-reaching economic consequences for low wage workers and their ability to earn a living.
Having regular access to a vehicle is one of the biggest factors in determining who will prosper
in our economic system and who will be shut out of it. One survey of California residents found
that respondents identified a lack of access to reliable transportation as the second biggest
immediate barrier to employment, behind reliable child care.30 Another study indicated that
car ownership plays a bigger role in getting a job than having a high school diploma.31
A vehicle can make it easier to find work. One study suggested that unemployed people
with access to cars were more likely to find a job and leave welfare than individuals without
vehicles,32 potentially because private vehicles increase the number of jobs which a person
can physically access.33 Some jobs and even professions also require access to a vehicle, as
Ms. Lovelace’s story on page 6 illustrates. As an interior designer, she needed a car to transport
samples and visit clients’ homes. When she lost her car, she could not find a job as an interior
designer again. She was shut out, not only from a job, but her entire profession.
Having a vehicle also correlates with keeping a job if a person has one already. One study
found that workers with access to a car were almost twice as likely to remain employed over
a full 18 to 24 months period than workers without a car, even after leaving the examined
welfare program.34 Another study examining employment rates in Fresno found that cars
not only help people become employed, but also help workers to stay employed.35
Finally, access to a car not only divides those who can get a job from those who cannot, and
those who can keep their job from those who will lose it, it may also impact how much someone
earns at their job. In one survey of people who were given a loan for a vehicle when they were
struggling financially, half of respondents increased their gross monthly income, with an
average increase of 8.2 percent in wages.36 Over one-third of respondents saw an increase
in their income of over 10 percent.37 In another study, researchers found that car ownership
actually had a higher correlation with higher wages than a Latinx person’s citizenship status.38
Having access to a car has proven to be much more useful to workers than access to public
transit.39 Despite efforts by urban planners and public transit agencies, far too few communities
in our state have reliable access to a strong public transportation system. Even where there
is public transportation, it is often slow and inconvenient.40 As a result, drivers in many regions
have access to a wider variety of jobs and can make themselves available for longer hours.41
This translates into real economic differences for car owners and those who rely on public
transportation. One survey of low-income residents of Los Angeles showed that earnings
rose as commuting distance increased, but those who used public transit to commute suffered
a “commuting penalty.”42 In other words, drivers’ earnings can be higher than those who used
public transit.43 In another study, researchers found that under some circumstances access
to a car can help workers achieve a 40-hour work week, in some cases translating into nearly
nine additional hours of work per week, and drivers with the same position can earn between
$0.70 and $2.06 more than those who take transit in hourly wages.44
THE GIG ECONOMY
The recent trend in California towards the “gig economy”45 illustrates the need for a car.
More and more low-income people are relying on income from part-time, on-demand
positions as either their main source of income or to supplement other low-wage earnings.
This source of income offers flexibility, but it usually requires access to a reliable vehicle.
From driving for Uber, Lyft, and other ride share programs, to delivering food and groceries
via Caviar, Postmates, and the other delivery services proliferating in urban areas, low wage
workers often rely on their vehicles for this source of income. If their car is towed, they lose
access to this income stream.
Mr. H’s story illustrates this. He was living at a shelter in San Francisco when his car was
towed because of overdue parking tickets. He could not afford both the tickets and the
additional towing charges, plus the quickly compounding storage fees and he lost his car.
Since then, he has been delivering food for Caviar to get by. With no car, this means climbing
the city’s famous hills on foot. As a senior, this work is especially exhausting, and there
is only so many deliveries he can manage every day.
c. IMPOUNDING A LOW-INCOME WORKER’S VEHICLE CAN NEGATIVELY

AFFECT THEIR PUBLIC BENEFITS
When the state’s towing and impound practices make it harder for people to find work, it also
makes it harder for individuals to move off public assistance.46 Those who entered welfare with
both a car and a job were 41% more likely to keep their job and leave welfare in a timely manner
than those who began with a job, but without a car.47 And welfare recipients who gained access
to a car after entering welfare may be up to twice as likely to get a job and leave welfare.48
On the other hand, losing a car not only makes it harder to transition off welfare and into
employment, it can actually jeopardize an individual’s access to these vital benefits. Adults in
the state’s CalWORKs program must work up to 30 hours a week or risk losing a portion of the
grant. When a family on CalWORKS loses their car due to towing, they face the same struggles
in meeting their work requirement that low wage workers face. This leaves families poorer
and deepens childhood experiences of acute poverty.
d. LOSING A VEHICLE CAN NEGATIVELY AFFECT ACCESS TO EDUCATION

Losing a vehicle can also negatively impact educational and training opportunities for California
children and adults. More than half of all school children in California ages 5-15 travel to school
in a private vehicle.49 In some counties like San Bernardino, Santa Clara and San Diego, that
number is higher than 60%. And with the decline in neighborhood schools, more and more
children live further away from schools than they did forty years ago—in 2009, more than
a third of all school children in California lived more than two miles away from school.50 But
even amongst students who live within two miles of school, more than 50% arrive by private
vehicle.51 With so many families relying on private vehicles to transport their children to school,
the sudden loss of a car could cause significant disruption to those children’s education.
A lost car can also disrupt adults’ access to education, which could help improve their economic
situation. More than one quarter of low-income consumers in one survey reported that gaining
a car led to educational achievement.52 Conversely, losing a car can prevent people who are
unemployed from gaining the skills necessary to compete in the workplace.
Santos Mehrara illustrates this experience. Mr. Mehrara is 36, homeless, and a disabled SSI
recipient. However, he had a car, an asset that served as a lifeline that he used to commute to
school. In 2017, the City of San Francisco towed Mr. Mehrara’s car because he could not afford
to pay for parking tickets. Mr. Mehrara managed to pay $700 to get his car back, thinking that
his payment resolved the situation. Mr. Mehrara’s vehicle was soon towed again. When he
attempted to retrieve it, he discovered that he owed more than $2,000, an unpayable sum of
money for a disabled resident on a low, fixed income. Mr. Mehrara lost his car and with it, the
ability to commute to his classes.
e. LOSING A VEHICLE CAN LIMIT HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES

More and more jobs are being created in the suburbs, which effectively requires many low-
income urban residents to drive a car to access those jobs.53 Due to poor public transit options
in the suburbs, many of those same jobs are also inaccessible to the suburban poor, a group
which has grown three times as rapidly as the urban poor since 2000.54 Meanwhile, the search
for affordable housing is pushing the poor further and further away from job centers.55 Today,
less than half of all Americans live within a quarter mile of any sort of public transit stop.56 Many
low-income Californians without a car are thus left with the stark choice between housing they
can afford and a job they can reach.
For Californians who need financial assistance to afford housing, losing their car can effectively
shut them out of entire neighborhoods. For example, families who use a Section 8 voucher
are less likely to successfully move to low-poverty neighborhoods if they do not have a car.57
Section 8 recipients with a car can move to places with lower poverty.58 These neighborhoods
expose low-income families to far fewer carcinogens and other hazards,59 as well as more work
opportunities, and better schools.60
f. IMPACT ON INDIVIDUALS LIVING IN THEIR VEHICLES

With California in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, the same Californians most
vulnerable to losing their vehicles due to their inability to pay tickets and registration fees are
also those most likely to experience homelessness. As housing costs skyrocket throughout
California, more individuals are turning to their vehicles to provide shelter. In Los Angeles,
one third of the estimated 39,000 people who are unsheltered within the County’s Continuum
of Care live in vehicles61—almost twice as many as live in tents and other encampments.62
Fifty percent of all children who are unhoused in Los Angeles County live in vehicles.63
For individuals unable to afford a traditional roof over their heads, a vehicle offers a level
of security and stability that a tent or makeshift encampment simply cannot provide. Yet
individuals living in their vehicles are often at risk of losing them because of unpaid parking
tickets, lapsed registrations, and enforcement of the 72-hour rule. People who are homeless
frequently have no other option than to park their vehicles on public streets and in public lots,
where unregistered vehicles are subject to parking tickets and towing. A recent study by the
Economic Roundtable in Los Angeles found that, although one-third of all homeless people
live in their vehicles, only one-sixth of people who were homeless for over a year live in their
vehicles.64 In other words, after a year of homelessness, an individual was significantly more
likely to be living in a tent than in a vehicle. The report linked this trend to the frequency with
which unsheltered people lose their vehicles due to debt collection and registration tows.65
STEVE VENEGAS
In 2018, Steve Venegas lost his job and was evicted from his apartment. With no place to go,
he began living in his car in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. Although it was
challenging to live in his car, he felt safe and secure, and his belongings stayed relatively
clean and dry. But in quick succession, Mr. Venegas received a number of parking tickets
for violating one of the many parking restrictions in the neighborhood. Without a job, he
could not afford to pay the $68 tickets, and the city placed a hold on his vehicle registration.
When his registration expired, he still could not afford to pay the over $800 in fines that had
accumulated for his five outstanding tickets. So even though he paid his registration fees
for 2018, the DMV would not renew his registration. In July, the city put a boot on his car.
He managed to enroll in a payment plan and scraped together $650 to get the boot removed.
But the following month, he could not make the next $375 payment that was due, and he
defaulted on the payment plan. Still unable to register his car and without anywhere other
than public streets to park, he kept getting parking tickets for failing to display current
registration tags.
In November 2018, while he was sleeping in his car, parking enforcement officers came to
tow it away. He couldn’t pay the outstanding fees and wasn’t allowed to enroll in another
payment plan. In December 2018, the towing company auctioned the car off to collect its
fees. Since then, Mr. Venegas has been living in a tent on the sidewalk, next to where he used
to park his car. Living on the sidewalk during the wettest and coldest winter in decades has
made it a daily struggle just to keep his belongings dry, let alone make himself presentable
enough to look for a new job. But if he got a job interview, he would worry about leaving his
belongings alone on the sidewalk, for fear that the Department of Sanitation would come and
throw them all away.
When a person who is homeless loses their vehicle, the effects can be catastrophic. Many
people living in vehicles are the working poor—individuals who are working full time, sometimes
struggling to keep more than one job, and yet, because of the cost of housing, still unable to
afford rent. Their vehicles provide not only transportation but also shelter. As discussed above,
when individuals lose their vehicles, it can be that much more difficult to maintain steady
employment and find a path out of homelessness. But if a person is living in their vehicle, the
loss of a vehicle can compound these obstacles. After a tow, many people who were living in
their cars wind up sleeping in tents or makeshift encampments on the sidewalk. Maintaining
employment is nearly impossible. Other mundane yet critical tasks, from getting medical
care to finding a place to take a shower, become even more difficult. In addition, living on the
sidewalk, people are subjected to criminalization, the loss of their belongings to sanitation
sweeps, violent attacks, and inclement weather.
ANNA MCNIFFE
Some municipal tows take money from funds meant for housing, to pay for tow fees.
Anna Mcniffe, 65, had been living in her RV for a year in Malibu prior to the 2018 Woolsey
fire. She left her RV to buy food for victims of the fire, but when she tried to return a little
while later, the roads were closed, and she could not return to Malibu for a week. When she
finally returned, she discovered her RV was impounded by Malibu Towing. In an attempt to
retrieve her RV, she went to Malibu Towing with a form from the police department ordering
the release of the RV, but Malibu Towing told her that fees had accumulated, and unless
she paid them they were unable to assist her. Fortunately, Ms. Mcniffe was assisted by the
Neighborhood Legal Services of LA County, who made it possible for Ms. Mcniffe to obtain
a $2,500 grant from the County’s homeless prevention fund. The County dollars paid for
the towing and storage fees needed for the release of her home.
PART TWO: POVERTY TOWS
IV. OVERNMENTS REGULARLY TOW CARS EVEN WHERE

G
THERE IS NO PUBLIC SAFETY RATIONALE
Despite the devastating economic consequences of a tow, local governments regularly tow cars
where it does not serve any public safety purpose, and where it unfairly targets low income people.
There are numerous unfair tows across the state, including towing crime victims’ vehicles and
selling them while the victims are hospitalized, and towing cars when the driver has an expired
license, even though there is a licensed driver who could legally and safely drive it away. Of the wide
range of towing abuses, three reasons for tows rose to the top as important areas of concern, in
both the anecdotal evidence and the data: 1) when a driver has five or more outstanding parking
tickets; 2) when the car has expired registration; and 3) when the car is parked more in one place
for than 72 hours. Collectively, these are “poverty tows,” or non-urgent tows that disproportionately
impact middle- and low-income Californians.
• Five or more parking tickets
Local governments can tow a car just because the owner has accrued five or more outstanding
parking tickets.66 If this happens, the owner cannot retrieve their car from the tow lot until they
have paid all the outstanding parking tickets and late fees on the towed vehicle, all the outstanding
parking tickets on any other car the person owns, and all the towing and storage fees.
• Unregistered vehicles or lapsed registration
Local governments can tow a vehicle that is not registered, if the registration has been lapsed
for more than six months.67 If this happens, the owner cannot retrieve their car until they have
registered their car by paying all outstanding registration fees and penalties, as well as any
outstanding traffic and parking tickets that may have led to a registration hold.68 Then the owner
can pay the towing and storage fees to retrieve their vehicle.
• 72-Hour Ordinances
Local governments can tow any vehicle that has been parked in thesame legal parking spot for
more than 72 hours.69 This particularly impacts people who do not have private offstreet parking
-- often because they cannot afford it. For people who are sick, traveling, hospitalized, jailed, or
attending to other emergencies, the 72-hour law can be impossible to follow. There is anecdotal
evidence that vehicles have been towed for 72 hour violations even when the vehicle owner is in
or near the car at the time of tow; enforcement is not reserved for removing abandoned vehicles.
To retrieve a car towed for a 72-hour violation, a vehicle owner must pay all towing and storage fees.
SUSAN LEFF
72-hour tows can harm people during medical emergencies. Susan Leff is currently
an Assistant Public Defender in Nevada. When she was a young attorney, she worked in
Stockton making a low salary while living in San Francisco. One day, she became sick and
needed to go to the hospital. While she was recovering in the hospital, her motorcycle was
parked for more than 72 hours and was subsequently towed. By the time she discovered
what happened, she could no longer afford the tow and storage fees, despite her full-time
job. As a result, the tow company sold her motorcycle; she lost it permanently.
a. TENS OF THOUSANDS OF TOWS EACH YEAR ARE NOT RELATED TO PUBLIC SAFETY
Unpaid tickets, expired registration, and parking for more than 72 hours combine to constitute
a large percentage of impounds in California. Based on data from eight cities, analysts estimate
that public agencies ordered more than 979,000 tows in 2016 and over 865,000 tows in 2017.
They also estimate that 22 percent (in 2016) and 26 percent (in 2017) of these tows were based
on one or or more of these non-emergency, non-safety related reasons. These poverty tows
overwhelmingly impact low-income individuals and people of color,70 often permanently
stripping people of the thing that allows them to keep a roof over their heads.
REASONS FOR VEHICLE TOWS BY CITY OF SANTA ANA (2015-18)
22%
2%
62% 12%
2%
 Poverty Tows  Criminal Investigation  Flow of Traffic  License Suspension  Other/Unspecified

