This article was prepared for the local propublica reporting network in partnership with Mirror Connecticut. Sign up for sending To get our stories in the mailbox every week.
The Working Group of the Connecticut’s Automobile vehicles will consider part of the state law on towing, which will potentially lead to broader reforms than those that have passed in the legislative body of the last session.
The 10th Member Committee, which first met on Monday, must inform the legislators of its recommendations by February. Initially, it was instructed to study a narrower law on Connecticut, which requires revenue from towed vehicles to be transferred to the state, but members also stated that they also wanted to study the way to assess the vehicles and other aspects of the sales process.
This step comes after a long -term “conecticut” investigation and propublica found it discovered it revealed State Laws prefer towing companies at the expense of low -income residents.
The DMV Commissioner Tony Gerrer is managed by three owners of companies, two consumer supporters and other DMV officials. The group discussed several issues still suffering from towing and owned the legislative body in May.
Which Legislation taken with two -party support And it comes into force on October 1, making it difficult to tow from private property and easier for drivers to extract their vehicles after towing. The law also holds back practice that allowed towing companies to start the process of selling some vehicles in 15 days.
The bill also created a DMV working group to learn how towers handle revenue from towed vehicles. According to the law, towing companies can sell a vehicle if the owner does not return it, but they are obliged to keep the proceeds for a year so that the car owner can demand money. If the owner never protects, the companies must transfer the proceeds to the state after subtracting their fees.
This year, Gerrer told the legislators that DMV never creates a system for this process and did not know that the money transferred to the state and towers. He said DMV is considering the issue and that the committee will be ready to resolve it in the report.
On Monday, Guhrer said the working group should expand its mission to study wider changes that facilitate low -income residents to return their cars.
“There should also be a way to make sure that people know what happens when their car is towed,” Gerrer said. “This is important because this car is $ 1,000 for them – is it a lifeline, and they have to return it. So, how can we return it back so that it doesn’t continue to accumulate more?”
The committee members discussed the creation of a new monitoring method that owns the vehicle when DMV requires the owner to submit a sale entry. Currently, the towers are trying to get to the latest registered vehicle owner, but several people said CT Mirror and Propublica that they never reported that their car would be sold because they had just bought it and should not register it. The new legislation allows the owner of the vehicle to submit the title or the bill rather than the registration documents to return the car.
“A huge part of the problem is that we cannot get the owner of the car,” said Sal Hay, the owner of Brothers Sena and Cross Country Automotive in Hartford. “People buy the car, they do not register them, it towes, and everything returns to the last person who owned it a few years ago.”
The Committee also dealt with several other issues, such as developing a standardized process to determine the value of a car that was rebuilt. If the towing company count the vehicle worth $ 1500 and less, it can sell it faster.
Guerrera asked how the towers came up with their evaluative values. “If you have a car, it’s three grand or four grandiose, the next thing you know is estimated at $ 1500, as it happened?” he asked.
Podolsky’s legal prosecutor, Podolsky, stated that the towers who appreciate the cars have long become a problem for consumers.
“I hope that the department or the industry will have the data that will allow us to make some comparisons between the alleged cost of the car and the amount of the dollar that comes to resale,” he said.
Representatives of the towing industry said that another priority should be to modernize the DMV process for the sale of whose vehicle. Eileen Colhase of Farmington Motor Sports said the towers were spending weeks, sending documents back and forth by mail to DMV and cars.
“There’s portals for all things. Why is there no portal?” said Kaulz. “Everyone can submit everything electronically and have access to a more standardized and upgraded system.”
By February, the working group should submit a report to the Transport Committee, and Gerrer stated that it was important to create what all members support.
“When we go to the legislative body with the information, which stated that we met with this industry on both sides, and this is what we came up with, we are in good form,” Gerrer said. “If we fight again again, you know, now it is in the hands of the legislative body, and we do not know what can happen.”
