Towing Issues: commercial truck impounded, commercial trucks, computer failure

Question
We had parked our big truck at a Lowes in Fort Worth, TX, a place we had parked overnight for a long time.
on the day in question, we parked in the back of the business, as usual, did some repair on the lights, then left to go to dinner at a friends home. When we returned we found that our truck had been "towed", tho the person at Lowes apologized profusely. When we got to the tow facility, we found that they didn't tow our truck...they keyed the door and ignition, and DROVE it to the impound yard. They stated that Tx paws had changed, and now they were permited to gain entry, and drive commercial trucks to impound. The charge for the 4 hours that we were gone was $1100.00....Is there someting hinky about all of this ?? I can see towing, I can see charging a fee, but dang it !!

Answer
Sorry for the delay in answering but I had a major computer failure and lost most of my information...

Yes Texas laws have changed and are changing more regarding impounding vehicles from Private Property ..

That being said, driving vehicles instead of towing them opens up a lot of issues and I do not really support that idea (my thoughts on it only)...  (is everything there inside the truck type issues???)

Now the price for the tow, works out to $ 275.00 per hour and that is actually lower then what we charge here in Alabama for impound tows on tractor trailers ($ 350.00 per hour with 2 hour min)...

Now I hate to say it, but when you are parking at a place like Lowes, Wal-Mart, or other large place with spaces for trucks you tend to run into the "he says its ok, they say its not ok" issues

This is common and costly as you seen. Now how to stop it, I have no idea other than the one answer you do not want to hear (so I am not going there)

As to the fees, well it might of been a bit high, specially with driving it to the yard, since they do not have to hook up and do all the other things before it gets towed (remove driveline, release brakes on the tractor, run air and lights to the trailer (if there was one) and the like) and I have been towing heavy duty for the last 10 years and it takes me up to or more than 30 minutes at times to get it ready to move.

Check out some of the laws regarding towing below, and remember that some are changing and or will change soon.  I hope this helped...



http://law.onecle.com/texas/transportation/chapter684.html