Poverty Tows Criminal Investigation Flow of Traffic License Suspension Other/Unspecified
Reason for Vehicle Tows in Santa Ana (2015-18)
In some areas of California, poverty tows outstrip tows for each other reason. For example,
in Chula Vista, lapsed registration tows account for over 31% of all vehicles towed and 72-hour
tows account for more than 12%. By contrast, only 6% of all tows are related to maintaining
the flow of traffic.
REASON FOR VEHICLE TOWS BY CITY OF CHULA VISTA (2017)
22%
6%
48%
24%
 Poverty Tows  Criminal Investigation  Flow of Traffic  License Suspension

Poverty Tow Criminal Investigation Flow of Traffic License Suspension
These trends are especially noticeable in many of California’s major cities. In San Diego, for
example, poverty tows constituted 40% of all impounds whereas flow-of-traffic impounds
were the basis for only 26% of impounds.71 The City of Oakland impounded roughly 36,500
Reason for cars between January 2016 and May 2018. Of these, 11,500 (31.5%) were impounded for having
Vehicle
Tows in
expired registration and just 5,780 cars (16%) were towed for posing a hazard to the flow of
Chula traffic.72 And there is some evidence that the number of poverty tows are increasing steadily.
Vista In the first seven months of 2017, the San Francisco MTA towed over 2,500 vehicles for either debt
(2017) collection, lapsed registration, or both. But in the first seven months of 2018, the SFMTA towed
nearly 3,400 vehicles for those reasons,
a 33% increase.
REASON FOR VEHICLE TOWS BY CITY OF SAN DIEGO (2016-18)
18%
26%
40%
14%
2%
Poverty Tow Criminal Investigation Flow of Traffic License Suspension Other

 Poverty Tows  Criminal Investigation  Flow of Traffic  License Suspension  Other
Reason for Statewide,

Vehicle Tows in
theSanCalifornia
Diego (2016-18)
Highway Patrol is over 36 times more likely to impound your car
for poverty tows than for a criminal investigation. Almost 30% of the tows ordered by the
California Highway Patrol were for expired registration, while less than 1% were for criminal
investigations.
b. POVERTY TOWS DISPROPORTIONATELY LEAD TO LIEN SALES

Logic dictates that people whose vehicles are towed for poverty-related reasons are less likely
to have the financial means to retrieve the cars from the tow lot, and their cars are thus more
likely to be sold at auction than vehicles towed for other reasons. The data demonstrates this
to be true. In San Francisco, for example, half of all vehicles towed for debt collection are sold
at lien sale, and 57% of registration tows lead to lien sales, even though only 9% of vehicles
towed for all reasons were sold instead of recovered. The charts below show similar trends
in San Diego and Riverside County.
In all three of the California municipalities that provided lien sale data, poverty tows were
the top three reasons people lost their vehicles at lien sale. Even though they were not the
top three reasons that vehicles were towed initially, and even though they are usually the
least serious, least urgent reasons for tows in California, these tows are the most likely to
permanently deprive Californians of their vehicles.
VEHICLES RELEASED VS. SOLD POST-TOW IN SAN DIEGO (2016-18)
Sold Released
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
72 Hour Ordinance Registration Debt Collection Criminal Flow of Traffic All Reasons
Investigation
VEHICLES RELEASED VS. SOLD POST-TOW IN RIVERSIDE COUNTY (2016-18)

Vehicles Released vs. Sold Post-Tow in San Diego (2016-18)
Sold Released
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
72 Hour Ordinance Debt Collection Registration Flow of Traffic Criminal All Reasons
Investigation
Vehicles Released vs. Sold Post-Tow in Riverside (2016-18)

VEHICLES RELEASED VS. SOLD POST-TOW IN SAN FRANCISCO (2005-17)
Sold Released
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Registration Debt Collection 72 Hour Criminal Flow of Traffic All Reasons
Ordinance Investigation
Vehicles Released vs. Sold Post-Tow in San Francisco (2005-17)
San Francisco (2005-17)

V. NO ONE WINS WITH POVERTY TOWS
The sheer volume of tows for non-urgent reasons, and the disproportionate number of lien sales
that result, means that if local governments stopped towing vehicles for debt collection, lapsed
registration, and 72-hour ordinances, they could dramatically reduce the number and cost
of tow-yard lien sales.
a. POVERTY TOWS DRAIN MONEY FROM THE PUBLIC FISC

Governments lose money when they tow cars for poverty-related reasons. The reason
governments lose money from poverty tows is that such cars are less likely to be retrieved
from the tow lot, and more likely to be sold at lien sales – and as explained in Section II,
tow companies lose thousands of dollars with every lien sale.
As the chart below illustrates, almost 70% of all vehicles sold at lien sale in San Diego were
towed because of lapsed registration, unpaid parking tickets, or a 72-hour ordinance. During
a roughly two-year period, the city sold approximately 12,000 vehicles; over 8,200 of these
sold vehicles were related to poverty tows.
TABLE: TOWING AND LIEN SALES NUMBERS IN SAN DIEGO (2016-18)
REASON FOR TOW NUMBER OF PERCENTAGE NUMBER OF PERCENTAGE

VEHICLES OF ALL TOWS VEHICLES OF ALL SALES
TOWED SOLD
Debt Collection 2375 5% 702 6%

Registration 11263 24% 4950 42%
72 Hour Ordinance 4714 10% 2613 22%
ALL POVERTY TOWS 18352 40% 8265 69%
A similar trend holds in San Francisco. Records provided by the City of San Francisco, dating
back more than ten years, track over 150,000 tows. Half of all vehicles that San Francisco towed
for debt collection were sold at lien sale, and 57% of registration tows led to lien sales. Although
these tows only make up about 9% of all vehicles towed, they make up 55% of lien sales. During
the same 10-year time period, the city sold about 14,100 towed vehicles at lien sale, and about
7,700 of these vehicles (55%) were towed for registration and/or debt collection. By eliminating
these two types of tows, cities could drive down the number of lien sales. As detailed in Section
II, this would make their towing programs significantly more cost-effective and could allow
them to lower towing fees.
Additionally, using tows to coerce payments on parking ticket debt is often ineffective.
First, it deprives many people of a necessary tool for their employment: their car.73 If they
cannot work, it is harder for people to pay.74 Second, several studies have shown that when
governments demand fines and fees that are too high for a person to pay, that person does
not pay anything. In fact, people are more likely to pay—and governments can collect more
overall—when the amounts due are reduced according to their ability to pay.75
b. POVERTY TOWS ARE UNFAIR TO LOW-INCOME PEOPLE
People who have unpaid parking tickets, lapsed vehicle registration, or 72-hour parking
violations are likely to be low-income, as these circumstances are usually avoidable for
people who have enough money to pay fines and fees or pay for private parking. Thus, when
a government agency tows a vehicle for one of these reasons, it is often compounding already
untenable financial circumstances.
It is easy to see how a law that allows an agency to tow a vehicle for unpaid parking tickets
disproportionately impacts low-income drivers. Many low-income people fail to pay because
they cannot afford the often-sky-high cost of these tickets.
It is also apparent that a person who is struggling financially could find themselves unable
to afford the cost to register a vehicle.
There is also a less obvious link between unpaid parking tickets and lapsed registration. When
a person gets a single parking ticket and cannot pay it, the agency that issued the ticket can put
a “hold” on that person’s vehicle registration with the Department of Motor Vehicles.76 When that
happens, the vehicle owner cannot register their vehicle until they have resolved all parking
ticket fines and late fees, in addition to the vehicle registration fees.77 If they cannot afford to
pay, the registration lapses, and they can accrue even more parking tickets for failure to display
valid registration tags. And of course, this cycle continues, as each new parking ticket can be
reported to the DMV. This sends a person further down the spiral of debt. Five parking tickets
later (or six months after the vehicle registration lapsed), the government can tow the car for
outstanding parking tickets or expired registration (or both). Thus, for a low-income person, a
single expired meter, misread parking sign, or forgotten street cleaning can too easily lead to
a vicious debt cycle and permanent loss of their vehicle. In these instances, towing is not being
used to address threats to public safety, but to coerce people to pay fines and fees. When that
is impossible for a low income Californian to do, the coercion does not work as a collections
tool, and it causes the often devastating loss of the person’s vehicle.
In addition, in some circumstances, a registration violation is more likely to cause a tow than
erratic or drunk driving. For example, if a person is pulled over for a registration violation, and
they have an expired or suspended license, the officer can immediately order the car towed.
In contrast, if a person is pulled over at a drunk driving checkpoint, or for smuggling illegal
agriculture into California, and does not have a current license, the officer must allow the owner
of a vehicle to have another person who does have a license to drive it away, saving the car from
the tow yard.78
The rule permitting the government to tow any car parked on the street for more than 72
hours affects people in most income brackets in California – anyone can unwittingly leave
their vehicle parked on the street for a few days and then return to find it towed. But this law
hits low-income people particularly hard because low income people have less access to safe
off-street parking, particularly in large urban areas. In many major cities in California, parking
spaces are at a premium and many apartment buildings do not include parking spaces,
or landlords charge hundreds of dollars for off-street parking. People who cannot afford
off-street parking are at higher risk of leaving their vehicle parked on the street and
violating the 72-hour rule.
ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF COLLECTING DEBT ON UNPAID PARKING TICKETS
Governments can collect unpaid parking tickets and registration fees without towing cars.
Some other powerful tools they can use to collect debts owed to the government include:
• Governments can collect debt owed to them by enlisting the Franchise Tax Board
to intercept tax refunds or lottery winnings.79
• If the person owes more than $400 in parking tickets, the agency can enter
a civil judgment against the person for the amount of the tickets, the late fees,
and court costs.80
• After a civil judgment is entered, the agency can use ordinary measures to collect debt,
including bank levies and wage garnishments.81
c. POVERTY TOWS DISPROPORTIONATELY IMPACT UNHOUSED PEOPLE,

IMMIGRANTS, AND PEOPLE OF COLOR
Towing and selling vehicles as a punishment for people who cannot pay municipal debts is
linked to a long history of targeted enforcement against poor people and people of color in the
United States. While many point to the abuses cited by the Department of Justice in the wake
of the Ferguson uprising, the use of fines and punishments against African-American people
in particular has far deeper historical antecedents. As Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote for the
Supreme Court in February 2019:
Following the Civil War, Southern States enacted Black Codes to subjugate newly freed slaves
and maintain the prewar racial hierarchy. Among these laws’ provisions were draconian fines
for violating broad proscriptions on “vagrancy” and other dubious offenses.82
The Supreme Court cited this history in deciding that the Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines
clause applied to a state seizing and selling a man’s car after he was arrested.83 Since Ferguson,
there has been a growing recognition that (1) over-policing of minor offenses--particularly
targeted enforcement—creates and exacerbates race inequality, and that (2) it is unjust for
governments to impose fines and fees and then punish people who cannot afford to pay.84
The few available surveys on towing show discriminatory impact. In 2018, the East Bay
Express reported on the towing crisis in Oakland and reviewed the towing details of over
26,000 tows. They mapped the data and found that the Oakland Police Department towed
vehicles more often from neighborhoods in East Oakland, which are predominantly Latinx
and Black communities, than anywhere else in its jurisdiction.85 A survey of tows in Menlo
Park showed disproportionate impact on Latinx drivers.86 In San Francisco, the city sends
MTA enforcement officers to respond to complaints about poor and homeless people parked
in certain neighborhoods, dispatching officers and tow trucks to find out whether there are
grounds to tow—usually for lapsed registration, unpaid tickets, or 72-hour violations.87 Officers
will tow even if the vehicle owner is there, despite the fact that they stop other MTA tows if the
vehicle owner arrives.88 Other studies and reporting have shown significant racial bias in traffic
stops by law enforcement agencies in various parts of the state, many of which can lead to the
towing of vehicles.89
While advocates requested towing data from jurisdictions that would allow a racial disparity
analysis for places like Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles
Department of Transportation, and other agencies throughout the state either failed or
outright refused to provide this information, making this kind of analysis impossible statewide.
MR. KELLY
Not just poor and homeless people are targeted for tows; sometimes it’s also the people
who help them. Mr. Kelly has spent the last 18 months helping unhoused people who are
living in their vehicles in Oakland. When the City of Oakland would slap 72-hour notices
on the cars of people living in their vehicles (ordering them to move a mile or face towing),
Mr. Kelly would use his pick-up truck to help move any inoperable RVs and trailers out of
the tow zone. One morning, when he came to help move some vehicles facing tows at 20th
and Willow, he found that his own truck and trailer had been towed. “It was the first one
they picked out,” Mr. Kelly said. “I know they know my truck. Because many different times
I’ve towed these 4-5 vehicles. They knew if they towed me first they’d have the rest,
so that’s what they did.”
Where unnecessary towing practices lead to the loss of vehicles, this can exacerbate existing
racial disparities in car ownership, transportation equity, and resulting economic opportunity.
These disparities are well-documented in our state.
People of color are less likely to own vehicles, but are more likely to live in communities
with inadequate public transportation systems. Empirical evidence suggests that, relative
to white workers, Black and Latinx workers are already less likely to have stable access
to a car,90 and a lack of car access has been shown to contribute to the disparate rates of
unemployment between white workers and workers of color.91 There is also a significant racial
disparity in terms of investment in public transportation, even though people of color are
more likely to rely on public transportation. In Los Angeles, most residents who rely on public
transportation come from low-income households and are people of color,92 but investments
in public transportation have historically ignored these communities. This lack of investment
perpetuates racial inequality by diminishing individuals’ access to economic opportunity
and perpetuating racial segregation,93 and it makes car ownership even more critical.
KING CITY TOWING SCHEME
A towing scandal in a small agricultural city in the Salinas Valley shows how poverty
tows can enable targeted enforcement. In 2014, police officers in King City were
arrested and charged with involvement in a corruption scheme involving the city’s
private towing contractor (Miller’s Towing).94 The officers alleged received kickbacks
from the towing company in exchange for ordering tows based on minor infractions,
such as expired registration.95 According to city residents, officers targeted low-income
Latinx farmworkers who could not afford to pay towing fines and fees and frequently
lost their vehicles at auctions or lien sales.96 A class-action lawsuit led to a $1.2 million
dollar settlement for the victims of this scheme.97
Finally, towing policies create an additional economic barrier for immigrants. Approximately
20 percent of non-citizen immigrants earn poverty-level wages nationally,98 and California has
more immigrants than any other state.99 Because immigrants are disproportionately likely
to be low-income,100 they are necessarily less likely to be able to afford the excessive towing
and impound fees described in this report. Many may fear that interacting with government
bureacracies in order to get their cars back will lead to deportation, and additional challenges
related to immigration status.
MS. CRISPINA R.
For many people, including immigrants, even understanding how to get their car back after
a tow is a challenge. Ms. Crispina R., a 35-year-old undocumented mother, immigrated to
California from Oaxaca, Mexico in 2008. A Fresno Police Officer pulled her over in February
2019 because of expired registration tags and ordered that her car be towed. Before
being pulled over, Ms. R was in the process of getting her van smogged, but the mechanic
helping her advised Ms. R to drive the vehicle before work was complete. After her car was
towed, she went to the police department to inquire about the location of her van, and the
police provided her with a towing company’s information. When she contacted the towing
company, no employee spoke Spanish, leaving Ms. R unable to obtain further information
about her van. Without her vehicle, Ms. R is unable to transport her five children to school
and to their doctor.
California counties struggle to find solutions that adequately address decades of structural
racism, disinvestment, and resulting inequality. As communities fight to address these
deeply entrenched problems, one remedy that research has shown helps at the individual
level is car ownership.101 But the state’s current towing practices that strip low-income people
of their vehicles take away even this opportunity for economic advancement and increased
racial equality.
VI. MANY POVERTY TOWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL
The United States and California constitutions place important limits on our government’s power
to take people’s property. Several recent court decisions—including by the United States Supreme
Court—have underscored that there are only a few, limited circumstances in which towing vehicles
is constitutionally permissible, and cities violate the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments
when they tow private vehicles otherwise.102
a. THE FOURTH AMENDMENT PROHIBITS WARRANTLESS TOWS

