Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
The City of Chicago has no compunction about separating motorists from their cars. Chicagoist had their car towed once because they parked in the financial district on Veteran's Day; the streets were empty, there were no cars driving or parked anywhere. That part of the Loop was a ghost town. We were shocked when we came back to find our car gone. When we called to find out what had happened and recited the sign to the person on the other end of the 311 line, quoting the phrase "Sundays and holidays," we were told it wasn't a "traffic holiday." Oh. All Federal and City insitutions are shut down, but it's not a traffic holiday? Great.
You will also get your car removed from your possession if you commit the following crimes: drunken driving, waste dumping and prostitution to loud radio playing, drag racing and drug and curfew violations. (Waste dumping?) However, strangely enough, if you get caught driving on a suspended or revoked license, you get a ticket. At least according to this article. (We have a Latino friend who was actually cuffed and taken to jail for that, though. He didn't know his license was suspended due to unpaid parking tickets.)
Ald. Tom Allen (38th), chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, is proposing that people who get caught driving on a suspended or revoked license get their cars thrown in car jail, too. They'd get charged $150 for towing, $10 a day for storage for the first five days and $35 a day thereafter. An attorney and former public defender, he's seen too many people go to court for having their license suspended for everything from driving under the influence, having no insurance to piling up too many parking tickets, and then driving away from court that very day.
We don't have a problem with people being fairly punished for their crime. But it seems like someone who is driving on a revoked license for drunk driving is in a different category than someone who has a bunch of unpaid parking tickets. Maybe not. Also, there's that whole $35 a day thereafter ... how does one get one's car out of the pound if you can't drive it out? From personal experience, Chicagoist knows that they make the driver of the car bring their own registration and pay themselves. How are these people supposed to get their cars out? Or are they supposed to add more fines to their bills? Or like happened to us once, get their cars cubed?
Although this idea supposedly came from the Sun-Times "Why Are They Still Driving?" series, they also did a series on the towing process and how it can be very unfair to drivers. We're behind the idea, but as always, we want to make sure it's fairly applied and that it makes sense to punish people commensurate with their crime.
"Just In Time" by TheeErin
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this city's parking/towing/auto seizure policies are a great sham, and designed not to punish lawbreakers or anything like that, but merely to put money into the city's coffers.
if you own a car in this city and don't have a garage to put it in, eventually -- or monthly, if you live in a high traffic, tough parking area -- you'll be towed, booted, or just get tickets that make no sense at all. and remember folks, gotta have those city stickers on your windshield by the end of the month, too!
addendum to the last post--the people that can afford to pay the outrageous parking/towing fines this city imposes also never have to, because they are also the people who can afford garages. so, it ends up being the folks who can't afford a ticket or tow in the first place incurring fines. sometimes it's our fault (if we fail to move a car on a designated street cleaning day), sometimes it isn't (if we are out of town on said day when the orange signs go up; waiting for payday to update our registration or city sticker). it is a class issue to a certain extent because those it affects can't afford to keep their cars off-street.
also, i agree with jocelyn that the severity of the crime should be taken into account before we get impound-happy.
Finally! 89 percent of the drivers in Logan Square and Humboult Park have suspended, revoked, or no license at all. Do you think this would encourage them to at least drive carefully to at least avoid attention? Nope they just speed on down the line blowing stop signs in there wake. There are too many cars any way on the road. We need more Bicycles and Vespas!
I'm white and the same thing happened to me as happened to your Latino friend. I was cuffed and stuffed on January 2nd after being snowed in for three days at a NYE party in Evanston. I couldn't retrieve my truck until I had my license back, which took a week due to red tape, and when I finally was allowed to go into the yard and pick it up, I discovered that the $3000 projection unit I'd borrowed from work for the party was gone.
That was a bad month.
I learned a few things from getting my car towed. Then I learned more things when I got my car booted for unpaid parking tickets.
What did I learn? Obey the law. Park legally. Or take public tranportation. Also, pay any parking ticket fines.
These are not complicated matters. Yes, the city makes money from its enforcement. No, not all parking tickets are fair. But if you want to have a car in this city you have to follow the rules. That's what I try to do. And if I ever get "cuffed and stuffed," it will be my own fault.
Another reason they can tow your car is for not moving it for seven straight days. Then they can put a sticker in your car informing you that you'll be towed if you don't move it within 10 days of the date on the notice. I'd never heard of that until I got that sticker on my window. Needless to say, I moved it before my time was up.
1) Have a valid and current drivers license and insurance
2) Park and drive legally
Driving is a privelege, please act accordingly.
I love the "I didn't realize my license was suspended" aka the Paris Hilton defense.
What I relaized is you can drive totally naked on mushrooms as long as you obey all rules of the road.
There's a lesson in there.........
The city's towing policies are yet another Richie D. scam. I had my car towed once for parking legally. I beat the parking ticket in two minutes flat, based on the ticket itself (from the face of which it was clear that I had parked legally).
In those days, I had a certain naive optimism about things, and thought that, since I had been legally parked and beat the ticket, the city would refund without demur the towing fee ("ransom", in English) that was I was compelled to pay to get my car back.
Wrong. You can get, theoretically, get the fee back, provided a hearing officer agrees (which, I'm told, never happens). You can of course appeal this decision to the Cook County Chancery Court, if you're either princpled or foolish, since the filing fee in court slightly exceeds the towing fee (or did then).
Doubtless Richie, who's never had to park legally in his life, and who's had a publicly funded car and driver for the past 25-30 years, will bless us with another of his illiterate admonitions to park legally or pay the consequences.
I'm rooting for Pat Fitzgerald.