In a recent Examiner article Councilman Robert Curran says that he wants to stop independent tow trucks that are not authorized to tow cars from accident scenes from towing from accident scenes.  He says these unauthorized trucks are ripping people off and he wants to protect motorists. 

At first glance this seems like a good idea.  Baltimore grants medallions to certain tow companies that allow them to tow from city accident scenes.  Of course this limits competition and limited competition usually results in higher costs for the consumer.  The medallion trucks are required to tow cars to the city’s impound lot where the car owner is charged a "storage fee" by the city.  The unauthorized independent trucks can tow a car to any location.  Independent tow truck drivers say they provide the best towing deals.

Councilman Curran says: "I'm not trying to help the tow companies with this bill."

The bill does help the medallion tow companies though.  The medallion companies will maintain a lucrative monopoly in the Baltimore accident market and the city impound lot will continue to charge storage fees for the cars brought in by these companies.

A quick check of the campaign finance database shows that on 10/20/2004 Frankford Towing Inc. (a medallion towing company) gave Friends of Bob Curran $500.  Frankford Towing  gave $3000 to Friends For Sheila Dixon on 09/07/2007.