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In theory I agree with you... but in reality, things are very different. Let's say you are a business owner that parks inside your enclosed one car garage... but when you are ready to drive home from work you see that a car is blocking the driveway despite having a tow sign on your garage door.
Going with your concept of how things should work, you would need to call the police with a "non emergency" call, (which can take 30 mins to an hour or more for them to show up). Then when they arrive they will ticket the offender. Once the car is ticketed, then you have the right to call a tow company and remove the vehicle so you can go home.
Going with your concept of how things should work, you would need to call the police with a "non emergency" call, (which can take 30 mins to an hour or more for them to show up). Then when they arrive they will ticket the offender. Once the car is ticketed, then you have the right to call a tow company and remove the vehicle so you can go home.
If you were that business owner, would you want to have to go through a two-step process depending on the reliability of the city and then a private company to allow you to get home to your family? Or would you prefer that you can call a tow company directly to handle the car in an expeditious manner?
Maybe to you it's not important and you can can just wait an hour or two for the two-step process? Let's pretend you were late for a very important appointment. Or that you were rushing out because of a *fill in the blank* emergency. Does that change your perspective?
When you actually walk through real life scenarios that occur every single day, you may have a little bit of sympathy for those that are impacted by people that don't respect the law.
Nope, doesn’t change my perspective. The example you are describing is sucky for the business owner. The choice for that person is to wait and have the vehicle owner trespassed, or have the car towed.
Is it fair if the owner of the car walks over just in time and drives off? Is it fair if the car gets towed and the owner of the car has to pay some steep fees? Hard to say. Private property has some funky laws.
Legislators changed Hawaii’s tow truck laws in 2008 to say, "If the vehicle is in the process of being hooked up or is hooked up to the tow truck and the owner appears on the scene, the towing company shall unhook the vehicle and shall not charge any fee to the owner of the vehicle."
In making the changes to island tow truck law, state legislators also repealed the old $50 "drop fee" to unhook a vehicle, eliminating any charge to release a car to an owner who’s on the scene.
A friend was in a situation like this recent on Oahu and I remembered this thread as I was talking to him.
Upon further research, however, I think that the legislature has edited that part out of the law (the tow truck lobby probably got to them).
This is how the law used to reads now per the State's website:
Quote:
(b) Towing companies engaged by the owner, occupant, or person in charge of the property shall:
(1) Charge not more than $65 for a tow, or $75 for a tow using a dolly, plus a mileage charge of $7.50 per mile towed and $25 per day or fraction thereof for storage for the first seven days and $20 per day thereafter. In the case of a difficult hookup, a towing surcharge of $30 shall apply. When the tow occurs between the hours of six o'clock p.m. and six o'clock a.m., from Monday through Thursday and from six o'clock p.m. Friday to six o'clock a.m. Monday, the towing company shall be entitled to an overtime charge of $15. The charges listed in this paragraph shall be the only charges tow companies are authorized to charge vehicle owners. For purposes of this paragraph, "difficult hookup" shall mean an above or below ground hookup in a multilevel facility;
It looks like the legislature stripped that language out sometime last year:
Quote:
(b) Towing companies engaged by the owner, occupant, or person in charge of the property shall:
(1) Charge not more than $65 for a tow, or $75 for a tow using a dolly, plus a mileage charge of $7.50 per mile towed and $25 per day or fraction thereof for storage for the first seven days and $20 per day thereafter. In the case of a difficult hookup, a towing surcharge of $30 shall apply. When the tow occurs between the hours of six o'clock p.m. and six o'clock a.m., from Monday through Thursday and from six o'clock p.m. Friday to six o'clock a.m. Monday, the towing company shall be entitled to an overtime charge of $15. [If the vehicle is in the process of being hooked up or is hooked up to the tow truck and the owner appears on the scene, the towing company shall unhook the vehicle and shall not charge any fee to the owner of the vehicle. In the case of a difficult hookup, meaning an above or below ground hookup in a multilevel facility, a towing surcharge of $30 shall be applicable;] The charges listed in this paragraph shall be the only charges tow companies are authorized to charge vehicle owners. For purposes of this paragraph, "difficult hookup" shall mean an above or below ground hookup in a multilevel facility;
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