Legislative Tracker

OLYMPIA – If your car is stolen and the police find it, first they’ll try to contact you, but if they can’t get hold of you pretty quickly, the vehicle will end up impounded.  You’ll eventually get a written notice that your car is behind bars and you have to get it out. But before the car can be released, you must pay applicable storage, towing, and other associated costs. Unless you have comprehensive insurance coverage to pick up those tabs, you have to cover them out of pocket.
State Rep. Mike Sells (D-Everett) believes that if you’re a victim of car theft you should not be re-victimized by having to pay to get the car back, so he wants to change the law. Sell’s House Bill 2693 would relieve victims from having to pay these towing and impound charges. The legislation would set up a compensation account in the Department of Motor Vehicles to help auto theft victims avoid this extra financial load. Funding for this account would come from a $100 fee tacked to the sentence imposed against a convicted auto thief.
“Lots of people in our state can’t afford the kind of insurance policy that can cover these costs, and those are the folks that would benefit from my bill,” said Sells, who has introduced the legislation in previous years. “The first thing you have to do when your car is stolen is file a vehicle theft report with the police department or the sheriff’s office. If they find your car, you want to make sure the police can notify you so you can pick it up. So make sure you provide every possible way to contact you; give your home number and your work and cell phone numbers too. Then if your car is later found and the police try to contact you, but fail, they’ll impound your vehicle. That’s when you could apply to get the towing and impound charges covered or reimbursed.”
In 2007, just in Snohomish County, about 300 cars were stolen every month, about 60 percent were recovered and about half of those were impounded.
HB 2693 will come up for a hearing before the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness on Friday, Jan. 29 at 8 a.m. in House Hearing Room E.