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Houston's Mandatory Towing Program Sparks Anger
February 9, 2005
Effort to Curb Traffic On Houston Freeways Has Mayor in a Jam Mandatory Towing Program And Fees Anger Drivers; Mr. Rivera Flees on a Flat By THADDEUS HERRICK Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL HOUSTON -- Robert Rivera watched the tow truck warily last week as it pulled in front of his hobbled Ford Thunderbird on U.S. 59. Mr. Rivera was waiting for his brother-in-law to bring him a spare tire, but time was running out. "You know the law," said Gordon Chassin, a short, burly fellow, as he stepped out of his tow truck. Under Houston's new Safe Clear program, private tow trucks licensed by the city have a mandate to tow all stalled vehicles from Houston's freeways and emergency lanes within minutes of being dispatched by police. It doesn't matter whether people like Mr. Rivera happen to be fixing a flat or waiting for a can of gas. Mr. Rivera's brother-in-law did indeed show up, but with the wrong tire. So Mr. Rivera, a construction worker on his way to work, played his last card: To avoid a possible towing charge, he hopped in his car and sped off on the rim of the wheel, taking the first exit. In a city where property rights are sacred, such a program is heresy to some. To others, it is a scheme by the cash-strapped city to raise revenue at the expense of the poor. State Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, has introduced legislation in Austin to overturn the Safe Clear ordinance, and a group of tow-truck drivers without deals from the city have filed a federal lawsuit against it. All the while, talk-radio shows are up in arms. "For the government to come in and take your car at gunpoint is wrong," says Chris Baker, a radio talk-show host on KTRH, a local AM station. "It's ugly and corrupt." "Nobody ought to be able to use the shoulder of the road as their auto-repair shop," responds Mayor Bill White. Safe Clear has emerged as the most controversial issue for the mayor, a former businessman and newcomer to Houston politics who relied on an anti-gridlock platform to win the 2003 nonpartisan election. Mayor White's pitch to "get Houston moving" had broad appeal. Polls in Houston show that 87% of workers drive alone to their jobs, and 43% of Houstonians polled identify traffic as the city's biggest issue. But his policies have yielded an avalanche of problems. On Jan. 31, a 77-year-old man who had run out of fuel on Interstate 10 east of downtown was struck and killed by a car as he ran back to his vehicle after getting gasoline, apparently to stop a Safe Clear driver from hauling away his vehicle. More than two dozen tow-truck drivers were found by a local TV station to have criminal records. And the city has been towing twice the number of cars it had anticipated -- nearly 5,000 since the first of this year. Drastic measures to control traffic are nothing new in other parts of the world. In Mexico City, cars that fail emissions tests have to sit out one day a week. London charges more than $9 to drive in the central part of the city. And the Dutch are pushing perhaps the most radical idea: doing away with signs, pedestrian crossings and traffic lights, hoping that danger will cause motorists to drive more carefully. In large U.S. cities, the answer to congestion has long been to build more freeways, and Houston is doing that. Even so, the city is running out of space. The Houston area, for example, built 465 lane-miles per year between 1990 and 1995, according to the Houston-Galveston Area Council. But between 2000 and 2022, that number is expected to decline to 265 lane-miles per year. Meanwhile, there are more vehicles on the road, with families driving two cars or more, particularly if they have teenagers, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. In Houston, the number of vehicle-miles traveled grew 36% between 1990 and 2000 and is forecast to rise an additional 46% by 2022, to 178 million, according to the council. An obvious result is congestion. Mr. White enjoyed a honeymoon at first with his anti-gridlock campaign. People didn't complain much when he synchronized traffic lights and got laws passed that will extend parking-meter hours and impose rules on when trucks are allowed to unload. But the new Safe Clear program raised cries of protest. "This is the first time he's stumbled," says Robert Stein a professor of political science at Rice University, who helped create Safe Clear. But in a city with inadequate public transportation, Mr. White is determined to get more cars through existing freeways. "You can't just build your way out of traffic congestion," says Mr. White. That the experiment is playing out in Houston is curious. "A city built by developers on behalf of the automobile," says Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University, Houston is the nation's largest city without zoning -- and a monument to unfettered growth. The metro area, with a population of more than four million, now rivals Los Angeles for the worst air and has legendary traffic jams. David Saperstein, chairman of the city's Office of Mobility, says that 60% of freeway mishaps stem from secondary accidents, which are what Safe Clear is intended to prevent. What's more, he says that for every minute a car is disabled on the road, it creates up to five minutes of residual traffic. Until last year, he says, the city did not limit the number of tow trucks that could respond to a stalled car. That further slowed traffic and caused more accidents. So Mr. White and his staff devised a system that relies on 367 cameras mounted around Houston's 227 miles of freeway. The images are relayed to a building run by TranStar, an intergovernmental agency that tracks traffic in a cavernous room that looks a lot like Mission Control at NASA. From there, Houston police officers identify stalled vehicles and dispatch private tow trucks. Last year, the city's pilot program didn't raise hackles. But the first weeks of the citywide program, which charged all stranded motorists needing to be towed $75, resulted in a tremendous outcry. One resident warned the mayor and city council that he would go for his 9mm pistol should the city try to tow his pickup. Others bemoaned the impact on the poor, who would have their cars impounded if they couldn't come up with the tow money. "What commandment prohibits helping motorists in distress?" wondered the Houston Chronicle, in an editorial. Under fire, Mr. White backtracked. Last week, the city council amended the ordinance to allow free tows of up to a mile -- and free tire changes -- for motorists who can maneuver their cars into emergency lanes. But the city will charge $75 for tows of up to five miles, or for motorists stuck in traffic lanes, and almost twice that for cars abandoned on the freeways. In most cases, motorists agree to be dropped at nearby gas stations or repair shops, though abandoned vehicles can still be impounded, as can cars involved in accidents. Now Mr. White must prepare for two more challenges, one of them the lawsuit filed by a group of tow-truck drivers and the other from state legislators who say the city has no right to use state highways as a revenue source. ================================================== ============ |
