Rethink of rules and fees for ‘ineffective’ towing regime under way
The Parliament protest and the proliferation of fleeing drivers and gang violence have forced the Government to rethink how much it pays tow truck companies to tow cars.
The regime is ineffective, officials say, and is costing councils a fortune — Auckland Council is said to be losing $140,000 a month in unpaid tow fees.
Some regions are unable to have cars towed, meaning more unsafe vehicles on the roads.
In March 2019, in Nelson, police impounded a vehicle after a fatal crash, but no tow companies were available to recover the low-value vehicle so it was left where it was.
The owner of the vehicle retrieved it from the roadside only to crash it again two days later.
Fortunately no one was killed or injured in the second crash.
The main fee the Government pays companies to tow vehicles was set in 2004 and has not changed since. Towies are sometimes paid as little as $53.60 to tow a vehicle or about $20 more if the tow is outside of regular office hours.
But those rates are miserly compared to what the tow company might have received from a commercial contract, whose fees have risen with inflation.
A briefing, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, said the fees did not reflect the costs of tow companies, and were “too low to sustain the level of service required to deliver key transport system outcomes, including safety and accessibility”.
This is not the first time the Transport Ministry raised these concerns.
They were first aired in 2021 and then again when officials offered advice on the Government’s gang crackdown, which will widen the grounds for towing vehicles for driving offences.
This would likely lead to an increase in vehicles being towed, but officials warned towing rates are so poor, towing companies might be unwilling to move all the vehicles the Government wants towed.
Transport Minister Michael Wood said that the Ministry of Transport picked up a need to “update the framework for the towage and storage of impounded and illegally parked vehicles”.
He said subsequent to this, “parliamentary protests, fleeing driver reforms and work as part of Road to Zero work programme highlighted the need to progress this work”.
Wood said the ministry was reviewing regulated fees for towage and storage operators and this should be completed by the middle of 2023.
The paper noted that in 2012 a fee increase of 33 per cent was recommended by officials and considered by Cabinet, but the Government chose not to proceed.
“Recent events — the March 2022 protests at Parliament and the increase in gang activities — have . . . tested the efficacy of the towage and storage system,” officials said.
They added that since the current towing regime was instituted in 1999, it has been successful in making roads more safe.