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents the government from unreasonably
seizing a person’s property: “The right of the people to be secure . . . against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . .” Warrantless seizures are “per se
unreasonable.”103 This means that, before towing a privately owned vehicle, government
agencies must either get a warrant, or meet one of the few exceptions to the warrant
requirement.104 These exceptions include seizures effectuated to stop a crime in progress,
seizures conducted with owner consent, and seizures to ensure public safety. There is no
exception to the general constitutional warrant requirement that permits governments to seize
vehicles for debt collection.
California has also recognized the importance of ensuring that any towing of a vehicle complies
with the protections of the Fourth Amendment. In 2018, the state legislature passed a law
clarifying that “[a]ny removal of a vehicle is a seizure under the Fourth Amendment of the
Constitution of the United States and Section 13 of Article I of the California Constitution, and
shall be reasonable and subject to the limits set forth in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.”105
The new law clarifies that tows without a warrant are constitutional only if they fall under one
of the exceptions to the warrant requirement, “such as ensuring the safe flow of traffic or
protecting property from theft or vandalism.”106
Cities across California violate the Fourth Amendment when they tow cars without warrants
just because the owner owes fines and fees, has not paid the vehicle registration fee, or has not
moved their car for 72 hours. None of these rationales for vehicle tows are sufficient to justify
a warrantless seizure under the Fourth Amendment. None are emergencies, none are crimes,
and none implicate safety concerns.
A San Francisco delivery driver—Sean Kayode—recently became one of the first people to
challenge debt collection tows under the Fourth Amendment. His car was towed because he
owed money for parking tickets. Mr. Kayode was homeless, and without his car, he could not
work to save money for housing. In October 2018, a federal court in California ordered the City
of San Francisco to give Mr. Kayode his car back because the City’s tow of the car raised serious
questions under the Fourth Amendment.107
b. THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT REQUIRES
ADEQUATE NOTICE AND OPPORTUNITY TO CONTEST A TOW
The Constitution prohibits a state from depriving “any person of … property, without due
process of law.”108 At the core of the Due Process guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment
is pre-deprivation notice--some advance warning that the government is going to take your
property-- and a meaningful chance to challenge the deprivation before it happens.109 In
the context of vehicle tows, courts have recognized that people have an important right in
continued possession of their cars, and that the government’s seizure of a person’s car causes
significant hardship.110 Because cars are so important to people’s daily lives, courts have
required that governments must give people notice before towing vehicles and must provide
vehicle owners a reasonable opportunity to contest the tow or to show that towing the car would
be illegal or unconstitutional.111 The only exceptions to this general rule include emergencies,
situations in which notice would defeat the point of the tow, and situations in which the interest
at stake is small relative to the burden that giving notice would impose.112
Throughout California, however, local governments seize and tow cars without providing any
advance notice of the impending tow, and without providing the owner with any opportunity to
contest the tow in advance, or to show that towing the car would be illegal or unconstitutional.
Although local governments do permit an owner to request a “tow hearing” after the tow has
already occurred, those hearings are essentially shams. Hearing officers regularly refuse to
consider whether the tow violated the constitutional rights of the vehicle owner, and regularly
refuse to even consider whether it was improper to tow a person’s car for nonpayment of
parking tickets when the reason for nonpayment was inability to pay. Further, hearing officers
typically refuse to allow the vehicle owner to question the officer who ordered the tow or to
see any of the evidence against them before their hearing. In addition, hearing officers do not
make an independent determination of the necessity of towing a particular vehicle; instead,
hearing officers consider simply whether the tow was authorized by statute. The towing of a
vehicle without prior notice, and without any meaningful opportunity to be heard, violates the
Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.
TOW HEARINGS DON’T WORK
Within the first ten days after a vehicle is towed by a government agency, the vehicle owner
may request an administrative hearing to challenge the legality of the tow. (Vehicle Code
section 10652.5.) Most people don’t know that this opportunity exists, but even for those
fortunate enough to know of the right to a hearing, the hearing is unlikely to offer relief.
First, the hearing is not held in front of a judge. In fact, often it is a police officer who works
for the same agency that ordered the tow. Second, many cities do not allow people to see
the evidence against them before, or even at the hearing. Third, hearing officers are limited
to determining if there was a legal basis for a tow: for a debt collection tow, this means that
if the vehicle owner truly did accumulate unpaid tickets, the hearing officer will uphold the
legality of the tow. Despite constitutional prohibitions against punishing people who cannot
pay, hearing officers are not required to consider inability to pay the parking tickets that
precipitated the tow.
Mr. Mehrara, whose story is captured in Chapter III, and Mr. Fisher, whose story is set out
below, both requested hearings after their vehicles were towed. Neither recovered their
vehicle through the process. Mr. Fisher – whose car had been towed for lapsed registration
-- showed the hearing officer proof that his car had passed a smog test and that he could
pay his registration fees as soon as he received his next SSI check. Nonetheless, the
hearing officer ruled that the tow was performed for a statutorily valid reason (lapsed
registration), and Mr. Fisher’s circumstances were irrelevant.
Mr. Mehrara, meanwhile, never received a tow hearing. When the San Francisco Municipal
Transit Agency towed his vehicle due to the accumulation of five unpaid parking tickets,
Mr. Mehrara called the agency to request a tow hearing. He was told that he would be
notified when the agency scheduled a hearing, but he never received such notification.
Unsure what to do, he contacted the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. However, by the
time he spoke with an attorney, Mr. Mehrara’s car had been sold at a lien sale.
c. THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT EXCESSIVE FINES CLAUSE PROHIBITS

DISPROPORTIONATE FINANCIAL PENALTIES
In its February 2019 decision in Timbs v. Indiana, the United States Supreme Court issued a rare
unanimous decision, holding that the State of Indiana may have violated the 8th Amendment’s
Excessive Fines Clause when it seized the vehicle of an Indiana man because he had committed
a drug crime.113 Under the Eighth Amendment, “[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”114 In deciding that the
Excessive Fines clause applies to the states, and to the state of Indiana taking Mr. Timbs’ car,
the Supreme Court recognized that the government must not impose fines that are out of
proportion to the crime committed, that government-imposed fines must “not be so large as
to deprive [an offender] of his livelihood,” and that no one shall have a larger fine than their
“circumstances or personal estate will bear.”115
The Timbs decision casts serious doubt on the constitutionality of the government’s seizure
of a vehicle to punish nonpayment of parking tickets or registration fees, or to punish parking
for longer than 72-hours in the same spot. Towing a vehicle for such offense is not proportion
to the “offense” the vehicle owner has committed, and as explained in Section I, vehicle seizures
are so expensive that low and moderate income people often cannot retrieve their vehicles
after a tow; the resulting permanent loss of the vehicle deprives many people of their ability
to earn a livelihood, and even their homes, and is financially ruinous – all hallmarks of an
excessive fine under the 8th Amendment.
AB 503 AND AB 2544

AB 503 and AB 2544, signed into law in October 2017 and September 2018 respectively,
prevent cities and municipalities from placing a hold on a driver’s registration for unpaid
parking tickets unless a driver is offered a payment plan if they are too poor to pay
immediately. The criteria are limited: even though parking ticket fines have risen and half
of Americans can’t afford $500, only the poorest people—usually those on public benefits—
qualify. The process also places the burden on Californians to demonstrate their indigence
in person, request a payment plan, and make a manual payment every month.
The system does not benefit or work for many Californians. Diane owes parking fines in
multiple cities and counties. Until she resolves those fines, she cannot register her car,
which leaves her in constant fear of being towed. For three months, Diane has taken time
away from her freelance employment to travel to different parking enforcement agencies
and request payment plans. Multiple times, Diane has had to argue with agency and DMV
staff who are unaware that these laws created retroactive relief for individuals with old
parking debt. Despite her best efforts over a course of multiple months, Diane still has
not been able to register her vehicle.
Diane’s example demonstrates not only that current law lags in implementation, but also
that bureaucratic relief placing the burden on vehicle owners often results in no relief at all.
d. THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT PROHIBITS PUNISHING A PERSON FOR POVERTY

Towing a vehicle because the owner owes a debt to the government amounts to punishing a
person for being poor. The vehicle tows that are accomplished to collect municipal debt are not
punishment for breaking the parking laws – they are punishment for not paying money to the
government. People who have enough money can break the parking laws as many times as they
want, and so long as they pay their parking tickets on time, they will avoid a vehicle tow. Low
income people, however, face a far harsher punishment: the permanent loss of their vehicle
as a result of nonpayment of parking tickets. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly
recognized that punishing a person for poverty – and punishing nonpayment when a person
is unable to pay – violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth
Amendment.116
A California court of appeal recently described how “[p]oor people must face collection efforts
[that others do not] solely because of their financial status, an unfair and unnecessary burden
that does not accomplish the goal of collecting money.” 117 The court concluded that before
assessing fines and fees, courts must ascertain whether someone can pay them, or else
forego the punishment. 118
The status quo for towing is generally tow first, coerce payment after. Californians would
be hard pressed to find a jurisdiction that examines a person’s ability to pay before charging
tow and storage fees. Current California towing practices raise serious questions of
constitutionality.
RUDOLPH FISHER
As a result of the lack of due process for tows, drivers can have their cars towed for other
people’s parking tickets. Rudolph Fisher is 66-year-old man who suffers from chronic
emphysema and diabetes and relied on his car for medical appointments. He purchased
a used car from a private seller who had only purchased the car the month before.
Unbeknownst to both Mr. Fisher and the seller, the car had five unpaid tickets on its record.
Mr. Fisher only had the car for two days before it was towed. He received no notice before
it was towed and could not afford to pay the tow fines and fees. He lost the car.
VII. R
ECOMMENDATIONS TO REDUCE TOWING
OF VEHICLES IN CALIFORNIA
Towing is meant to improve public safety, not to punish people for minor violations or to collect
debts. These recommendations are in line with constitutional principles, and increasing good,
cost-effective towing practices across the state.
TOWING OR IMMOBILIZING A VEHICLE IS A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE AND

DISPROPORTIONATE SANCTION FOR:
• Owing money on parking tickets
• Out-of-date DMV registration
• Parking a vehicle for more than 72 hours without moving it
Towing is an extreme penalty that disproportionally harms middle and low income people and
people of color. Once a car is towed, many California families do not have the money to retrieve
the car and cannot borrow the money. When they can’t retrieve the car, it causes problems
getting to work, making doctor appointments and participating in other everyday activities.
“RELEASE” FEES AND STORAGE FEES ARE OFTEN EXCESSIVE AND HARMFUL
Some, but not all, local law enforcement departments impose additional “release” fees on top of
the cost of unpaid fines and fees and on top of the cost towing and storage. Additionally, some law
enforcement agencies require vehicle owners to pay a “release” fee on a vehicle that was towed
simply for having been in the same place for 72 hours. This layering on of costs makes it more likely
that the person will lose their vehicle after a tow. The CHP does not charge release fees or charge
to authenticate that a person has complied with a fix it ticket. The CHP Policy of not charging
a release fee for a towed vehicle is a fair and equitable practice.
In addition, storage fees are often exorbitant, far exceeding the fair market value of a parking
place, making the overall cost to retrieve a vehicle unaffordable.
TOWING AND STORING COMPANIES SHOULD NOT FILE LIENS AGAINST VEHICLE OWNERS
FOR UNPAID FINES AND FEES
When low-income people have their car towed they often do not have the money to get it back.
In that case the tow yard can sell the car at auction but often the amount received at auction is
less than the total owed. Tow yards can file liens against registered owners to collect the remainder
of what is owed. Most liens on low income owners result in little or no money recovered but cause
a financial cloud to hang over the person for seven years. Tow yards and storage facilities should
not use Lien Collections for Low Value Cars (those worth less than $4,000).
TOWING HEARINGS MUST BE FAIR AND IMPARTIAL

