Snow means tow: City tows 100 cars

Snow means tow: City tows 100 cars

By Steve Kemme • enquirer.com • February 11, 2010

Since Tuesday afternoon, Cincinnati police have
ordered about 100 cars illegally parked on
streets serving as emergency snow routes to be
towed to nearby side streets.

None of the cars were impounded and none of
the car owners were given tickets, said
Cincinnati Police Sgt. Bill Coombs, of the traffic
unit.

"Our goal is to make sure that (Public Services)
can plow the snow emergency routes," he said.
"Our goal is not to see how many cars we can
impound or how many tickets we can issue."

The towing began at 2:30 p.m., Tuesday - the
starting time of a concerted effort by the city to
identify and remove parked cars from emergency
snow routes. City Manager Milton Dohoney had
warned the public at a press conference earlier
that day about the towing plan. The big push to
move cars ended at 6 a.m., Wednesday - but the
city is still officially under a snow emergency. .

Cincinnati's emergency snow routes, which can
be identified by posted signs, are portions of
major streets with heavy commuter traffic. They
include segments of such streets as Reading
Road, Vine Street, Madison Road, Observatory
Avenue, Queen City Avenue, Harrison Avenue,
Montgomery Road, William Howard Taft Road,
Dana Avenue, Ludlow Avenue and Colerain
Avenue.

Generally, road crews contact police when they
come across a car that needs to be moved from
an emergency snow route. Officers run the
license plate number through their computer to
find out the name and address of the car's
owner.

If the home is nearby, the officers will go there
and ask the owner to move the car.

About 100 owners have moved their own cars
after being asked by police, Coombs said.

"A couple of elderly people who were afraid of
slipping outside gave us the keys and we moved
their car for them," he said.

Police understand that customers of businesses
on the emergency snow routes might need to
park on the street. Those cars aren't likely to be
towed, Combs said.

"If somebody is parked on a snow emergency
route to run into a business and buy something,
we're sympathetic to that," he said.

Police always tried to have cars moved to the
closest side street. But if the closest street had
no parking spaces because of high snow banks
along the curbs, the cars would be moved to the
next closest street, Combs said.

All five police district stations and the police
public information office have been given lists of
cars that have been moved. The list indicates
where the cars were moved from and where they
were moved to.
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs...S0108/2120327/
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- gpsman

gpsman > wrote in
:


>
> None of the cars were impounded and none of
> the car owners were given tickets, said
> Cincinnati Police Sgt. Bill Coombs, of the traffic
> unit.
>

That'll teach 'em.