This is an article I wrote for Urban Moto. It came out April 2007. It is about how I got towed and they did not give me the choice of using a motorcycle tow company and my bike got damaged.

The City’s Tow Racket
by Torrey Nommesen

I was pulled over by a motorcycle cop the other day for an expired registration. The cop had my bike towed and I had to take a cab to the DMV, then another cab to the Police Station downtown, walk to the tow company around the block, and then take another cab to the tow yard. Each stop cost me from $200 to $600 cash (that’s USD for all you non-Yankee Doodles) totaling over a thousand dollars. What a pain!

But the thing that really pissed me off, is that I had to use City Tow. The cop flat out refused to let me use any other company. You need a different set-up to tow a bike, and most places don’t seem to know the difference. The result was that my bike got damaged. I reported the damage but the impound yard responded with a letter the very next day stating that the officer claims the damage was already there.

What pissed me off about this scenario, not so much about the cop lying (I don’t know, maybe he’s just blind, not crooked) is that you don’t get the choice of who tows your bike! I should have the right to choose a type of transport that doesn’t damage my vehicle. I’m not a lawyer, but I thought we had laws against dangerous monopoly.

Here’s an analogy: I’m in he hospital, I am O negative and need a blood transplant, but they only have B positive blood available there. The kind of blood I need, one that won’t damage me, is available from a blood bank a few blocks away, but since the hospital that I am at does not have a contract with that particular place, I have to die.

They seem to think that the economic gain of a government contract outweighs the inconvenience of destroyed motorcycles. It sends the message that the city of San Francisco thinks motorcycle riders are second class citizens.

So what are we going to do about it? If there is anyone out there in San Francisco who has had a similar situation, I’d like to hear from you. I’d also like to hear form a lawyer who would want to work on a class action suit.