Local jurisdictions must make sure that tow hearings are fair and impartial to comply with the
requirements of the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. The basic contours of a constitutional
hearing are: 1) A hearing officer who is a neutral third party; 2) Clear and obvious notice to the
owner that they have the right to a hearing; this may mean notice on city websites and on any
printed information provided to the owner; 3) A process where the hearing officer considers all
relevant evidence and factors, which may include the owner’s ability to pay and other extenuating
circumstances or good cause; And, 4) a process where the vehicle owner can be made whole:
this means that if a hearing officer finds that a tow was improper or the balance of hardships
lies with the owner, the owner should be able to retrieve their car at no charge.
TOWING PRACTICES THAT SHOULD BE FURTHER EXAMINED

Problems that came up in the course of preparing this report that should be addressed in the future:
• Towing Stolen Cars. Some stolen cars are recovered, but then the owner can’t afford to
recover them from the tow yard, meaning the tow yard takes the car instead of the thief.
Some cities have stopped charging people to get their own vehicles out of the tow yard
after they are stolen and recovered.
• Driving on a Suspended License. CHP has a common-sense policy: Permit a person pulled over
for a suspended license to locate someone else with a valid license to drive the vehicle away,
including allowing time for a licensed driver to arrive if the vehicle can be legally and safely
parked.
• Consumer Protections Against Tow Company Abuses. Many vehicle owners who were surveyed
reported abuses by tow companies. This problem seems to be widespread, and should be the
subject of deeper investigation.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: LIEN SALE PROCESSES

The process for a lien sale varies based on the value of the vehicle. Based on state law
requirements, vehicles with a fair market value greater than $500 must be stored for at least 30
days before a sale. Vehicles with a fair market value of less than $500 can be sold after only 15 days
of storage.
VEHICLES WORTH BETWEEN $500 AND $4000

Most vehicles sold at lien sales are valued between $500 and $4000. Before these vehicles can
be sold, the tow company first must notify the vehicle owner and all individuals known to have an
interest in the vehicle of the sale.119 This notice must include the date, time and location of the sale
and must be sent at least 31 days before the sale.120 The notice also must set forth the process for
opposing the sale.121
If the vehicle owner or any individual with an interest in the vehicle opposes the sale, the tow
company must file a court action and get a judgment before it can sell the vehicle.122 If the tow
company gets a judgment, the person who opposed the sale may be required to pay court costs.123
If no one opposes the sale, the tow company must post a notice of sale at its business office for at
least 10 days prior to the sale.124 After the sale, the entity that conducts the sale must remove and
destroy the license plates and notify the DMV of the sale.125
VEHICLES WORTH LESS THAN $500

Vehicles worth less than $500 are sold through a similar process.126 However, the tow company may
sell the vehicle within 15 days of sending notice of the sale, if no one opposes the sale.127
VEHICLES WORTH MORE THAN $4000

Lien sales of vehicles worth over $4000 require an additional step in the process. Before sending
notice of the sale, the tow company first must apply to the DMV for authorization to sell the
vehicle.128 When it receives the tow company’s application, the DMV must notify the vehicle owner
and any other individuals that the tow company identifies as having an interest in the vehicle.129 The
DMV’s notification must state that the tow company is going to sell the vehicle and describe the
process for opposing the sale.130
If there is opposition to the sale, the tow company must obtain a court judgment before it can sell
the vehicle.131 If no one opposes the sale, the tow company must then notify the vehicle owner and
any other individuals with an interest in the vehicle of the date, time and location of the sale at least
20 days before the sale.132 The tow company must also post notice of the sale in a newspaper or a
public place.133 Once it has provided notice, the tow company may sell the vehicle.
APPENDIX B: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS AND DATA COLLECTION
Starting in Spring 2017, the authors submitted California Public Records Act (CPRA)134 requests
to thirty five state and local agencies, seeking records related to government-ordered towing.
The purpose of these requests was to gather data and records that would allow us to:
1. Analyze the structure, finances, processes, and impact of local towing programs;
2. Compare towing programs across jurisdictions;
3. Measures the scale and scope of government-ordered tows and towing-related lien sales
statewide;
4. Assess the most common authorities for towing used locally and statewide and compare the
outcomes and impacts of different types of tows.
UNSUCCESSFUL CPRA REQUESTS TO STATE AGENCIES

Attempts to collect statewide towing and lien sale data and records from state agencies were
unsuccessful. We sought records and data from the California Department of Justice’s Stolen
Vehicle System, which tracks information about certain impounded vehicles throughout the state,
relying on the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS). In response to
a request for related records, however, the Department of Justice asserted that “any information
transmitted via CLETS to or from the Stolen Vehicles System is confidential and exempt from
disclosure [under the CPRA].” The Department of Justice also explained that it does not “process
or store reports on towed/impounded vehicles on a regular (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.)
basis.” The authors are unaware of any other agency that compiles or maintains statewide data on
the towing practices of public agencies.
We also sought data from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which receives
notifications and applications from lienholders. These records would allow the DMV to track the
number of vehicles sold at lien sale as a result of government-ordered tows. In response to the
authors’ request, the DMV explained that it “does not track that information or electronically note it
in Department databases.” The DMV would not conduct a manual search of lien sale files to identify
liens triggered by government tows on the ground that doing so would be unduly burdensome and
therefore not required under the CPRA.
CPRA REQUESTS TO LOCAL AGENCIES

The authors also submitted requests to the 30 cities and counties listed below, whose jurisdictions
include the most populated cities and metropolitan regions in California.
• California Highway Patrol
• City of Anaheim
• City of Berkeley
• City of Chula Vista
• City of Fontana
• City of Fremont
• City of Fresno
• City of Garden Grove
• City of Huntington Beach
• City of Irvine
• City of Long Beach
• City of Los Angeles
• City of Modesto
• City of Oakland
• City of Oxnard
• City of Riverside
• City of Sacramento
• City of San Diego
• City of San Francisco
• City of San Jose
• City of Santa Ana
• City of Stockton
• Alameda County
• Los Angeles County (Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
• Orange County
• Sacramento County
• San Bernardino County (San Bernadine Sheriff’s Department)
• Santa Clara County
These requests sought records related to local governments and local agencies’ (1) contracts with
private towing companies; (2) policies, procedures, and fees for towing, storing, and releasing
vehicles; (3) guidelines for post-tow hearings; and (4) policies for low-income fee waivers or
reductions, if any.
We also requested records tracking every tow and impound ordered by these agencies since
August 2015, including as much of the following information as possible:
a. Date/time request of tow;
b. Which entity ordered the tow;
c. Citation/reason for towing;
d. Citation fees;
e. Location from which vehicle was towed;
f. Vehicle’s make, model, year, license, VIN;
g. Owner’s address, age, or any other available information;
h. Destination to which vehicle was towed;
i. Date/time tow unit arrives at storage facility;
j. Date/time of release of vehicle;
k. Fees for towing and storage;
l. Method of payment;
m. Whether the tow was contested, in what manner it was contested (in writing, in person
hearing), whether tow was successfully contested;
n. Unique identifier for that tow, where applicable.
Finally, our CPRA requests to local agencies sought records related to all government-towed
vehicles that were sold at lien sale during the same period, including:
a. The value of the assessed vehicle;
b. The total amount of tow and storage fees due at the time of sale;
c. The total amount of parking ticket, registration or other fees due at the time of sale;
d. The amount the vehicle sold for at auction;
e. Any deficiency debt, if applicable.
The contracts, policies, and guidelines provided in response to these CPRA requests inform much
of the analysis presented in Chapters I, II, and V, specifically the analyses of the fees charged by
local towing programs and the impact on city budgets.
We received towing data from approximately 20 different agencies, which provided source material
for the data analysis presented in Chapters IV and V. The methodology for processing this data is
discussed below.
With regards to data on lien sales, most public agencies that responded to our CPRA requests
provided very little – if any – data about lien sales of impounded vehicles. With very few exceptions,
the public agencies responded to requests for lien sale data by maintaining that the records of
these sales were maintained by the private contractors that tow and store the vehicles and carry
out the lien sales. As such, the agencies asserted that these records are not public records that
must be disclosed under the CPRA.
CPRA REQUESTS TO PUBLIC AGENCIES IN LOS ANGELES
Given the volume of tows conducted in the City of Los Angeles (approximately 100,000 per year),
the authors made several efforts to obtain towing data from public agencies in Los Angeles. The
LAPD did not respond to our 2017 request. In 2018, we sent a similar request to the Los Angeles
Department of Transportation and the Los Angeles Police Commission, which oversees the Official
Police Garages, the entities that contract with the City of Los Angeles to tow vehicles.
As of the date of publication, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation has not provided a
substantive response or any data in response to this request. The Police Commission responded
by producing some data, which is discussed in Appendix C and also forwarded the request to the
LAPD for a response.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded to this second request in January 2019 but refused
to produce any responsive documents. This is consistent with the LAPD’s longstanding refusal to
release towing data on the ground that the Official Police Garages, rather than the LAPD, compile
data related to the city’s towing practices. Although the data comes from LAPD records and the
City’s contract with the OPGs allow the City to access this data at any time, Official Police Garages
as private entities are not themselves subject to the Public Records Act. Because the CPRA does
not require the City to produce OPG data, the City has repeatedly refused to do so.135
APPENDIX C: CATEGORIES OF TOWS, DATA PROCESSING,
AND DATA ANALYSIS
Since Fall 2017, the authors, including data scientists and statisticians from Analysis Group, have
been studying records received from the CPRA requests described above. Ultimately, we analyzed
unique data sets from over twenty different state and local agencies. This appendix describes our
methodology for processing and analyzing these records.
Interpreting and resolving the idiosyncrasies of towing data from different agencies was labor
intensive and often involved back-and-forth communications with agency officials in order to
resolve questions about data storage, codes, and abbreviations. This appendix does not attempt to
offer a comprehensive review of every agency’s data sets. Instead, it provides an overview of how
the authors resolved these interpretive issues. Please contact Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
of the San Francisco Bay Area for details about specific data sets.
DATA PROCESSING: TOWING RECORDS

As described above, the authors submitted CPRA requests for towing records to public agencies
throughout the state. In response, a number of agencies responded that they store their towing
records in physical files. They refused to produce responsive documents, asserting various
CPRA exemptions, including the position that the production of the documents would be unduly
burdensome
Moreover, some of the towing data sets that were produced could not be analyzed. First, some
agencies provided paper records or image files that could not be converted into delimited data
files in the timeframe available. Second, many agencies do not track the authority or basis for their
tows in the data sets they provided. Finally, some track the authority for certain types of tows, but
not others. Because the goal of our analyses was to break the data into categories based on the
authority or basis for the tow, we did not process or analyze some of these data sets.
Ultimately, the authors were able to fully process and analyze towing data from nine cities
(Berkeley, Chula Vista, Fontana, Fremont, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, San Diego, San
Francisco, and Santa Ana), two counties (Alameda and Riverside), and the California Highway
Patrol. Our analysts also reviewed incomplete data sets from other cities, including Fresno and Los
Angeles. Each of these agencies stores its towing data in different forms, tracks different types of
information, and, most importantly, lists the authority or basis for the tow in different ways. After
converting the data sets from these agencies into delimited text files, we sanitized these unique
data sets by creating consistent categories for the information tracked in agency-specific records.
We also collapsed the data to the level of unique tows, where each row or observation represented
the tow of a single vehicle. Variables relevant to our analysis were determined to be: an identifier
for a unique tow, the time and date of the tow, and the reason for the tow as specified by a statutory
authority code.
Similarly, the authors removed all data related to purely private tows (e.g. vehicles that were not
towed as a result of a government order) and all data tracking the seizure of bicycles, boats, and
construction equipment. Note that mopeds, motorcycles, vans, RVs and trucks are included in
the data analyzed. The majority of data analysis was conducted in MS Excel, while data processing
steps in certain cases were done using software programs such as SAS and R.
DATA PROCESSING: CATEGORIES AND MAPPING TOW DATA
In order to sanitize the local towing data sets, the authors created ten master categories – or types
of tows – based on a public agency’s authority to seize the vehicle and mapped the towing data
sets to these categories. This created a framework to analyze towing practices within and across
different jurisdictions. These categories cover every possible statutory authority for government-
ordered tows.
1. Flow of Traffic
• Definition: Vehicle towed based on a parking violation that obstructs the flow of traffic,
impedes commercial activity or construction, and/or endangers public safety.
• Examples: Vehicle unattended on bridge; vehicle blocking roadway; vehicle blocking

handicapped parking spot; vehicle blocking entrance to construction zone.
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code sections 22651(a), 22651(b), 22651(d), 22651(e),
22651(f), 22651(l), 22651(m), 22651(n), 22651(q), 22651(r), 22656.
2. Criminal Investigation
• Description: Vehicle seized and impounded as evidence in a criminal investigation

or because the driver was arrested and could not safely leave the vehicle at the place
of arrest.
• Examples: DUI tows, drag racing tows, recovery of stolen vehicles, driver arrest.
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code sections 14602.7, 22651(c), 22651(h),

