Car2gos lock automatically at the end of a trip, so that wouldn’t work.
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Seems like nothing a burning rag in the gas filler tube wouldn’t solve (assuming the guy doesn’t have a security camera covering the drive way).
I wonder if he was required to get a permit for the fence construction.
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I would think the car has cameras
What would be a motive for lying about calling tow trucks?
My first impression is the towers are worried about the corporate owner, AND the no post, AND that the cops are keeping out of it… they just said screw it, dont need the hassle. But, if it was a privately owned car it would have been towed in three minutes.
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There is always a way to move a vehicle…
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And people (in Seattle, and Bellevue, my neighborhood) get SUPER pissy about these sharing vehicles. I think I’ve seen three news articles and about 12 posts on my Nextdoor just this month about the Limebikes. I totally get being angry if someone ditches a vehicle on your property but a lot of the people around here seem to be pissed off about the entire idea of them existing.
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I used to have this problem on a very regular basis when I lived in Pasadena. Despite being one-half of a duplex with a driveway all of 12 feet long, people would regularly block mine (but oddly, never the other unit’s drive). I would always call the cops to send a tow. However - I’ve broken down three times since moving to Washington, and it takes HOURS to get a tow truck around here. I have no idea why, but I have never once been able to get a tow in under 60 minutes. Even when my sister-in-law’s truck broke down on a freeway offramp.
I can see him calling multiple people and getting frustrated that they quoted him ridiculous wait times to actually fetch the vehicle.
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I do. It’s because along the I5 corridor traffic is so bad the truck drivers just stay in their lot until there’s a call. AAA contracted wreckers don’t get paid anything driving to the tow, and don’t get paid anything driving back to base and the ones I know have to pay half on fuel. I know a wrecker in KC who cruises because it lets him get to his calls faster. If you cruise on the I5 corridor you’re just wasting gas.
I work in Bellevue, and I fucking hate the rentabikes and scooters. Kind of. I hate that people rent them and fucking leave them right in the middle of sidewalks, or sitting around in my campus’s parking garages, or literally right in front of the doors of grocery stores.
I guess what I’m saying is, I hate Lime et al for encouraging people to not take responsibility for the shit they use, and treating public spaces like a dump. Every time I encounter one of these fugly things neatly kickstanded across the sidewalk I knock them over and drag them to the side. I like to consider that a small amount of raging against the machine.
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If it were me, I’d get the come-along out of the garage and winch the damn car right into the street. Fuck gig economy corporate leeches.
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I’m certainly not saying he’s lying - and I have no idea what the content of the phone calls actually was - but I’m suggesting he was too polite/got discouraged too easily. He obviously thought he could get the car company to deal with their shit, so I suspect he didn’t try too hard to deal with it through other avenues.
The police statement suggests that they generally don’t involve themselves in the issue at all - i.e. the situation is sufficiently cut-and-dried that the property owner is supposed to directly contact the towing companies. (Though it’s also possible that, since no one seems to have come out to look at the situation, the way he was describing it might have put everyone off - e.g. they thought he had a parking lot.
Move it in front of the nearest fire hydrant and leave it there. Before too long it will get towed.
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Speaking from long experience, I can tell you that no private towing company will tow someone else’s vehicle off your property. Only the police towing truck can do so.
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people do stupid stuff when they’re upset about a company screwing them over.
governments are “special”. The city could still run its impound lot. But private impound services could be impacted, unless the city gives them a license to do it then again we see how special privileges work.
in my city you have to post a sign indicating you will tow parked cars. once you do that, then there isn’t much a place like Car2Go could do about it other than pay the fees.
I used to be on the board of a co-op with underground parking. We would regularly have people sneaking in to leave their cars in resident’s posted parking spaces while they (the drivers) went to work. We still couldn’t get these cars towed legally. The requirements to be able to tow cars off of private property are ridiculously hard to meet.
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If someone obstructs your driveway, yes: they are probably on public property, which is easy to deal with. If they are in your driveway, they’re on private property, and in my experience, it is a much bigger problem. There are all kinds of hoops you have to have jumped through in advance to set it up as a towable area.
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If you leave your property on my property, I charge rent. If you’re my friend the rent is me reminding you to pick up your stuff once a year. If you’re not it’s a billion dollars a second. This guy went out of his way to resolve this, going way beyond being reasonable. Me I’d just start billing, then chopping up the vehicle and sell the parts to cover the unpaid bills.
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I’ve tried to tow a car parked across the mouth of my driveway, and now tow company would do it unless I’d contracted with them and posted the sign.
His remedy was contacting the police or municipal services, having them order the tow. Of course, I don’t see why he doesn’t have a right to charge storage fees. It’s his property someone parked on. He dies have as much legal right to exploit his property for financial gain as any company would.
Upset man builds fence around car-share vehicle parked in his driveway
Oh c’mon, BoingBoing. It’s a rental-vehicle. (you got it right in the article text)
I thought we stopped with the bullshit p.r. trick of calling paying for goods/services
“sharing/” merely because the transaction is done via app.
Car2Go is a ‘car-share’’ just as much as Hertz or Enterprise.
((mini-rant over))
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