Calling Out Predatory Towing In Ridgewood, New Jersey

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A blogger who concentrates on issues in and around Ridgewood, New Jersey, recently produced what I consider a "classic post" on predatory towing, click here...

First of all, he provided the specifics of the incident from his source, and included photos.

Secondly, he provided information about New Jersey's recent law, a matter I've blogged about before, click here, and allowed the incident to be contrasted with the specifics of the law.

Third, his blog post had a comments function enabled, which allowed individuals to come forward with all kinds of nitty-gritty information, right down to whether a local church-goers had been getting a break in that particular parking lot for a long time.

If all local bloggers were doing posts like this, it would save me a lot of work! Of particular interest is prominent use of the phrase "predatory towing." This phrase, when Googled, is like a key that unlocks treasure-troves of information about this issue, info which inevitably raises the consciousness of the reader and leaves them to wonder: why isn't our nation doing more to put a stop to predatory towing?

Passaic, New Jersey, Stands Up To Aggressive Towing

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Appalling stories of aggressive towing have led the city of Passaic, New Jersey to increase the price of parking tickets, but (quite sensibly) refrain from towing vehicles during street cleaning days, according to North Jersey Dot Com.

City drivers are...

...reportedly "applauding" the new system, where fines for parking go from $37 to $74, still much cheaper than getting towed.

Notably, the difficulties citizens have in Passaic seem to revolve more around TIME than MONEY, since the inefficient retrieval process takes many hours and some people are forced to take off the whole day. Councilman Chaim Munk helped lead the reform, and so gets a positive mention from this blog. Oily thumbs up to ya, Chaim!

These imperfect but positive reforms are the result of hundreds of residents in the city's Third Ward signing a petition against aggressive towing after the city changed parking rules to clean streets and keep storm drains free of debris.

The aggressive towing company which helped cause all the trouble--Raineri's Towing Company--wasn't commenting for North Jersey Dot Com. No surprise there.

Passaic, New Jersey proves that a petition with just a few hundred signatures can actually lead to positive towing reforms. Be inspired, citizens. Be very inspired.

New Jersey Law Fights Predatory Towing

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Thanks to the website of a New Jersey law firm, I just learned of a relatively new statute which fights predatory towing. In fact, it's actually...

..named the "Predatory Towing Act."

This is very exciting, because it means I have to expend slightly less effort just to convince people there is indeed a recognizable and common phenomenon called "predatory (and abusive) towing." New Jersey seems to get it, and this is a fine way to put New Jersey on the Towing Utopia map with my first posting about that state.

The blog post from the law firm does point out (what they consider to be) some flaws with the law, in particular some signage requirements which might be "onerous." Well, considering some of the unreadable, neglected signage I've seen which SUPPOSEDLY warns people about towing, like this example in St. Paul (click here) I think "onerous" signage is a small price to pay for some progress against predatory towing.

What I find interesting and kind of cool is the fact this law apparently grew out of a small but intense "parking war." It's amazing how something minor can escalate like that...probably fueled by lethal combination of bad temper and greed.