Overkill.
This would work fine:
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What was so hard about Car2Go just sending someone out to move the car to the street when they were first contacted? It’s not like they don’t have employees. They already have to go around refueling their cars.
Of course, the homeowner also could have paid the 45 cents to rent the car himself and park it on the street. ($0.45/min rental fee for Car2Go.)
Actually, I think I admire the homeowner’s pigheadedness here.
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Not so much. They provide a fuel card in the car and provide incentives for the renters to refuel.
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Pretend you are a tow truck company. You retrieve the car because someone else claims it’s parked illegally on their property. You are a tow truck company, not a lawyer. You must pay your employee to collect it, document it, store it, etc. You must stand a chance of recovering all your costs plus enough to make a profit. If it’s unlikely you will collect, you won’t take the job. There just isn’t enough money in towing illegally parked cars from private property (and far too much risk of being sued for theft, damage, etc.), that’s why land owners resort to things like “clamping” or parking fines (or building fences in this case).
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Oops. That must be new. They used to refuel the cars themselves. (What do they do with a car that no one bothers to refuel?)
Well said. Businesses that profit off use of the public right-of-way without paying a fair share of its costs are predatory.
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Not sure when they did that. It was that way for Zipcar when I used them in Chicago around 2003 and in Portland when we did Car2Go awhile back. Could be regional, maybe?
A customer always refuels them eventually. You get a credit for doing it, and you don’t want to run out of gas.
But isn’t there some kind of time limit? Most places I’ve lived it can range from hours to days but eventually you can document it’s been there too long and have it towed
It’s a private driveway. There’s no time limit on how long I can park in my own driveway. If the police and the towing companies won’t remove a car that’s in my driveway, there aren’t many options left.
Look, I’m a rule-of-law guy, even to a fault. My first call would be to the company, and my second call would be to the police, and my third call would be to a tow company.
But if those don’t produce immediate satisfaction, and if this guy owns a single nail, he has all the deterrence capability he’ll ever need. Gosh, sorry about what happened to your car while it was parked in my driveway. This is an awful neighborhood, vandals everywhere you look. If only this could have been prevented somehow.
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the laws are usually written in such a way so that someone who doesn’t realize a place is private property can’t have their car scooped up. in the state i went to school in, after 24 hours on private property you could be towed. maybe 48 if the tow yard wants to cover their ass and says “we’ll chalk it, call again in 24 since we can’t be sure you’re accurate on the arrival time”
hence my confusion why no one will tow it. functioning states have laws to cover what is done when there’s no posted towing alert, usually an amount of time where it’s legal to assume the car is abandoned.
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Ah, not anywhere I’ve lived. Park in a private driveway and you’re toast.
Only after you pop a Mentos.
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They can be. My condo’s HOA had someone’s car towed that was parked in a homeowner’s deeded parking space (we have very limited on-site parking and no street parking so it’s a big problem when someone is in your parking spot that’s not supposed to be).
The car owner sued the HOA for towing costs and won, the judge’s justification was that the HOA should have been more “neighborly”. Ain’t that some shit.
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I agree that danegeld = last stage capitalism.
On the other hand – the company didn’t park the car there. They’re not refusing to move it unless he pays. Their business model is, someone nearby will rent the car, then it will get moved. So in that context, he spent time, effort, and money building a fence around the car when… y’know… he could have just moved the car legally and for far less time, effort, and money than what he actually spent.
If I ended up with a rental car in my driveway every weekend with no action from the company, sure, then I’d be likely to build a fence or take some kind of action. But this feels… hair-trigger-y, for a guy who wants to avoid a hassle.
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Except in this case it’s parked/abandoned on private property. Technically anybody that moves it is trespassing. Why should he have to pay a ransom to the company that owns the vehicle to get it moved? It’s a principled stand that we all may not agree with but he’s not wrong.
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why should this guy give a flying fuck what their business model is. they’ve been informed where their property is. maybe they should change their “business model” to comply with the law.
alternatively if you don’t think the business model is unreasonable, i submit it’s equally valid for this man to declare his “business model” to charge trespassers to get their cars back.
if corporations can be unlicensed hotels and taxis, why can’t he be a gig economy impound?
are you canadian by chance? 
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My concern would be the same defense a burglar uses if he is injured on breaking into a house. There have been (admittedly apocryphal) stories of burglars successfully suing homeowners for damages sustained when they fell through a skylight and hurt themselves. OTOH, there is the ‘my home is my castle’ defense – just pump a few loads of buckshot into the car and claim to have felt threatened by it! 
eta: any updates on this? I hope the property owner/renter successfully gets the car gone.
or call the local police, claim you smelled something odd and you’re concerned it might be a bomb (after all, if you see something, say something)
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Oh, those stories aren’t all apocryphal—but in all the ones that don’t get tossed out at first sniff, the homeowner did something truly egregious and out of proportion. Like, shot the burglar through a window while the burglar was still just trying all the doors.
Now what I’m suggesting is equally tortious, but a lot easier to get away with.
