How Arizona and North Carolina Are Cracking Down on Predatory Tow Trucks

A tow truck showing up at the wrong moment can turn into one of the most expensive surprises a driver ever faces, and lawmakers in several states are moving to rein in the operators who profit from that pressure point. Arizona and North Carolina both made headlines this month on opposite ends of the fight: one state’s governor blocked a bill meant to tighten the rules, while the other pressed ahead with new protections that took effect this year.

For everyday drivers, not just commercial truckers, the fight over predatory towing carries real financial stakes. Nonconsensual tows, the kind that happen without the owner’s consent from a private lot or at police direction, are where the worst abuses tend to show up, and only about half of states set any real limit on what a tow company can charge for one.

Arizona’s Bill Dies at the Governor’s Desk

Arizona lawmakers passed HB2305 this year with the aim of creating one statewide set of towing rules, replacing the patchwork of city and county ordinances that currently govern private property tows. The bill would have barred cities and counties from setting their own towing rates, required warning signs at tow-enforced lots to meet a single state standard, and forced towing companies to photograph or otherwise document a parking violation and notify police within one hour of hooking up a vehicle.

Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed the bill, pointing to an existing state towing study she said lawmakers should wait on before creating another review process. Republican Representative Leo Biasiucci, the bill’s sponsor, called the veto “stupid” and argued Hobbs sided with towing operators over drivers stuck with unfair bills. The bill also would have directed Arizona’s Department of Public Safety to study whether the state needs a dedicated towing compliance and enforcement unit, a study that is now on hold along with the rest of the legislation.

North Carolina Presses Ahead

North Carolina took the opposite path. A law that took effect in 2025 gave drivers stronger protections against nonconsensual tows, and one of its biggest provisions kicked in on December 1, when towing companies lost the ability to boot a commercial truck for a parking violation. Companies that violate the booting ban now face fines of up to $1,000 per incident.

The North Carolina law also addresses a problem specific to freight, requiring towing companies to return commercial cargo quickly when a truck is towed without the driver’s consent or by government order, rather than holding both the truck and its contents hostage until fees are paid. If the original trailer cannot be recovered quickly, the law allows a trailer swap using a comparable replacement that is no more than five years older than the one that was towed.

Lawmakers in Raleigh are not finished. A follow up bill, H199, would create a state Towing and Recovery Commission with the power to license towing companies, cap fees for towing, storage, booting, and cargo handling, and investigate complaints from the public. The proposal would also make booting a commercial vehicle a felony rather than a civil violation, and it would ban towing companies from charging separate storage or cargo handling fees on freight. The bill remains in the House Finance Committee.

A National Pattern With Real Money at Stake

Arizona and North Carolina are two data points in a broader push that has spread to states including Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Utah over the past two years. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents commercial truckers, has pushed for these changes at the state level after years of members reporting bills that dwarf the cost of the original parking violation. Doug Morris, the group’s director of state government affairs, has said most towing companies operate fairly, but a small number of bad actors have damaged the industry’s reputation and cost drivers real money.

The scale of the problem is not limited to commercial trucking. Excessive rates and hidden fees are consistently the top complaint insurers and consumer advocates hear about towing companies, alongside operators who make it difficult for owners to retrieve a vehicle or access personal belongings, medication, or work equipment locked inside a storage yard. In New York City, for example, the drop fee just to release a car before it leaves a private lot runs $62.50, and a completed tow adds $125 plus $25 a day in storage for the first three days. Rates like that are set at the local level in states without a statewide cap, which is part of why advocates keep pushing for uniform rules rather than a patchwork of city ordinances.

Why Passenger Vehicle Owners Should Pay Attention Too

Most of the current legislative push centers on commercial trucking, and that focus reflects who shows up to testify at statehouse hearings. Truckers and their advocacy groups have organized effectively around the issue, while ordinary passenger vehicle owners rarely have a lobbying presence in a state capitol. The underlying rules being fought over, caps on nonconsensual towing rates, storage fee limits, signage requirements, and licensing standards, apply just as much to a commuter’s sedan towed from an apartment complex lot as they do to an eighteen wheeler pulled from a truck stop. A state that tightens its towing rules for commercial vehicles typically applies the same statute to passenger cars. Most towing laws are written around the act of nonconsensual towing itself rather than the type of vehicle involved.

That overlap means passenger vehicle owners in Arizona and North Carolina are watching the same fight play out on their behalf, though headlines about the bills mostly quote trucking industry representatives. A driver whose car gets towed from a shopping center lot in Raleigh benefits from the same booting ban and cargo return protections written primarily with freight in mind, and a driver in Phoenix is left with the same patchwork of city by city towing rates that HB2305 would have replaced had Hobbs signed it.

What to Do if a Tow Feels Predatory

Drivers who return to find a car missing should call local police before assuming the worst. Many states require towing companies to notify police when a vehicle is towed from private property, so a quick call to a department’s non-emergency line often confirms where a car went and which company has it, faster than searching lot by lot.

Reading posted signage before parking on unfamiliar private property remains one of the simplest ways to avoid a dispute altogether. Towing companies typically need a visible, compliant sign to justify a nonconsensual tow. Once a vehicle has been towed, drivers should ask for an itemized bill rather than accepting a flat quoted number. State laws that cap specific fees, such as per-day storage charges or drop fees, only protect a driver who knows to check the itemized breakdown against those limits.

Photographing the vehicle’s condition before and after a tow, keeping every receipt, and filing a complaint with the state agency that regulates towing, often a public utilities commission or department of transportation, gives a driver a paper trail if a bill needs to be disputed later. In states with active towing commissions or advisory boards, that complaint process is also how regulators identify the repeat offenders who eventually lose their operating licenses.

Disputing a charge directly with the towing company rarely works on its own. Operators who overcharge in the first place have little incentive to reverse course after the fact. A written complaint to the relevant state regulator, along with a copy to the local police department that handled the original tow, tends to carry more force than a phone call, and it creates a record that other drivers and future investigations can draw on if a pattern of complaints builds against the same company.

Sources:

• Land Line Media: A bad tow shouldn’t empty a trucker’s wallet
• National Insurance Crime Bureau: Predatory Towing