What to Do if Your Car is Towed in Baltimore City
If you’re standing on the street right now pissed off, smartphone in hand desperately Googling to figure out where the fuck your car is and how to get it back, relax.
Take a deep breath. The Chop is here to help.
If you were towed at rush hour, during a ballgame, or in connection with some other special event, or if you left your car on the street overnight and it was towed, or if it was just in a spot marked ‘tow away zone’ then your car is almost certainly at the Fallsway impound lot. The city initially tows most cars to 410 Fallsway at the corner of Pleasant Street. Located under the elevated portion of the Jones Falls Expressway, it can be found on the map here.
Fallsway is open from 7 am- 7:30 pm Monday through Friday. If it’s past 7:30, you’re probably out of luck and will need to go there in the morning. But they are sometimes open at other hours for special events, and remain open 2 hours after the conclusion of Ravens home games. You can call the lot at (410) 396-4613.
If they are open, you can get to the lot via Bus lines 5, 8, 15, 19, 20, 23, 30, 35, 36, 40, 46, 47, 48, 91 or by taking the Metro Subway to the Shot Tower station and walking north a few blocks. Or call Yellow Cab- (410) 685-1212.
The Fallsway lot does not accept Visa. They also do not accept most banks’ debit cards, even if they are non-Visa. If you are paying by card, there are extra fees associated. The lot accepts money orders and certified checks, but the easiest way to pay is in cash, so go to the ATM before you visit the lot. The lot has its own ATM, which is very expensive. Your best course of action is to visit your own bank’s ATM downtown before you go. Total charges are $272-$282 ($322 for stadium events). Withdraw $300 just to be on the safe side.
You’re going to need a photo ID and either your car’s title or registration, but if the registration is in the car they are usually pretty good about letting you retrieve it and show it to them. Official Baltimore City towing webpages can be found here and here.
As bad as Fallsway is, it’s the best option. You hope your car is at Fallsway. If it is not, you can call 311 to attempt to locate it. If 311 doesn’t work on your mobile phone, dial (443) 263-2220. You can also check the status of your violation (and see how much your ticket is) on the Department of Finance page.
If your car isn’t at Fallsway, or was moved from Fallsway, it is most likely at the city’s main impound lot at 6700 Pulaski Highway (Rt 40 East). Their hours are Monday-Friday 8:30am-5pm and Saturday 9am-4pm. (410) 396-9958 Useful information about Pulaski can be found here.
*Note: This impound lot is very near Crazy Ray’s. If your car is fucked and undriveable and you don’t want it, Crazy Ray’s will pay you $400 (or more) for scrap value. It may or may not be worth it to have it towed there rather than renounce the title to the city. You’ll have to decide that for yourself.
If your car was towed from a privately owned parking lot, driveway, handicap space or similar:
If this is the case then it wasn’t the city that ordered your tow, but a private property owner. The first thing to do is to take a good look around the parking lot for a towing company sign like this one that lists a phone number and address. This will tell you where your car is. Rates vary but count on paying around $300 at least.
If for some reason you can’t find such a sign, attempt to contact the property owner/management to see if and where your car was towed. If you’re not able to contact someone immediately, your car may be at one of the following:
Greenwood Towing 1370 W. North Ave. (410) 669-1661. Greenwood’s facility is open for auto recovery 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Auto Barn 2125 West Lafayette Ave. 410-362-0117. Also open 24 hours. Accepts cash only.
Frankford Towing (410) 254-3800. 6300 Belair Rd.
Berman’s Towing 5720 Reisterstown Road, (410) 366-2000.
Whitelock Towing 2634 Flora Street (in Penn North) (410) 383-2769
These are some of the biggest players in the local towing industry. If your car isn’t at one of these it may be at a smaller local garage.
There’s no two ways about it. Towing in this town is a scam and a fucking racket. We’re sorry if you got picked, and we hope this page could at least get you going in the right direction fast and let you know what to expect. Feel free to add any comments or additional information you may have to share in the comments.
