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Chicago Police have towed over 250,000 cars since 2010. A vehicle impoundment is a legal process of placing a vehicle into an impoundment lot or tow yard.
In Chicago, there is a program called the Vehicle Impound Program which involves the police seizing your car during a stop for a violation. Some possible violations could be the possession of unlawful drugs, unlawful possession of a firearm, driving while intoxicated, littering, having fake or absconded license plates. They have even found that some people have altered temporary plates and much more.
Sometime cars could possibly be helpful in the impound by the police for months. And that can leave people in a rough state and could be possibly financially devastating. As of this year of 2020, penalties could typically cost up to 1,000 dollars and tow fees would be at least 150 dollars.
Lightfoot began to acknowledge that there is no city ordinance to stop all of the high fees. “Once the car gets into the system, there are really no limits on the number of storage fees, which for a lot of people’s cars, can quickly get to the blue book value of the car,” she had said. Impound laws were supposed to be applied across the 50 city’s wards.
Using some data from the Chicago Police Department WBEZ had found at least over 1,600 people owe the city fines up to 10 thousand dollars.
Written by Charles Lott
Edited by Sheena Robertson
Resources:
WBEZ: Chicago Police Impounded 250,000 Vehicles Since 2010. Here’s Why City Hall’s Rethinking That
Top and Featured Image Courtesy to Chris’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License