Towing companies, the story says, confiscate cars they shouldn’t, won’t let people get personal items out of the cars once they are towed, demand fees of $150 or more in cash to reclaim cars … and even arrange kickbacks with property owners.

(That last, for example, creates an incentive for the lot owners not to label the tow zones clearly.)

But wait! you say. The legislature passed a bill outlawing a lot of these practices earlier this year!

What happened?

The push for reform at the state level has gained support from some tow-truck company owners, who blame the abuses on a few bad actors giving their industry a bad name. Still, towing legislation in 2008 and 2009 could not gain approval in the state Senate.

This year, as more cash-strapped motorists complained about being fleeced, the Legislature passed the strongest towing-reform bill in Arizona history.

But Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed it, saying it would cost too much to enforce.

Thanks, Jan!

This was her rationale for vetoing the bill:

“[Law enforcement agencies] would need to reassign officers away from law enforcement duties to private towing oversight functions.”

But that’s an argument against any piece of legislation. It’s a prime argument against SB 1070, in fact, not to mention most drug laws.

It’s even a great argument against laws against murder!

“Why, if we make murder illegal, then cops will be pulled away from other law-enforcement duties!”

What’s the difference? The people facing the brunt of the enforcement of SB 1070 are harmless and poor immigrants.

For the towing bill, it was scumbag local towing companies.

Brewer’s concerns extended only to the businesses.

Now, PHXated doesn’t feel that sorry for the people getting their cars towed. Too many drivers are thoughtless at best and radiate a sense of I’ll-park-my-SUV-wherever-I-want arrogance at worst.

They deserve to be towed.

But if there are towing abuses, there’s a right way to correct them: Charge local towing companies fees that would pay for someone in government to handle complaints and enforcement for their industry.

But that would be a tax on small business!

The result: Another example of Republican political philosophy that, conveniently, protects corporate crooks … and fucks over the populace.


The Republic story on the matter, which ledes the paper today, is long and seemingly in-depth.

But read it closely and you can see there’s very little in the story beside people asserting that there’s a towing problem in town. The two case studies the story offers are entirely one-sided. In both cases the towing company involved isn’t named, much less offered a chance to respond.