22655.5, 23109.2.
• Note: Driving on a suspended license and driving without proper registration can both be
criminal offenses. However, these offenses also create an independent basis for towing
the offender’s vehicles. Therefore, tows related to these offenses are categorized as
License Suspension and Registration Tows, as described below.
3. Abandoned Vehicle
• Description: Vehicle towed based on government authority to seize and impound vehicles
that an officer reasonably believes to be abandoned, and vehicles towed after traffic
accidents or because the driver was incapacitated.
• Examples: Vehicle abandoned on public road, car accident, driver incapacitated.
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code sections 22651(g), 22660, 22669.
• Note: The Flow of Traffic category (above) and 72-Hour Ordinance category (below) cover
tows that do not require that a vehicle be “abandoned” and are therefore distinguishable
from this category. Also note that this category was combined into the “Other” category
in many of the charts and graphs presented in the report.
4. License Suspension
• Description: Vehicle towed and/or impounded because driver was unlicensed, driving
on a suspended license, or violating the terms of a restricted license.
• Examples: Unlicensed driver, driving on a suspended license, driving without required

BAC ignition lock.
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code sections 14602.6, 22651(p).
5. Debt Collection
• Description: Vehicles towed because registered owner had five or more outstanding
(unpaid) parking citations issued by authorizing agency, or failed to pay parking fee
for municipal garage.
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code section 22651(i).
• Note: This category was narrowly drawn to correspond only to tows authorized by
section 22651(i). The only addition was for tows based on a failure to pay parking fees
for a municipal garage.
6. Registration
• Description: Vehicles towed and/or impounded because its registration was more than
six months expired, it was never registered, it was missing license plates, or it had false,
forged, or altered registration or license plates.
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code sections 22651(j) and 22651(o).
7. 72-Hour Ordinance
• Description: Vehicle towed because it was “parked or left standing upon a highway for
72 or more consecutive hours in violation of a local ordinance authorizing removal.”
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code section 22651(k).
8a. Other (Miscellaneous)
• Description: Authority for tow based on preventing public nuisance or another regulatory
authority of local government.
• Statutory Authority: California Vehicle Code sections 22651(u) (unlicensed dealer offering
vehicle for sale) and 22651.5 (vehicle’s alarm or horn has been activated for more than
twenty minutes).
8b. Other (Indeterminate or Unspecified)
• Description: Description of authority for tow in data set insufficient to categorize.
• Examples: “REC1030,” “REC1085.B.” “Towed/Stored,” “Electronic Impound,” “Vehicle Code,” “O.”
9. Multi-Reason (Debt-Collection, Registration, 72-Hour Rule)
• Description: Data entry references multiple authorities for tow, including at least one
authority that can be categorized as Debt-Collection, Registration, or 72-Hour Rule.
• Example: Tow authorized because vehicle’s registration had lapsed and because
of outstanding parking tickets on file (“SCOF/22651.I-O”).
10. Multi-Reason (Other)
• Description: Data entry references multiple authorities for tow, but does not reference
any authority that could be categorized as Debt-Collection, Registration, or 72-Hour Rule.
• Example: Tow authorized because driver was unlicensed and arrested for a DUI.
• Note: This category was combined into the “Other” category in many of the charts
and graphs presented in the report.
We then “mapped” the data sets so that every tow was assigned to one of these categories. This
was accomplished by first isolating the column in each data set that lays out the reason for the tow
– usually described as the “authority” or “offense” – and matching every unique description in every
data set to a category based on the guidelines set out above.
Data from some agencies include the specific statutory authority for each tow (e.g. “CVC § 22651(h)),
which could be easily mapped to the relevant category. Other data sets, however, listed the offense
that triggered the tow, which required an additional step. For example, a number of data sets
listed Vehicle Code section 4000(a) as the “offense” for a significant number of tows. This section
makes it a citable offense to drive a vehicle that has not been properly registered as required by
California’s Vehicle Code. This section does not, however, specifically authorize officials to tow the
vehicle; that authority is set out in Vehicle Code sections 22651(j) and 22651(o). By reviewing the
text of the statute cited as the “offense,” however, the authors were able to map the “offense” of
violating section 4000(a) tows to the Registration category. The authors also cleaned up obvious
typos as part of this mapping process. For example, one agency repeatedly cited to subsections of
Vehicle Code section 226651. That code section does not exist, and the agency plainly meant to cite
Vehicle Code section 22651.
The Criminal Investigation category includes tows where the only authority or offense limited is
a criminal offense – or a citable offense under the Vehicle Code – unrelated to the flow of traffic
or any other authority for tow. For example, in a number of data sets, the only authority or offense
listed for a tow is Penal Code section 459 (burglary) or Vehicle Code section 20001(a) (hit and
run). Without any other information about circumstances that would authorize a tow, the authors
assumed that the basis for the tow was the underlying arrest and/or criminal investigation.
The authors also contacted a number of agencies directly in order to get assistance interpreting
abbreviations and codes that were frequently listed as the offense or authority for the tow. For
example, the Fremont Police Department’s towing records uses the abbreviation “OVR” to refer
to stolen vehicles that have been recovered and stored through the Outside Vehicle Recovery
program. We attempted to contact every agency that used these type of abbreviations, codes,
or radio codes to properly interpret the data.
Finally, the authors and analysts deployed two different strategies to map and categorize the data
sets that listed multiple offenses or authorities for a single tow. Where multiple-offense tows made
up less than 10% of the total data, we used the “Multi-Reason Tow” categories described above and
separated out those tows that included one or more of the “poverty tow” reasons discussed in this
report. If more than 10% of the data set included tows with multiple offenses listed, we conducted
a tiered review. First, we filtered out those tows that listed one or more Tier 1 offenses – citations
to a specific source of statutory authority for towing a vehicle (e.g. Vehicle Code section 22651(c)
– recovery of a stolen vehicle). We then categorized the tow based on that Tier 1 offense or as a
Multi-Reason Tow if it listed multiple Tier 1 offenses. For the data entries that remained, we filtered
for Tier 2 offenses – violations of the Vehicle Code that necessarily trigger a basis for tow (e.g.
Vehicle Code section 4000(a), which, as discussed above, would create authority for a Registration
tow). We then categorized the tow based on that Tier 2 offense or as a Multi-Reason Tow if it listed
multiple Tier 2 offenses. Last we reviewed the remaining tows, which only listed Tier 3 offenses.
We then categorized the tow based on those remaining offenses, which generally included only
criminal statutes. If multiple Tier 3 offenses were listed, and they suggested conflicting towing
categories, we mapped the tow in one of the Multi-Reason categories.
TOWING ANALYSIS
The towing analysis involved breaking down the count of unique tows by different categories
of towing reason (as specified above). This enabled an examination of the distribution of tows and
the particular reasons cited by the specific towing authority across different cities and counties
of California. In particular, tows could be identified as “poverty tows” where the motivating reason
was unpaid parking tickets, lapsed registration, and 72-hour ordinances.
In addition to finding the number of tows for each reason in each city’s data, the count of unique
tows was further broken out by year. This allows for an examination of how towing activity trends
differ across years as well as provide a more valid comparison across cities that have provided
towing data for varying time spans.
DATA PROCESSING: LIEN SALE RECORDS

As explained above, very few agencies provided any lien sale data. In fact, we only received data
sets with lien sale information from San Francisco, San Diego, Riverside County, and Modesto.
Unfortunately, the data from the City of Modesto was provided in hard copy, and our analysts were
not able to process these records into delimited text files. For San Francisco, San Diego, and
Riverside County, the Authors reviewed the data sets and identified columns tracking (1) whether
the vehicle was released to its owner, repossessed by the “legal owner,” or sold at lien sale, (2)
the sale price for the vehicle, and (3) the amount of fees that the vehicle had accrued. As with the
towing records, we also made a number of phone calls to public agencies to confirm that we were
properly interpreting these data sets.136
LIEN SALE ANALYSIS
In cases where the data was available, the final outcome of a towed vehicle was analyzed.
This involved identifying whether a vehicle was returned to the owner for a particular fee
amount or if the car was sold by the towing authority (or a contracted towing company)
at an auction or at market.
The proportion of vehicles released to the owner versus those sold were once again broken
down by tow reason, with the aim of identifying which reasons were seen to be more frequently
associated with a particular outcome of the vehicle. This analysis was also broken out across
different years of observation.
In addition, the average amount of fees due was analyzed independently for released and sold
cars, again broken out by reason category. This particular exhibit helped isolate reasons associated
with larger fee amounts collected in all outcomes involving a towed vehicle. While the fees due
for a released car refers to the amount required to be paid for an owner to retrieve his or her car,
fees due for a sold car typically involved fees accumulated over time due to storage reasons.
In certain cases, such as San Diego, the average sale price of towed vehicles by reason category
was also provided.
METHODOLOGY FOR LOS ANGELES TOWING ANALYSIS

As described above, the Los Angeles Police Commission was the only agency in the City of
Los Angeles to produce responsive data. The Commission produced monthly reports submitted
by the City’s 19 Official Police Garages (OPG Reports) for a three-year period. However, during our
research phase, the Commission failed to produce approximately 300 of these reports, which
covered random months during the three year period.137
After processing the reports that were provided and converting them into a delimited text file,
we conducted a manual review to remove redundant or duplicative reports. Next, in order to
approximate data from the missing reports, we calculated the average number of vehicles
impounded in each garage for a given year. We then used these monthly averages to make up
for any missing monthly and to make projections for annual estimates, for each garage and for
the city as a whole.138
APPENDIX D: STATEWIDE PROJECTIONS – METHODS
AND FINDINGS
Of the 12 jurisdictions with tow-level data, 2 are counties (Riverside and Alameda), 1 is the
California Highway Patrol, and 1 (Fremont) does not have a year variable. For the eight remaining
cities, data were typically spanned mid-2015 to mid-2018, therefore this analysis focuses on the
years 2016 and 2017. However, for Berkeley and San Francisco, 2017 data were only available for
5 and 3 months respectively. Therefore, we estimated the full year towing counts for these two
cities in 2017 by taking the average towing counts per month and multiplying that by 12 in order
to estimate a full year.
We then calculate and define towing rates in a particular year as the number of vehicles towed
in that year divided by the number of vehicles registered in 2018.139
𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣ℎ𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦 𝑇𝑇 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐

𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇 𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦𝑦 𝑇𝑇 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 =
𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣ℎ𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 2018 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐
In 2016, this value ranged from a low of 0.57 percent (Fontana) to a high of 9.17 percent (San
Francisco). The lowest rate in 2017 was 0.36 percent (Fontana) and the highest was 6.87
percent (San Francisco).
For 2016, the simple and weighted average of these rates across the eight cities were 2.93
percent and 3.24 percent, respectively. The weighted average scales towing rates according to
the city’s number of registered vehicles. Applying these average tow rates to the number of cars
registered in California in 2018 yields estimates of annual tows in California of 886,014 and 979,858,
respectively.
886,014 = 2.93% × 30,228,340
979,858 = 3.24% × 30,228,340
Taking the city as the unit of observation, and assuming that (i) towing rates in California are
similar across cities and that (ii) the sample of cities we study here was randomly selected, we
can estimate a confidence interval for the towing rate.140 Under these assumptions, a 90 percent
confidence interval around the simple average suggests that the number of cars towed across the
state in 2018 was between 305,037 and 1,466,992.141 Similarly, a 90% confidence interval around the
weighted average suggests that the number of cars towed across the state was between 192,100
and 1,767,615 in 2018. These confidence intervals use critical values from a t distribution due to the
small sample (n=8).142
FORMULA: VARIANCE OF A WEIGHTED MEAN
For 2017, the simple and weighted average of these rates across the eight cities 2.65 percent and
2.86 percent respectively. The 90 percent confidence interval around the simple average suggests
that the number of cars towed across the state in 2018 was between 369,545 and 1,234,011.
Similarly, a 90% confidence interval around the weighted average suggests that the number of cars
towed across the state was between 324,357 and 1,406,411 in 2018. The analyses underlying the 2016
and 2017 statewide projections are set out in full below.
STATEWIDE ANALYSIS (2016)
TOWING COUNTS BY CATEGORY (2016)
GARDEN HUNTINGTON SAN

REASON CATEGORY BERKELEY CHULA VISTA FONTANA SANTA ANA SAN DIEGO TOTAL
GROVE BEACH FRANCISCO
Multi-Reason Low Income 0 0 26 0 30 92 0 0 148
Multi-Reason Other 0 0 432 0 31 4 0 0 467
Registration/Debt Collection 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 359 359
Other 18 14 2 24 196 2 77 207 540
Abandoned Vehicle 23 40 0 24 8 10 484 917 1,506
Debt Collection 74 1 0 0 15 69 1,346 1,725 3,230
72 Hour Ordinance 486 344 0 189 203 2 2,144 887 4,255
Unspecified 60 0 0 240 5,326 13 0 2 5,641
License Suspension 296 708 543 96 114 181 3,160 1,479 6,577
Registration 492 947 6 327 648 796 5,107 1,538 9,861
Criminal Investigation 352 721 26 961 420 382 4,030 3,679 10,571
Flow of Traffic 968 154 2 120 167 27 5,206 31,571 38,215
TOTAL 2,769 2,929 1,037 1,981 7,158 1,578 21,554 42,364 81,370
NOTE(S):
NOTE(S):
[1]
[1]Though
Thoughdata dataare areavailable forfor
available 4 other jurisdictions,
4 other theythey
jurisdictions, werewere
removed from from
removed the statewide analysis
the statewide due to them
analysis due tobeing
themcounty-level data
being county-level data (Alameda, Riverside), the California
(Alameda,
Highway
Appendix:
Riverside),
Patrol,
Statewide
the California Highway Patrol,
or lacking a year indicator (Fremont).
Analysis (2016)
TOWING RATES AND COUNTS (2016)

