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Experienced a new sensation today, the fear that comes with not seeing your car where you left it and the annoyance of having to pay to get it out of an impound lot.

Summary of the day's events:
- Went to a local event (swap meet).
- event parking is limited so a lot of it spills over into surrounding lots. Including where I parked regularly.
- Noted at the time no one was there but attributed it to less-than-stellar attendance.
- Came back to find my car not where I left it.
- A police officer happened to be there assisting someone else (who I assume had the same experience).
- Found I'd been towed to an impound lot which was luckily (for the tower, anyway) only a block down from the event.
- Retrieved my car at my expense.


And before anyone asks, I have no interest in taking this to court or disputing since "Well they never enforced it before" will probably not hold up and I can't exactly say the sign wasn't there. Money out of my pocket and lesson learned, I guess.
What me and the other guys I walked down to the impound with can't figure out is why they suddenly started enforcing this after years of people regularly doing this. Lot owner just got fed up, I'm guessing.


So my question is: What was your first experience with having your vehicle towed and what were the circumstances?

Sorry to hear that.

The Happy Locust wrote:
What me and the other guys I walked down to the impound with can't figure out is why they suddenly started enforcing this after years of people regularly doing this. Lot owner just got fed up, I'm guessing.

Maybe he knew there was gonna be a swap meet and knew that the lot would overflow? Maybe he has some kind of deal going with the towing garage so they split the towing fee? That's been known to happen.

So my question is: What was your first experience with having your vehicle towed and what were the circumstances?

This isn't exactly similar to your story, but it's the first time my vehicle had been towed. One morning back in high school I was on the way to school. The visor in my truck didn't work, and one of the 4-way intersections was on a hill. So I'm coming up to the intersection, and the Sun glares right down in my eyes as I'm going up on the hill. (This was at about 7:15 in the morning in September) I can't see the road from the glare, but I know there's an intersection, so I'm slowing down. Up ahead, I see the silhouette of a huge dump truck. So I'm preparing to come up behind it, when suddenly brake lights pop up in front of me. Turns out there was a little compact car between my truck and the dump truck, but it was shadowed by the silhouette of the dumper, I never saw it. So I slammed into the back of the car, pretty much pushing the trunk into the back seat, and the whole front of my truck into the engine. My hood folded up like Bayverse Ironhide when he transforms. I hit that car at about 40 MPH. Luckily, I was wearing my seat belt and no one was in the back seat of the car. End result: totaled car, totaled truck, bruised sternum, and a seriously freaking out classmate. It was the 1st time a vehicle I owned got towed (the wreckage, anyway) and also the 1st time I got a ride home in a police car. (But it wouldn't be the last.)

This is a tow story similar to yours. One day I went to college and I had only one class. So instead of parking in the student lot 10 minutes away from campus and taking the bus in, I decided to park at a reserved lot across the street from the building my class was in. I figured, the class is 50 minutes, and we always get out after 30 anyway. I thought, "Nah, they won't check. It'll be OK." Of course, the class went the entire 50 minutes, and when I walked back to the lot, the space I parked my car in was empty. The lot was almost full and I even parked it in the back corner between 2 huge pickup trucks to blend in. So I got the info from the Tow-away sign, and after walking for 1 hour in the rain and paying $80, I got my car back. Needless to say, I was pissed for almost the rest of the day. And I got a f**king cold.

Bad_dude wrote:This is a tow story similar to yours. One day I went to college and I had only one class. So instead of parking in the student lot 10 minutes away from campus and taking the bus in, I decided to park at a reserved lot across the street from the building my class was in. I figured, the class is 50 minutes, and we always get out after 30 anyway. I thought, "Nah, they won't check. It'll be OK." Of course, the class went the entire 50 minutes, and when I walked back to the lot, the space I parked my car in was empty. The lot was almost full and I even parked it in the back corner between 2 huge pickup trucks to blend in. So I got the info from the Tow-away sign, and after walking for 1 hour in the rain and paying $80, I got my car back. Needless to say, I was pissed for almost the rest of the day. And I got a f**king cold.

Sounds familiar. When I was at college, freshmen couldn't have vehicles (not on campus anyway) so I'd bring my truck to college but park at the stadium during the week (for free), a couple miles from my dorm. I drove home one weekend, got the flu, drove back to college but didn't want to walk all the way back to the dorm from the stadium parking lot so decided to just park the truck in a strip mall parking lot near my dorm until I felt up to moving it. Next day, went to move my truck and it wasn't there. Kind of a weird moment when you get to the lot, know you left the truck there the night before and find it isn't there now. My truck was a piece of crap so the chances of it being stolen were slim, I called campus security who gave me the number of the local towing company. $74 and 2 hours later, I had my truck back. I was glad when I made it to sophomore and could get a parking permit!