Lawsuit & Litigation

No Parking A member of the well-known Miami Mas Canosa family has filed a class action lawsuit against Tremont Towing because his car got towed from a private parking lot during non-business hours. He claims that the towing company violated Miami-Dade County and City of Miami Beach laws requiring private property owners to authorize every tow with a signature. The lawsuit alleges that Tremont Towing cannot operate under a blanket request to tow vehicles without specific individual approval. The class action lawsuit also alleges that the City of Miami Beach gets a percentage of the tow fees and, as a result, the City is also named as a defendant. While taking such a position is popular (everyone hates towing companies until you need one), it is wrong and the class action lawsuit should be dismissed.

The County law clearly states that certain sections of the County’s towing laws do not apply in any municipality that has adopted and maintains in effect ordinances or regulations governing the same matters. Miami Beach has adopted its own local towing ordinance, including procedures for the removal of trespassing vehicles from private property. It specifically states that during non-business hours, a towing company does not need permission from the property owner to tow vehicles that are illegally parked. The lawsuit admits that the Plaintiff trespassed on the subject property for at least one hour and a half on an early Sunday morning. However, there appears to have been no business open during the hours that Mr. Mas illegally parked his vehicle and was towed. In other words, Mr. Mas’ vehicle was towed during non-business hours.

Tremont Towing attorney Ralph Andrade told the Miami Herald that he is confident that the class action lawsuit will be dismissed.

Technological advances are changing the way lawmakers think about car accident law and about traffic regulation. According to the New York Times, companies like Google know more about traffic patterns and driving behavior than the regulators who are put in charge of solving the city’s problems. In a city like Miami, where traffic leads to accidents and causes endless gridlock, the New York Times reports that cities are calling upon technology companies to help solve their traffic problems.

The federal Department of Transportation recently announced a partnership with the company that owns Google to provide city officials with traffic data to help them better solve problems of gridlock, traffic jams, and accidents. The hope is that with the better data, the cities will be able to find more efficient ways to move goods and people.

Part of the work will involve the anonymous analysis of billions of miles of trips logged in smartphones. The hope is that better tools will be developed to help cities understand where congestion is highest and how these problems can best be solved. Information about where commuters are going can also help city planners find better solutions to common gridlock problems. Computer models may also be able to help city planners find solutions that actually work. For instance, they can model whether a carpool lane would help alleviate congestion, or whether it makes more sense to build a new train line.

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