PERCENT TOWED OUT OF REGISTERED VEHICLES [# of Tows / Registered Vehicles] OVERALL TOW RATE OVERALL TOW COUNTS [Tow Rate *Vehicles Registered in CA]
GARDEN HUNTINGTON SAN AVERAGE AVERAGE AVERAGE AVERAGE
REASON CATEGORY BERKELEY CHULA VISTA FONTANA SANTA ANA SAN DIEGO MIN MEDIAN MAX MIN MEDIAN Max
GROVE BEACH FRANCISCO (SIMPLE) (WEIGHTED) (SIMPLE) (WEIGHTED)
Multi-Reason Low Income 0.00% 0.00% 0.01% 0.00% 0.02% 0.04% 0.00% 0.00% 0.01% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00% 0.04% 2,577 1,782 0 0 10,986
Multi-Reason Other 0.00% 0.00% 0.24% 0.00% 0.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.03% 0.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.24% 9,693 5,624 0 0 71,564
Registration/Debt Collection 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.08% 0.01% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00% 0.08% 2,937 4,323 0 0 23,494
Other 0.03% 0.01% 0.00% 0.02% 0.12% 0.00% 0.01% 0.04% 0.03% 0.02% 0.00% 0.01% 0.12% 8,279 6,503 239 3,791 34,788
Abandoned Vehicle 0.03% 0.02% 0.00% 0.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.05% 0.20% 0.04% 0.06% 0.00% 0.02% 0.20% 12,232 18,135 0 5,580 60,012
Debt Collection 0.10% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.01% 0.03% 0.13% 0.37% 0.08% 0.13% 0.00% 0.02% 0.37% 24,396 38,896 0 5,451 112,890
72 Hour Ordinance 0.69% 0.17% 0.00% 0.14% 0.12% 0.00% 0.21% 0.19% 0.19% 0.17% 0.00% 0.15% 0.21% 57,173 51,239 0 46,057 63,024
Unspecified 0.08% 0.00% 0.00% 0.18% 3.13% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00% 0.42% 0.22% 0.00% 0.00% 3.13% 128,231 67,929 0 842 945,301
License Suspension 0.42% 0.34% 0.30% 0.07% 0.07% 0.07% 0.31% 0.32% 0.24% 0.26% 0.07% 0.30% 0.32% 71,596 79,200 20,234 91,421 96,791
Registration 0.70% 0.46% 0.00% 0.24% 0.38% 0.31% 0.50% 0.33% 0.37% 0.39% 0.00% 0.36% 0.50% 110,384 118,746 994 107,832 150,123
Criminal Investigation 0.50% 0.35% 0.01% 0.70% 0.25% 0.15% 0.39% 0.80% 0.39% 0.42% 0.01% 0.37% 0.80% 119,070 127,296 4,307 111,866 240,768
Flow of Traffic 1.37% 0.07% 0.00% 0.09% 0.10% 0.01% 0.51% 6.84% 1.12% 1.52% 0.00% 0.09% 6.84% 339,448 460,185 331 28,119 2,066,125
TOTAL 3.92% 1.41% 0.57% 1.45% 4.20% 0.62% 2.10% 9.17% 2.93% 3.24% 0.57% 1.77% 9.17% 886,014 979,858 171,787 536,329 2,772,459
Total Registered in CA
# of Registered Vehicles 2,510,242 70,654 207,038 182,475 136,386 170,312 253,150 1,028,329 461,898 30,228,340
Registered Vehicles as a % of CA 8.304% 0.23% 0.68% 0.60% 0.45% 0.56% 0.84% 3.40% 1.53%
Number of Tows, if City Rate
Represents All of CA
1,184,678 427,645 171,787 439,065 1,270,459 188,427 633,593 2,772,459 7,088,114
[City Tow Rate * Registered Vehicles
in CA]
90% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF THE SIMPLE AVERAGE 90% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF THE WEIGHTED AVERAGE
INPUTS INPUTS
T-test Reliability Coefficient [t] 1.895 T-test Reliability Coefficient [t] 1.895
Standard Deviation of City Tow Rates [s] 0.02869 Standard Deviation of City Tow Rates [s] 0.02869
Sample Size [n] 8 Sum of weights^2 0.47938933
Calculated Confidence [t * (s/sqrt(n) ) ] 0.019220 Calculated Confidence [t * 0.026060
(s*sqrt(sum of weights^2) ) ]
CALCULATIONS Lower Bound Upper Bound CALCULATIONS Lower Bound Upper Bound
Confidence Interval (Rate) Confidence Interval (Rate)
1.01% 4.85% 0.64% 5.85%
[Simple Average ± .019] [Weighted Average ± .026]
Confidence Interval (Count)
[Rate * Registered Vehicles in 192,100 1,767,615
[Rate * Registered Vehicles in
305,037 1,466,992 CA]
CA]
SOURCE(S): SOURCE(S):
SOURCE(S):
Wayne W. Daniel. Biostatistics: A Foundation for Analysis In the Wayne
WayneW.W.Daniel.
Daniel.Biostatistics:
Biostatistics:AAFoundation
Foundationfor
forAnalysis
AnalysisInInthe
the
Health Sciences. 6th ed. New York: Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 158-160.
SOURCE(S): Health
HealthSciences.
Sciences .6th
6thed.
ed.New
NewYork:
York:Wiley
Wiley&&Sons,
Sons,1995,
1995,p.p.158-160.
158-
Wayne W. Daniel. Biostatistics: A Foundation for Analysis In the 160.
Health Sciences . 6th ed. New York: Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 158-
160.
TOWING COUNTS BY CATEGORY (2017)
GARDEN HUNTINGTON SAN

REASON CATEGORY BERKELEY CHULA VISTA FONTANA SANTA ANA SAN DIEGO TOTAL
GROVE BEACH FRANCISCO
Multi-Reason Low Income 0 0 24 0 32 120 0 0 176
Registration/Debt Collection 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 276 276
Multi-Reason Other 0 0 243 0 27 7 0 0 277
Other 29 12 0 74 211 4 67 76 473
Abandoned Vehicle 24 46 0 26 6 14 490 756 1,362
Debt Collection 125 2 0 0 21 86 908 1,792 2,934
72 Hour Ordinance 379 389 0 213 231 5 2,348 840 4,405
Unspecified 12 1 0 273 4,663 14 0 0 4,963
License Suspension 286 711 365 112 101 261 3,057 3,536 8,429
Criminal Investigation 329 636 15 1,162 442 402 3,776 2,228 8,990
Registration 588 997 10 428 642 1,086 5,633 1,352 10,736
Flow of Traffic 982 172 0 147 211 30 6,442 20,860 28,844
TOTAL 2,753 2,966 657 2,435 6,587 2,029 22,721 31,716 71,864
NOTE(S):
NOTE(S):
[1]
[1]Though
Thoughdata dataare areavailable forfor
available 4 other jurisdictions,
4 other theythey
jurisdictions, werewere
removed from from
removed the statewide analysis
the statewide due to them
analysis due tobeing
themcounty-level data (Alameda,
being county-level Riverside),
data (Alameda, the California
Riverside), the Highway Patrol,
California
Highway Patrol, or lacking a year indicator (Fremont).
[2] For Berkeley and San Francisco, data were only available for 5 and 3 months, respectively. An estimation of a full year of tows for these two cities is created by taking the numbers of cars
[2] Fordivided
Berkeley andnumber
Appendix: Statewide Analysis (2017)
towed, by the San Francisco, data
of available wereof
months only available
data, for 5 and
and multiplied by312
months, respectively.
to estimate a full year.An estimation of a full year of tows for these two cities is created by taking the
numbers of cars towed, divided by the number of available months of data, and multiplied by 12 to estimate a full year.
TOWING RATES AND COUNTS (2017)

