The City Council says it will (finally) investigate Philadelphia's "courtesy towing problem."

After five years of local news stories (mostly The Inquirer, tbh), two potential class actions lawsuits (still going on, somehow), and a shameful one segment in “The Daily Show” (sometimes funny), the Philadelphia City Council has finally managed to solve the city’s “civility problem.”

Well, they’re going to find out. At some point in the future. Hopefully before your car disappears.

See! Solution No. 240989.

The resolution, recently passed by the City Council, authorizes the Committee on Streets and Services to “conduct hearings to investigate the practice of ‘courtesy towing’ by the Philadelphia Police Department, the Philadelphia Parking Authority and private towing companies.”

“Philadelphia drivers are frustrated,” the resolution states, “by the bureaucratic nightmare of getting their vehicles back, with some viewing courtesy towing as little more than a money-making scheme.”

The dates for the hearings have not yet been set.

Courtesy Towing – formally called “relocation towing” – is the Philly euphemism used to describe the city’s dysfunctional process of moving vehicles parked in legal spaces that then become temporary parking bans due to special events , utility work, construction work, weather conditions or other problems. other reasons.

For example, if your car is towed by the parking authority or police to clear a parade route, you have a decent chance of finding it in a reasonable time – assuming the enforcement officers have registered the new location, as they should doing. .

But private companies often are hired to take the carsand they do not always report the new location to the police. The cars can be driven around the corner, or left in another neighborhood entirely, without registration.

People have been looking for cars for weeks and are sometimes forced to report them as stolen. That’s also possible cause its own problems.

Some cars are towed away and never seen again.

The typical “nightmare scenario” mentioned in the City Council resolution is when a private towing company takes a legally parked car and delivers it to a no-parking zone without recording the tow. Then the parking authority comes along and starts ticketing it, then tows it to its own impound lot and can finally start the process of auctioning it off.

That’s what happened to Gary Isaacs, who had to pay nearly $1,000 in fines and fees in 2021 to get his car back after it was towed from its regular parking spot while on vacation. A towing company moved the car to a loading zone and left it there without notifying police. Isaacs, who spoke to The Inquirer at the time, also appeared on “The Daily Show” segment that ran in September.

“It’s like looking for a lost dog or something, just walking around looking for your car,” Isaacs said earlier this year.

The city paid in 2022 $15,000 each for two towing victims to settle their lawsuits. But other victims continue to litigate in federal court. Their lawyers are looking class action status on behalf of possibly thousands of victims, but a judge has not yet ruled on this.

David Rudovsky, who represents some of the victims, said they are seeking monetary damages but also an injunction that would force the city to start tracking where vehicles are towed — as Chicago and other cities do.

“That’s all we’re asking for,” Rudovsky said.

City officials have done little to address the problem in a systematic way so far.

To its credit, the PPA has been using an online database since 2020 that tracks the cars it tows. However, the PPA is not responsible for most courtesy towing services.

The police are looking at it implement a similar system for the cars it tows, using $225,000 that Mayor Cherelle L. Parker included in her first budget.

But none of these systems could track where private towing companies take cars. For example, when a construction company receives a temporary parking ban from the city, and then hires its own towing company to clear the street. Situations like this seem to be the root cause of the problem: drivers do not know the new location of their car or who towed it.

Councilman Jeffery Young, who represents parts of North Philadelphia and Center City, introduced the resolution last month calling for Council hearings on courtesy towing. Young, who was elected last year, was unavailable for comment Wednesday as the Council held its second day of hearings on plans to build a 76ers arena in Center City.

Young’s spokesman, Onyx Finney, said he called for hearings after receiving complaints. She said he wants the public to have a clear understanding of the city’s courtesy policy.

“We want to ensure transparency in the process,” Finney said.