Sam,
I totally agree with Jim on this one. “The last thing a person with a broken car needs is a $500 tow bill for a $20 job.”

Over at Blue Oregon there is a discussion on Amanda Fritz’s summary of latest report from Portland's City Auditor One of the points made is as follows: “Average employee compensation rose 6% over the ten years, but wages/benefits for public safety employees rose 12% while that of all other employees went up only 1%. Over ten years. One percent over ten years is not very much.”

Any tow should not exceed $20.00 and drop the car where it can be accessible to the owner, not behind a tow company’s fence where the vehicle would accrue storage charges. Free tows would be better.
The summary of the auditor’s report is also reason enough not to implement any additional taxes on motorists, be it increases in fuel taxes, tolls, congestion pricing or adding to parking fees.

Furthermore, instead of siphoning off the taxes motorists pay for roads, alternative forms of transport must do a better job of paying their own way. Transit fares must better reflect the costs of providing the cost of providing the service; if the bicycle community wants bicycle infrastructure, they need to be willing to tax themselves to fund it; and PDOT needs to stop wasting transportation dollars on curb extensions, land development and streetcars, and then claim poverty when it comes to the backlog of street maintenance.