PERCENT TOWED OUT OF REGISTERED VEHICLES [# of Tows / Registered Vehicles] OVERALL TOW RATE OVERALL TOW COUNTS [Tow Rate * Vehicles Registered in CA]
GARDEN HUNTINGTON SAN AVERAGE AVERAGE AVERAGE AVERAGE
REASON CATEGORY BERKELEY CHULA VISTA FONTANA SANTA ANA SAN DIEGO MIN MEDIAN MAX MIN MEDIAN MAX
GROVE BEACH FRANCISCO (SIMPLE) (WEIGHTED) (SIMPLE) (WEIGHTED)
Multi-Reason Low Income 0.00% 0.00% 0.01% 0.00% 0.02% 0.05% 0.00% 0.00% 0.01% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00% 0.05% 2,998 2,119 0 0 14,329
Registration/Debt Collection 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.06% 0.01% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00% 0.06% 2,258 3,324 0 0 18,062
Multi-Reason Other 0.00% 0.00% 0.13% 0.00% 0.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.02% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00% 0.13% 5,735 3,336 0 0 40,255
Other 0.04% 0.01% 0.00% 0.05% 0.12% 0.00% 0.01% 0.02% 0.03% 0.02% 0.00% 0.01% 0.12% 9,418 5,693 0 3,472 37,450
Abandoned Vehicle 0.03% 0.02% 0.00% 0.02% 0.00% 0.01% 0.05% 0.16% 0.04% 0.05% 0.00% 0.02% 0.16% 11,170 16,401 0 6,239 49,475
Debt Collection 0.18% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.01% 0.03% 0.09% 0.39% 0.09% 0.12% 0.00% 0.02% 0.39% 26,456 35,329 0 6,998 117,275
72 Hour Ordinance 0.54% 0.19% 0.00% 0.16% 0.14% 0.00% 0.23% 0.18% 0.18% 0.18% 0.00% 0.17% 0.23% 53,979 53,047 0 51,091 69,021
Unspecified 0.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.20% 2.74% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00% 0.37% 0.20% 0.00% 0.00% 2.74% 111,886 59,764 0 909 827,627
License Suspension 0.40% 0.34% 0.20% 0.08% 0.06% 0.10% 0.30% 0.77% 0.28% 0.34% 0.06% 0.25% 0.77% 85,206 101,497 17,926 75,164 231,409
Criminal Investigation 0.47% 0.31% 0.01% 0.85% 0.26% 0.16% 0.37% 0.48% 0.36% 0.36% 0.01% 0.34% 0.85% 109,602 108,255 2,485 101,928 257,544
Registration 0.83% 0.48% 0.01% 0.31% 0.38% 0.43% 0.55% 0.29% 0.41% 0.43% 0.01% 0.40% 0.55% 123,918 129,283 1,657 121,813 165,585
Flow of Traffic 1.39% 0.08% 0.00% 0.11% 0.12% 0.01% 0.63% 4.52% 0.86% 1.15% 0.00% 0.12% 4.52% 259,152 347,335 0 35,015 1,365,157
TOTAL 3.90% 1.43% 0.36% 1.79% 3.87% 0.80% 2.21% 6.87% 2.65% 2.86% 0.36% 2.00% 6.87% 801,778 865,384 108,837 603,793 2,075,614
Total Registered in CA
# of Registered Vehicles 2,510,242 70,654 207,038 182,475 136,386 170,312 253,150 1,028,329 461,898 30,228,340
Registered Vehicles as a % of CA 8.304% 0.23% 0.68% 0.60% 0.45% 0.56% 0.84% 3.40% 1.53%
Number of Tows, if City Rate
Represents All of CA
1,177,748 433,047 108,837 539,689 1,169,114 242,280 667,897 2,075,614 6,414,226
[City Tow Rate * Registered Vehicles
in CA]
90% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF THE SIMPLE AVERAGE 90% CONFIDENCE INTERVAL OF THE WEIGHTED AVERAGE
INPUTS INPUTS
T-test Reliability Coefficient [t] 1.895 T-test Reliability Coefficient [t] 1.895
Standard Deviation of City Tow Rates [s] 0.02135 Standard Deviation of City Tow Rates [s] 0.02135
Sample Size [n] 8 Sum of weights^2 0.44254386
Calculated Confidence [t * (s/sqrt(n) ) ] 0.014299 Calculated Confidence [t * 0.017898
(s*sqrt(sum of weights^2) ) ]
CALCULATIONS Lower Bound Upper Bound CALCULATIONS Lower Bound Upper Bound
Confidence Interval (Rate) Confidence Interval (Rate)
1.22% 4.08% 1.07% 4.65%
[Simple Average ± .014] [Weighted Average ± .017]
[Rate * Registered Vehicles in 324,357 1,406,411
[Rate * Registered Vehicles in
369,545 1,234,011 CA]
CA]
SOURCE(S): SOURCE(S):
SOURCE(S):
Wayne W. Daniel. Biostatistics: A Foundation for Analysis In the Wayne
WayneW.W.Daniel.
Daniel.Biostatistics:
Biostatistics:AAFoundation
Foundationfor
forAnalysis
AnalysisInInthe
the
Health Sciences. 6th ed. New York: Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 158-160.
SOURCE(S): Health
HealthSciences.
Sciences .6th
6thed.
ed.New
NewYork:
York:Wiley
Wiley&&Sons,
Sons,1995,
1995,p.p.158-160.
158-
Wayne W. Daniel. Biostatistics: A Foundation for Analysis In the 160.
Health Sciences . 6th ed. New York: Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 158-
160.
ENDNOTES
1 oard of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017,
B
at 21 (2018), available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-
us-households-201805.pdf.
2 The average fees and range of fees presented in this table are based on an analysis of fees in seven cities
(Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, Modesto, Los Angeles, San Jose, Garden Grove).
3 Some cities charge both an administrative fee – collected at the tow yard – and a “release fee” collected by the
police department or transit authority before the owner can retrieve their vehicle from the tow yard.
4 Studies suggest that the three days is the average amount of time it takes a driver to recover their vehicle.
Dianne Kelley, Sharon Muravez, Regi Block, Hilda Dallal & Ronnie Dann-Honor, 2016 – 2017 Los Angeles County
Civil Grand Jury, Tows and Impounds, Part A: Impound Practices In Twelve Select Cities, in 2016 – 2017 Los Angeles
County Civil Grand Jury, Final Report 194 (2017).
5 Los Angeles: https://ladot.lacity.org/what-we-do/parking/parking-tickets (“The average ticket is $68 Late fees
typically double the cost of a parking ticket.”) Modesto: In a phone interview with an employee at the Modesto
City Clerk’s office on March 4, 2019 these figures were given as the average price of a “basic parking citation”
and the standard late fee. Berkeley: https://www.cityofberkeley.info/parkingcitations/ (The average ticket cost
was calculated by taking the average of all parking violations, excluding the disabled placard violations. Parking
ticket late fees in Berkeley start at $30 after 30 days, and are then raised to $80 after 49 days.).
6 See Cal. Lab. Code § 1182.12(b)(1)(C) (2017).
7 http://www.opgla.com/rates.aspx. Fee assumes standard vehicle and payment by credit card.
8 Listed storage fee includes the ten percent Parking Occupancy Tax. See Los Angeles Municipal Code § 21.15.1 et seq.
9 A driver may also be forced to pay a lien sale initiation fee of $70 (or $100 for a high-value vehicle) even if they
recover their vehicle.
10 $120 is the minimum amount charged for a vehicle release from the Modesto Police Department. This is the
amount charged for the release of vehicles towed because they were illegally parked or “abandoned.” Modesto’s
release fees are substantially higher in other situations. They charge $160 for a release after a tow based on
lapsed registration or driving without a license, and $250 for a tow related to driving on a suspended license or
an arrest. Finally, the charge a $450 release fee for DUI tows. These fees are not listed online, but were reported
in a phone call to the Modesto Police Department Traffic Unit on March 4, 2019.
11 http://www.sjpd.org/records/fees_public_safety.asp. The driver is also charged for “[a]ny additional tow han-
dling charges.” A driver may also be forced to pay a lien sale initiation fee of $70 (or $100 for a high-value vehicle)
even if they recover their vehicle.
12 Fee assumes the impounded vehicle is stored outdoors. Vehicles stored indoors may be charged $95 each day.
13 Bryan Anderson, Drivers are fed up with the DMV. So are California lawmakers, Sacramento Bee, July 30, 2018,
https://www.sacbee.com/article215605210.html.
14 See, e.g., https://bakersfieldcity.us/gov/depts/police/traffic/vehicle_releases.htm (Bakersfield offices closed
on weekends); http://ww1.stocktonca.gov/Departments/Police/Contact-Us/Contact-and-Hours-of-Service
(Stockton offices closed on weekends and every other Friday); https://www.cityofredding.org/departments/
police-department/about-the-police-department/frequently-asked-questions (follow “My car was towed.
How do I find out where it is, and how do I get it back?”) (Redding vehicle releases only available during normal
business hours).
15 Diane Kelley et al., supra note 4, at 195.
16 Overnight market rate parking costs were calculated by averaging the costs of overnight parking in all private
garages and lots within a 3.5-mile radius of the city impound lot(s) for which data was available, drawing on city
websites, Parkopedia, and Google Maps.
17 Cal. Veh. Code § 22850.5.
18 Jill Cornfield, Bankrate Survey: Just 4 in 10 Americans have savings they’d rely on in an emergency, BANKRATE
(Jan. 12, 2017), https://www.bankrate.com/finance/consumer-index/money-pulse-0117.aspx.
19 See Appendix C for an explanation of the methodology used to make these estimates.
20 Cal. Veh. Code § 3072. The notice period is longer for vehicles valued more than $4000. Cal. Veh. Code §3071.
See Appendix A for a detailed explanation of the notice requirements for lien sales.
21 This assumes a light-duty vehicle with a fair market value between $500 and $4,000 that was transferred to the
City’s auxiliary, long-term storage lot. The City’s current policy is to transfer all vehicles to the long-term storage
lot during the first thirty days of storage.
22 https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2018/07/autoreturn_notice_towing_and_
storage_fees_2018-07-11.pdf.
23 his chart assumes a light-duty vehicle valued between $500 and $4,000, the most common value bracket. The
T
chart also assumes that the vehicle owner does not qualify for a fee waiver.
24 This chart assumes a light-duty vehicle valued between $500 and $4,000, the most common value bracket. The
chart also assumes that the vehicle owner does not qualify for a fee waiver.
25 San Francisco’s auction fee is variable based on the purchase price of the vehicle. Because the average sale
price for all vehicles sold at lien sale in San Francisco is approximately $700, this chart assumes a sale price
between $500 and $999.99.
26 Cal. Veh. Code §§ 22850.5, 22851.1; 22651.07; Cal. Civ. Code § 3073.
27 The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Role of Emergency Savings in Family Financial Security: How Do Families Cope
With Financial Shocks? 2 (2015), available at https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2015/10/emergen-
cy-savings-report-1_artfinal.pdf.
28 Board of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., supra note 1, at 1.
29 The Pew Charitable Trusts, supra note 27, at 2.
30 Paul M. Ong, Car Ownership and Welfare-To-Work 3 (2001), citing Paul Ong & Evelyn Blumenberg, The Transpor-
tation Welfare Nexus: Getting Welfare Recipients to Work 24-35 (1999), available at https://escholarship.org/uc/
item/3rs6p4gb.
31 Id. at 17–18.
32 Tami Gurley & Donald Bruce The Effects of Car Access on Employment Outcomes for Welfare Recipients, 58 Jour-
nal of Urban Economics 250, 258-262 (2005).
33 Evelyn Blumenberg, Gregory Pierce, Michael Smart, Casey Dawkins, Jae Sik Jeon, Eli Knaap, Rolf Pendall, Chris-
topher Hayes, Arthur George & Zach McDade, Driving to Opportunity: Understanding the Links Among Transpor-
tation Access, Residential Outcomes, and Economic Opportunity for Housing Voucher Recipients 3 (The Urban
Institute eds., 2014).
34 Tami Gurley and Donald Bruce, The Effects of Car Access on Employment Outcomes for Welfare Recipients, 58
Journal of Urban Economics 250, 262 (2005).
35 Evelyn Blumenberg, Gregory Pierce, Michael Smart, Casey Dawkins, Jae Sik Jeon, Eli Knaap, Rolf Pendall, Chris-
topher Hayes, Arthur George & Zach McDade, Driving to Opportunity: Understanding the Links Among Transpor-
tation Access, Residential Outcomes, and Economic Opportunity for Housing Voucher Recipients 53 (The Urban
Institute eds., 2014). See also, 2011 Evaluation of the National Ways to Work Program v (ICF International eds.,
2011) (finding that 94% of low-income workers who received cars as part of a public assistance project reported
that their new car helped to maintain or improve their employment circumstances).
36 ICF International, Evaluation of the National Ways to Work Program v, (2011).
37 Id.
38 William A. V. Clark & Wenfei Winnie Wang, The Automobile, Immigrants, and Poverty: Implications for Immigrant
Earnings and Job Access, 31 Urban Geography, 534 (2010).
39 Evelyn Blumenberg & Gregory Pierce The Drive to Work: The Relationship between Transportation Access, Hous-
ing Assistance, and Employment among Participants in the Welfare to Work Voucher Program,Journal of Planning
Education and Research, p. 69(2017).
40 Evelyn Blumenberg, Gregory Pierce, Michael Smart, Casey Dawkins, Jae Sik Jeon, Eli Knaap, Rolf Pendall,
Christopher Hayes, Arthur George & Zach McDade Driving to Opportunity: Understanding the Links Among Trans-
portation Access, Residential Outcomes, and Economic Opportunity for Housing Voucher Recipients, (The Urban
Institute), p. 2 (2014).
41 Steven Raphael & Lorien Rice Car Ownership, Employment, and Earnings, 52 Journal of Urban Economics, 111,
(2002)
42 William A. V. Clark & Wenfei Winnie Wang The Automobile, Immigrants, and Poverty: Implications for Immigrant
Earnings and Job Access, 31 Urban Geography, 535 (2010).
43 Evelyn Blumenberg, Gregory Pierce, Michael Smart, Casey Dawkins, Jae Sik Jeon, Eli Knaap, Rolf Pendall,
Christopher Hayes, Arthur George & Zach McDade Driving to Opportunity: Understanding the Links Among Trans-
portation Access, Residential Outcomes, and Economic Opportunity for Housing Voucher Recipients, 2 The Urban
Institute, 55, (2014).
44 Tami Gurley & Donald Bruce The Effects of Car Access on Employment Outcomes for Welfare Recipients, 58 Jour-
nal of Urban Economics, 265(2005).
45 According to the California Workers Survey, the “gig economy” is defined as as “being paid for performing
miscellaneous tasks or providing services for others, such as shopping, delivering household items, assisting
with childcare, or driving for a ride-hailing app” Alex Vandermaas-Peeler, Daniel Cox, Maxine Najle, PhD, Molly
Fisch-Friedman, Rob Griffin, PhD &Robert P. Jones, PhD, California Workers Survey, August 28, 2018. See also:
Annette Bernhardt & Sarah Thomason ,What do we know about Gig Work in California, UC Berkeley Center for
Labor Research and Education, (2017). distinguishing between traditional independent contractor work like
freelance work with “platform work” based on work sourced from an online application.
46 Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights et al., Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California’s Traffic
Court System 2 (2017), https://www.lccr.com/wp-content/uploads/LCCR-Report-Paying-More-for-Being-Poor-
May-2017.pdf.
47 Tami Gurley & Donald Bruce The Effects of Car Access on Employment Outcomes for Welfare Recipients,
58 Journal of Urban Economics 262 (2005).
48 Tami Gurley & Donald Bruce The Effects of Car Access on Employment Outcomes for Welfare Recipients,
58 Journal of Urban Economics 262 (2005).; see also Evelyn Blumenberg & Gregory Pierce, The Drive to Work:
The Relationship between Transportation Access, Housing Assistance, and Employment among Participants
in the Welfare to Work Voucher Program, Journal of Planning Education and Research, at 68 (2017).
49 Nancy McGuckin Travel to School in California:Findings of from the California-National Household Travel
Survey,” at 12, (2013).
50 Id. at 10.
51 Id. at 9. According to the study, children from higher-income families who lived within two miles of school were
more likely to arrive at school in a private vehicle than children from lower income families. But even amongst
lower-income families (making less than $25,000 per year), more than 36% of all students arrived by private
vehicle. Id. at 21.
52 ICF International, Evaluation of the National Ways to Work Program, at iv, (2011).
53 Pieter Gautier & Yves Zenou, Car Ownership and the Labor Market of Ethnic Minorities, 67Journal of Urban Eco-
nomics 393(2009).
54 U.S. Department of Transportation, Mobility Challenges for Households in Poverty, National Household Travel
Survey, at 3, (2014).
55 Fang Zhao & Thomas Gustafson, Transportation Needs of Disadvantaged Populations: Where, When, and How?
(FTA Report No. 0030), at 14 (2013).
56 Id. at 17.
57 The Section 8 Voucher, or “Housing Choice Voucher Program” provides rental assistance to tenants. A tenant
seeks out a private landlord that is willing to accept the voucher, and then the tenant pays roughly 30% of their
income in rent, and the Voucher covers the remainder of the rent. Evelyn Blumenberg, Gregory Pierce, Michael
Smart, Casey Dawkins, Jae Sik Jeon, Eli Knaap, Rolf Pendall, Christopher Hayes, Arthur George & Zach McDade
Driving to Opportunity: Understanding the Links Among Transportation Access, Residential Outcomes, and Eco-
nomic Opportunity for Housing Voucher Recipients, The Urban Institute, 4 (2014).
58 Id. at 22.
59 Id. at 23-24.
60 Id. at 56.
61 Los Angeles County Homeless Services Authority, 2018 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count Presentation, 13
(2018).
62 Los Angeles County Homeless Services Authority, 2018 Greater Los Angeles Homeless County-Data Summary-Ve-
hicles, Tents, and Makeshift Shelters by Geographic Area, 2 (2018).
63 Jane Carlen, Patrick Burns, & Daniel Flaming, Escape Routes: Meta-Analysis of Homelessness in LA, Economic
Roundtable, 5 (2018).
64 Id.
65 Id.
66 Cal. Veh. Code § 22651(i)(1).
67 Cal. Veh. Code § 22651(o)(1)(A).
68 Cal. Veh. Code § 22651(o)(3)(A).
69 Cal. Veh. Code § 22651(k).
70 See Chapter V.
71 The “Flow of Traffic” category refers to vehicles towed based on a parking violation that obstructs the flow
of traffic, impedes commercial activity or construction, and/or endangers public safety. Appendix C offers
a methodology for this analysis and a detailed explanation of each of the categories used in this analysis.
72 Josh Slowiczek, The East Bay’s Tow Hustle, East Bay Express, Nov. 14, 2018, https://www.eastbayexpress.com/
oakland/the-east-bays-tow-hustle/Content?oid=22699510&storyPage=3.
Court System 7-8 (2017), https://www.lccr.com/wp-content/uploads/LCCR-Report-Paying-More-for-Being-
Poor-May-2017.pdf.
74 Id.
75 Id. at 21-22; Beth A. Colgan, Graduating Economic Sanctions According to Ability to Pay, 103 Iowa L. Rev. 53 (2017).
76 Cal. Veh. Code § 4760.
77 Id.
78 Cal. Veh. Code §§ 2810(e), 2814.2(c).
79 Cal. Gov. Code §§ 12419.2-3, 12419.5, 12419.7-12; Cal. Dep’t of Gen. Serv., State Administrative Manual § 8790
(2011), available at https://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/sam/SamPrint/new/sam_master/sam_master_file/
chap8700/8790.pdf; https://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/Interagency_Intercept_Collections/index.shtml.
80 Cal. Veh. Code § 40220.
81 Id.
82 Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, 2019 WL 691578, at *4 (U.S. Feb. 20, 2019).
83 Id. at *5.
84 See e.g., Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area et al., Paying More for Being Poor:
Bias and Disparity in California’s Traffic Court System (2017); Back on the Road California Coalition, Stopped,
Fined, and Arrested: Racial Bias in Policing and Traffic Courts in California (2016); Lawyers’ Committee for Civil
Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area et al., Not Just a Ferguson Problem: How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in
California (2015). The Fines and Fees Justice Center maintains an online library of information about efforts to
reform fines and fees in the legal system. See Fines and Fees Justice Center, https://finesandfeesjusticecenter.
org/ (last visited March 12, 2019).
85 Josh Slowiczek, The East Bay’s Tow Hustle, East Bay Express, Nov. 14, 2018, https://www.eastbayexpress.com/
oakland/the-east-bays-tow-hustle/Content?oid=22699510 (last accessed Mar. 8, 2019).
86 See e.g., Farida Jhabvala Romero, In Menlo Park, Many Lose Cars After Driving with Suspended License, KQED
News, Aug. 5, 2015, https://www.kqed.org/news/10566848/in-menlo-park-many-lose-cars-after-driving-with-
suspended-license (last accessed Mar. 8, 2019).
87 See Healthy Streets Operation Center, Presentation to San Francisco Board of Supervisors Public Safety and
Neighborhood Services Committee at 20 (paginated 39 in presentation series), Feb. 28, 2019, https://sfgov.
legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=7066052&GUID=B497EA11-AEE1-4CF4-AF2C-3F2CAF114F99 (“HSOC resolved 3
vehicular encampments since Nov. 2018.”); see also https://www.sfmta.com/blog/san-francisco-parking-tips-
72-hour-rule (“Enforcement of the 72-hour rule is driven by complaints.”).
88 See e.g., Kevin Fagan, SF family’s RV was their home. Then it got towed, San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 11, 2017,
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-family-s-RV-was-their-home-Then-it-got-11749152.php (last
accessed Mar. 12, 2019).
Court System (2017), https://www.lccr.com/wp-content/uploads/LCCR-Report-Paying-More-for-Being-Poor-
May-2017.pdf; Joel Rubin & Ben Poston, “L.A. County deputies stopped thousands of innocent Latinos on the
5 Freeway in hopes of their next drug bust,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 4, 2018, https://www.latimes.com/local/
lanow/la-me-sheriff-latino-drug-stops-grapevine-20181004-htmlstory.html (last accessed Mar. 12, 2019).
90 Steven Raphael & Michael A. Stoll, Can Boosting Minority Car-Ownership Rates Narrow Inter-Racial Employment
Gaps?, Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs: 2001 at 99, 101. Research shows that Latinx households are
more than twice as likely as white households not to have access to a car; African-American households are
over four times as likely not to have car access.
91 Pieter A. Gautier & Yves Zenou, Car ownership and the labor market of ethnic minorities, 67 J. Urb. Econ. 392, 393
(2009).
92 See Metro Customer Survey Results (2012), http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/research/images/
infographics/metro_infographic_02.pdf; see also Improving Los Angeles Public Transportation is a Civil
Rights Issue, Pacific Standard, Jan. 26, 2017, https://psmag.com/news/improving-los-angeles-public-
transportation-is-a-civil-rights-issue (last accessed Mar. 12, 2019).
93 See, e.g., Paul Ong, Car Ownership and Welfare-to-Work, UC Berkeley: University of California Transportation
Center at 5 (2001), https://escholarship.org/uc/item/81v246mr (citing research that many employers avoid
recruiting in low-income, minority communities).
94 Peter Hecht, King City police accused of targeting undocumented workers in towing scandal, The Sacramento
Bee, Mar. 18, 2014, https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article2593312.html (last accessed
Mar. 12, 2019).
95 Id.
96 Id.
97 Amy Larson, King City Must Pay $1.2 Million for Police Car Towing Scheme, KSBW8 News, Feb. 22, 2016, https://
www.ksbw.com/article/king-city-must-pay-1-2-million-for-police-car-towing-scheme/1296534.
98 Michael B. Sauter, Faces of Poverty: What Racial, Social Groups Are More Likely to Experience It?, USA Today,
Oct. 10, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/10/10/faces-poverty-social-racial-fac-
tors/37977173/.
99 Hans Johnson & Sergio Sanchez, Immigrants in California, Public Policy Institute of California (May 2018) https://
www.ppic.org/publication/immigrants-in-california/.
100 Sauter, Faces of Poverty, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/10/10/faces-poverty-so-
cial-racial-factors/37977173/.
101 Rolf Pendall, Evelyn Blumenberg, & Casey Dawkins (2016) What if Cities Combined Car-Based Solutions with
Transit to Improve Access to Opportunity?, p. 5; William Clark & Wenfei Wang (2010) The Automobile, Immigrants,
and Poverty: Implications for Immigrant Earnings and Job Access, Urban Geography 31, p. 532. The wages
of a Hispanic household with car access is almost 50% higher than those of a household without a car, and
if African-American car ownership rates were equivalent to white household ownership rates, the disparity
in racialemployment rates would decrease by forty-three percent.
102 Clement v. City of Glendale, 518 F.3d 1090 (9th Cir. 2008); United States v. Hawkins, 249 F.3d 867 (9th Cir. 2001);
see also Brewster v. Beck, 859 F.3d 1194 (9th Cir. 2017); Miranda v. City of Cornelius, 429 F.3d 858 (9th Cir. 2005);
United States v. Duguay, 93F.3d 346 (7th Cir. 1996).
103 Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 372 (1993) (Warrantless seizures are “per se unreasonable” subject only to a
few “specifically established and well delineated exceptions.”).
104 United States v. Hawkins, 249 F.3d 867, 872 (9th Cir. 2001) (“The burden is on the Government to persuade the dis-
trict court that a seizure comes “under one of a few specifically established exceptions to the warrant require-
ment.”).
105 Cal. Veh. Code § 22650(b) (effective Jan. 1, 2019).
106 Id.
107 “It is not clear… that Defendants can justify the seizure and retention of a vehicle if its owner cannot afford
the parking tickets levied upon the vehicle solely on the basis offered here, that the seizure is reasonable in an
effort to secure repayment of the debt owed. See, e.g., Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 667 (1983) (the court
must take into account the indigent’s ability to pay to determine appropriate and adequate penalty. Accordingly,
the court finds that serious questions remain.” Order Granting Motion for Preliminary Injunction at 5-6, Smith v.
Reiskin, No. C18-01239 JSW (N.D. Cal. Oct. 10, 2018).
108 U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.
109 Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 333 (1976).
110 Clement v. City of Glendale, 518 F.3d 1090, 1094 (9th Cir. 2008); Scofield v. City of Hillsborough, 862 F.2d 759, 762
(9th Cir. 1988) (“The uninterrupted use of one’s vehicle is a significant and substantial private interest.
As we noted…, “[a] person’s ability to make a living and his access to both the necessities and amenities
of life may depend upon the availability of an automobile when needed.”)
111 See Clement, 518 F.3d at 1093; Stypmann v. City & Cty. of San Francisco, 557 F.2d 1338, 1343 (9th Cir. 1977).
112 Clement, 518 F.3d at 1093-94.
113 Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, 2019 WL 691578 (U.S. Feb. 20, 2019).
114 U.S. Const. amend. VIII.
115 Timbs, 2019 WL 691578 at *3-4.
116 Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 668 (1983); see also People v. Dueñas, 30 Cal. App. 5th 1157, 1168 (Ct. App. 2019)
(“[I]mposing these assessments upon indigent defendants without a determination that they have the present
ability to pay violates due process under both the United States Constitution and the California Constitution.”);
In re Humphrey, 19 Cal. App. 5th 1006, 1026 (Ct. App. 2018); Doe v. Angelina Cty., Texas, 733 F. Supp. 245, 25254
(E.D. Tex. 1990).
117 Dueñas, 30 Cal. App. 5th at 1167.
118 Id. at 1164.
119 Cal. Civ. Code § 3072; Cal. Veh. Code § 22851.4.
120 Cal. Civ. Code § 3072.
121 Id.
122 Id. Tow companies do not need to get a court judgment to overcome an opposition if the company is unable to
serve the person opposing the sale at the address they listed on the opposition form.
123 Id.
124 Id.
125 Id.
126 Cal. Veh. Code §§ 22851.8, 22851.10.
127 Id.
128 Cal. Civ. Code § 3071; Cal. Veh. Code § 22851.4.
129 Cal. Civ. Code § 3071.
130 Id.
131 Id.
132 Id.
133 Id.
134 Cal. Gov. Code §§ 6250-70.
135 The LAPD’s refusal to produce towing data has been the subject of a number of legal actions. In January 2019,
the Court of Appeal agreed the LAPD did not have to disclose Official Police Garage data. Anderson-Barker
v. Superior Court, (2019) 31 Cal.App.5th 528. As of the date of publication, the California Supreme Court is
considering whether to grant review of the Court of Appeal decision.
136 For example, on February 13, 2019, a contributor spoke to Lieutenant Agnoletto of the Riverside County Sheriff’s
Department. The Lieutenant explained that his department does not track the outcome of every vehicle, which
is why that column was blank for some of the tows – as opposed to listing “sold” or “released.” He nevertheless
confirmed that the subset of the data with a listed outcome would be a fair cross section of their tows. The
blank tows were omitted from the Riverside County lien sale analysis
137 The missing reports were provided after the completion of the data collection phase of this report, and are
therefore could not be included in the analysis for this report.
138 In order to be more precise, we applied this approach both for the “Total Government Impounds” column in the
OPG reports and for the LAPD and LADOT impounds columns. When the Report discusses vehicles towed by the
City of Los Angeles, we are referring only to the LAPD and LADOT impounds.
139 2018 is the only year for which DMV vehicle registration counts were available as of the date accessed on Feb 19,
2019. DMV registrations accessed at: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/media_center/statistics.
Zip code to city mapping accessed at: https://www.zipcodestogo.com/California/.
140 Note that the average towing rate calculated here seeks to estimate the average towing rate across all cities in
California, using the data we have on 8 cities.
141 The assumptions needed to construct these confidence intervals are unlikely to be met in practice since (i)
cities likely differ significantly in their towing policies, and (ii) our sample was not randomly selected. As a result,
the exhibits also include estimates of the number of tows across the state in 2018 by applying each of the eight
cities’ tow rates to the number of registered vehicles. So for example, if one thinks that San Diego is a good
statewide proxy, we would apply its towing rate to the total number of registered vehicles, yielding an estimated
633,593 tows in California in 2018.
142 Wayne W. Daniel. Biostatistics: A Foundation for Analysis In the Health Sciences. 6th ed. New York:
Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 158-160.

