| Great68 | 10-21-2010 06:05 AM |
Yesterday there was an article in the Victoria paper that our impound lots are having trouble keeping up with the number of cars being impounded. A lot of people with beaters are just abandoning their cars at the impound lot... hahahaha Quote:
BC's drunk driving penalties have cars flooding impound lots
Even after buying more land, Cheryl Parker is having a tough time squeezing in all the cars impounded under B.C.'s new drinking-driving penalties.
She owns All-Ways Towing, which has the contract to store vehicles seized by the Victoria Police. Business is booming. Her lot is bursting — not necessarily because more drinking drivers are being caught, but because their cars are being held for three, seven, sometimes 30 days. "Basically, they're in for longer, so that means I need more room to hold on to them."
Of the approximately 200 cars in her expanded lot, 100 to 150 were there because of month-old rules that allow police to issue stiff roadside suspension to drivers who have been drinking. "Before the new rules, I probably would have had 75, max."
Other towing companies also say business is up, though not that dramatically. "We haven't seen a huge increase," said Mike Simmons of Totem Towing, which has the contract in Saanich.
Motorists who blow a "fail" on a roadside screening device — that is, over .10 — can lose their licences for 90 days and have their vehicles held for 30.
Drivers who blow a "warn," which used to draw only a 24-hour driving prohibition, now face licence suspensions and vehicle impoundments of three days for a first offence, seven for a second and 30 for a third. "I'm getting a lot of seven days," says Parker.
She's seeing nicer cars coming in, too, which increases the chance that the owners will claim them.
It seems car abandonment has been a big problem for impound lots. In fact, so many people have been walking away from their cars rather than pay the storage fee that the provincial government has reduced the time it locks away the cars of unlicensed and prohibited drivers.
In the past, people caught driving without a licence lost their cars for 30 or 60 days. Driving while prohibited meant impoundment of 60 to 90 days. Those penalties have been cut to seven, 30 and 60 days, the government responding to complaints from impound lots saddled with cars worth far less than the 90-day storage fee of $1,550.
"We just weren't having the desired behavioural impact," says Steve Martin, B.C.'s superintendent of motor vehicles. Some people deliberately buy junkers, treating them as the vehicular equivalent of disposable lighters. Parker has been stuck with four clunkers seized from one chronic Victoria offender. "She never comes back for them," Parker says.
Others tell a similar story. "It's a huge problem," says Tamara Mahy, office manager at Peninsula Towing, which hauls cars when called by the Sidney/North Saanich RCMP. Peninsula deals with a lot of "frequent fliers" in $200 junkers. "They just walk away."
"People think we want the vehicles," says Mahy. "No, we don't." It takes 90 days of red tape to get rid of a car that has been impounded for 30. Selling it for scrap doesn't cover the cost of dealing with it. So, yes, she's happy about the reduced impoundment time. "We're getting a lot more vehicles that are leaving."
Coming in the gates are cars seized from excessive speeders, another group targeted by impound rules. "We're getting quite a few of the seven-day impounds," Mahy says. One guy got nailed for doing 160 in a 50 km/h zone on West Saanich Road. His car went to jail for a week.
In fact, that actually works out to nine days. In B.C., drivers see their cars impounded for full calendar days, but also pay storage for the day they got busted and the day they spring their vehicles.
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