The week my car got towed twice in one day and I still made it to work on time

Last Tuesday my car got booted at 7 AM, towed at 8 AM, and then the tow truck driver dropped my keys down a sewer grate so I walked 20 blocks to the restaurant and still prepped my station before the lunch rush - has anyone else's car insurance ever tried to argue a sewer grate isn't a parking violation?

3 comments

3 Comments

rowanellis5d ago

I read a piece in Car and Driver a few months back that said tow truck drivers have the highest rate of dropping keys into weird places like sewers and storm drains. It's apparently a known hazard in the industry, which makes you wonder why they don't have a little net or something on their belt for that. As for the insurance argument, there's a lawschool blog I follow that covered a case where someone's phone fell into a grate at a parking garage and the court ruled it was a "hazard of the parking environment." That feels a lot like what happened here even if it wasn't a sign or a meter. The whole situation is just bad luck stacked on bad luck, but you handled it like a champ.

the_margaret5d ago

lol "the system worked fine" - that's such an insurance company way of looking at it. Honestly it reminds me of how everything in life has this weird invisible rulebook where if you can prove it happened the right way you're fine, but if the universe throws a curveball you're just out of luck. Like when I put a card down at a bar and the machine says declined even though I have money, and suddenly I'm the one who has to explain myself.

elizabethn566d ago

Wow that is actually wild but I have to push back here! Insurance companies are totally right to question sewer grates as parking violations. A sewer grate is not a parking sign or a meter or a zone marking, it is literally infrastructure. If your keys fell down a grate that is a personal problem not an insurance problem. The tow truck driver should not have been handling your keys near an open grate in the first place but that is between you and him. Honestly insurance is already getting ripped off by people claiming everything from potholes to bird droppings as parking violations. They have to draw the line somewhere and a sewer grate is a pretty reasonable place to draw it. You still made it to work on time so clearly the system worked fine even if it was annoying.