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TOWED INTO DEBT:

How Towing Practices

I. TOWING IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR CALIFORNIANS.......................................................... 7

II. LIEN SALES ARE COSTLY AND INEFFECTIVE.. ............................................................. 12

IV. GOVERNMENTS REGULARLY TOW CARS EVEN WHERE THERE IS NO PUBLIC

V. NO ONE WINS WITH POVERTY TOWS...........................................................................27

VI. MANY POVERTY TOWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL....................................................... 32

VII. R ECOMMENDATIONS TO REDUCE TOWING OF VEHICLES IN CALIFORNIA......................37

 Poverty Tows  Criminal Investigation  Flow of Traffic  License Suspension  Other/Unspecified

After the for

Mary Lovelace and Miguel’s stories are typical of what happens

I. TOWING IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR CALIFORNIANS

Middle-class and low-income vehicle owners suffer devastating economic consequences

TABLE: AVERAGE TOWING FEES IN CALIFORNIA 2

TYPE OF FEE AVERAGE FEE

Tow Fee $189

ADDITIONAL COSTS TO RECOVER VEHICLES TOWED FOR DEBT COLLECTION 5

CITY AVERAGE PARKING PARKING CITATION MINIMUM ADDITIONAL COST

Los Angeles $68 $68 $680

ADDITIONAL COSTS TO RECOVER VEHICLES TOWED FOR LAPSED REGISTRATION

• DMV late registration fees ($20 to $100)

• Civil assessment for failure to pay traffic ticket ($300 if imposed)

LOS ANGELES TOWING FEES 7

TYPE OF FEE FEE

Towing Fee $133

MODESTO TOWING FEES 9

TYPE OF FEE FEE

SAN JOSE TOWING FEES 11

TYPE OF FEE FEE

Basic Towing Service Fee $215

EXORBITANT STORAGE FEES

CITY TOW-YARD DAILY OVERNIGHT DAILY COST PRICE-

Bakersfield $50 $7 $43 7.1

a. THE COST OF LOCAL TOWING PROGRAMS

b. COST RECOVERY AT TOW-YARD LIEN SALES

REASON FOR TOW AVERAGE FEES DUE AVERAGE SALE PRICE

Debt Collection $3,271.13 $797.17

TOWING, STORAGE, AND LIEN SALE FEES IN SAN FRANCISCO 22

TYPE OF FEE AMOUNT

Administrative Fee $283.75

a. TOWING AND LIEN SALES LEAVE A DIRECT FINANCIAL IMPACT

b. VEHICLE IMPOUNDS SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACT LOW-INCOME WORKERS’

c. IMPOUNDING A LOW-INCOME WORKER’S VEHICLE CAN NEGATIVELY

d. LOSING A VEHICLE CAN NEGATIVELY AFFECT ACCESS TO EDUCATION

e. LOSING A VEHICLE CAN LIMIT HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES

f. IMPACT ON INDIVIDUALS LIVING IN THEIR VEHICLES

IV.  OVERNMENTS REGULARLY TOW CARS EVEN WHERE

• Five or more parking tickets

• Unregistered vehicles or lapsed registration

REASONS FOR VEHICLE TOWS BY CITY OF SANTA ANA (2015-18)

 Poverty Tows  Criminal Investigation  Flow of Traffic  License Suspension  Other/Unspecified

Reason for Vehicle Tows in Santa Ana (2015-18)

REASON FOR VEHICLE TOWS BY CITY OF CHULA VISTA (2017)

 Poverty Tows  Criminal Investigation  Flow of Traffic  License Suspension

Poverty Tow Criminal Investigation Flow of Traffic License Suspension Other

Reason for Statewide,

b. POVERTY TOWS DISPROPORTIONATELY LEAD TO LIEN SALES

VEHICLES RELEASED VS. SOLD POST-TOW IN RIVERSIDE COUNTY (2016-18)

Vehicles Released vs. Sold Post-Tow in Riverside (2016-18)

Vehicles Released vs. Sold Post-Tow in San Francisco (2005-17)

San Francisco (2005-17)

a. POVERTY TOWS DRAIN MONEY FROM THE PUBLIC FISC

TABLE: TOWING AND LIEN SALES NUMBERS IN SAN DIEGO (2016-18)

IV. OVERNMENTS REGULARLY TOW CARS EVEN WHERE