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MrPepper11 wrote: > > Drastic measures to control traffic are nothing new in other parts of > the world. ....And the Dutch are pushing perhaps the most radical > idea: doing away with signs, pedestrian crossings and traffic lights, > hoping that danger will cause motorists to drive more carefully. > WOW!!!! First time i heard that. In a way it makes sense - Many people think seatbelts cause crashes by making people think they're protected so they drive as crazy as they want. Again i say, the only solution to psycopath drivers is DL suspension or prison. Lets stop the criminal coddling. |
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Here's an example of how to do this sort of thing right:
http://www.chp.ca.gov//html/fsp.html Once, during the endgame of a vehicle that troubles us no more, I had the embarrassment of running the tank dry on the freeway. (In my partial defense, one of the symptoms of that car's senecence was a quarter-tank error bar in the gas gauge reading. It conked out just a couple miles short of the gas station I was headed for.) The Highway Patrol -- which happened upon me before I could even get out my cell phone and call the auto club -- summoned the FSP, which dragged the car onto a surface street, put in a gallon of gas, and stuck around to make sure that that did the trick. In a rainstorm. For free. My appreciation was duly noted on the comment postcard, needless to say! Cheers, --Joe |
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"Ad absurdum per aspera" > wrote in
oups.com: > The Highway Patrol -- which happened upon me before I could even get > out my cell phone and call the auto club -- summoned the FSP, which > dragged the car onto a surface street, put in a gallon of gas, and > stuck around to make sure that that did the trick. We have a similar program here in Tennessee. It's wonderful. They don't tow, but they carry all kinds of fuel, supplies of belts and other minor repair items. They also change tires. All free. They will call a tow truck, if needed, and wait there until it comes. |
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Ad absurdum per aspera wrote:
> > Here's an example of how to do this sort of thing right: > http://www.chp.ca.gov//html/fsp.html That looks like a much better way of doing things, somewhat like the recovery services sometimes provided when there are major roadworks on the UK's motorways. I note that Mayor White has (partially) backtracked - so maybe he isn't all *that* intent on rivalling Mayor Daley of Meigs Field infamy after all. |
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On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:38:06 GMT, Laura K
> wrote: >We have a similar program here in Tennessee. It's wonderful. They don't tow, >but they carry all kinds of fuel, supplies of belts and other minor repair >items. They also change tires. >All free. >They will call a tow truck, if needed, and wait there until it comes. Isn't this what most places do for stranded motorists? Your gas taxes are supposed to support these programs. |
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On 2/9/2005 10:05 AM, Aunt Judy (Pride of Diarrhea)
<http://tinyurl.com/2s2nz> wrote: > Many people think seatbelts cause crashes No, many people do not think that. Just you. -- ~/Garth "I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it." - Edith Sitwell (Mail for secure contact information) |
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On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 19:32:59 +0000, Robert Briggs
> wrote: >Ad absurdum per aspera wrote: >> >> Here's an example of how to do this sort of thing right: >> http://www.chp.ca.gov//html/fsp.html > >That looks like a much better way of doing things, somewhat like the >recovery services sometimes provided when there are major roadworks on >the UK's motorways. > >I note that Mayor White has (partially) backtracked - so maybe he isn't >all *that* intent on rivalling Mayor Daley of Meigs Field infamy after >all. And guess who is going to profit handsomely from Meigs Field now? Boycott Clear Channel! |
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Robert Briggs wrote: > Ad absurdum per aspera wrote: > >>Here's an example of how to do this sort of thing right: >>http://www.chp.ca.gov//html/fsp.html > > > That looks like a much better way of doing things, somewhat like the > recovery services sometimes provided when there are major roadworks on > the UK's motorways. > > I note that Mayor White has (partially) backtracked - so maybe he isn't > all *that* intent on rivalling Mayor Daley of Meigs Field infamy after > all. The amusing thing is that the county government for the county containing Houston has such a service but the city will not let them operate on motorways within the city. So far we've only had one fatality due to the mayor's program. A guy cut it too close trying to get back across the motorway with the gasoline to get his car going again as the tow truck pulled up. He didn't make it. The city council has limited the program a bit from the initial $75 cash or we take your car startup. |
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On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 10:05:41 -0800, Laura Bush murdered her boy friend
wrote: > WOW!!!! First time i heard that. In a way it makes sense - Many people > think seatbelts cause crashes by making people think they're protected so > they drive as crazy as they want. Again i say, the only solution to > psycopath drivers is DL suspension or prison. Lets stop the criminal > coddling. Not my intention to add fuel to the fire, but: would you PLEASE, PLEASE, share whatever it is that you smoke? Thanks. |
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