NOT THAT I’VE NECESSARILY DONE THIS, but if you show up with cash in hand as they’re towing your car, you might be able to convince the tow guy to drop your car off somewhere instead of the Fallsway.
Also, pleading poverty might help, if you were, say, a waiter at the time. Not that I would know.
This happened to me too. Instead of having to pay 300 bucks, the guy said to give him 100 and he’s take it off the truck. I was right pissed at the time because I knew he pocketed it but what are you going to do?
There’s also the possibility of your car being “relocated” during a stadium event. I once parked in Ridgely’s Delight during an O’s game and went on a wild goose chase around the City looking for my car. Basically, the City will tow your car to a Relocation Area. Once they get it there, you have 2 hours after the sporting event is over to go get your car (so for instance, you have until 6 p.m. to get your car if it was towed for a 4 p.m. game). It’s kind-of a “grace period.” The only relocation area i know of is in front of the Sun Paper down near Wal Mart. So, if you have to stop at an ATM before heading over to the tow place, get your ride to cruise past Port Covington, too.This used to be true, but they do not do that anymore. According to the City Website:
“The Baltimore City Department of Transportation today announced the new towing procedures established for the upcoming Ravens’ football season. The Department of Transportation is taking a more aggressive approach to removing vehicles that are illegally parked in restricted areas. The Department of Transportation will begin impounding vehicles at the Fallsway Impound lot instead of issuing parking citations and relocating vehicles in the vicinity of M&T Stadium.”
My car was ‘relocated’ just a week ago. I was told by whoever answered the phone at the Pulaski HWY impound lot that they will relocate vehicles in construction zones if there was little or no notice that it was a tow area. Supposedly they will only relocate FWD or RWD vehicles (do not need a flatbed or dolly), but my car is AWD and was moved. He also claimed they will move it around the corner but mine was found almost 15 blocks away. It was a nightmare, but I saved $300 so I can’t complain.
They should still have paperwork on its location as well.
That is true. They will sometimes relocate cars for road work, especially emergency road work like giant water main breaks on Light Street and giant sinkholes on Monument Street. Happens all too often.
I should also note that paperwork for my car was not turned in that day so I reported it stolen. The cops drove me around my area (Federal Hill) looking for it, as well as the bridge near Ravens stadium and all the way up to Wal Mart. I eventually found it near Riverside Park.
*Addendum- you’ll have until 6 p.m. to get your car if it was towed during a 1 p.m. game.
i was at trinacria and parked in the lot across the street as i have for many years. as i left trinacria, i noticed that my car was on the hitch. i hadn’t been gone for more than 10 minutes. the towing guys said i could pay them $150 in cash or $300 to get my car from the lot. naturally, i didn’t have that much cash with me, so had to walk a block or so to an extortionate bank machine. funnily, later on at the party i was having, another guest had the exact same experience later in the afternoon.
You completely failed to mention that, for towing from private lots, a new state law is now in effect. If you do not see a proper sign on the lot stating that illegally parked cars will be towed and where to, call the police, since it means your car was “stolen”. Also please tell people what the current, legal limit is on towing charges. They can’t just charge what they want. The limit in Balt County is $240 plus daily storage fee. Also, if the storage faciity accepts only cash, they must provide an ATM machine.
I agree this is a total scam. If I call to have my car towed, it would not cost anywhere near as much.
I have not heard of this law and can’t speak to its veracity.
I believe the maximum trespass towing impound fee in Baltimore city is $500 plus storage.
Bermans doesn’t tow from private lots but McDels Towing does http://www.mcdelstowing.com . If your car is towed from a private lot look for it there.
NOT SURE WHERE THIS AD CAME FROM THE THIS IS NOT OUR NUMBER . AND WE DO NOT TOW FROM PRIVATE LOTS.
We live around the corner from the “Miracle on 34th street”. The Wyman Court Apartments are located behind our row home. The apartments have Auto Barn tow cars off their lot. They do have a couple of signs posted. The majority of their residents either park on the street in front of their building or don’t own cars. As a result their lots hardly have any tenant’s cars parked on them. The main lot has about 20+ spaces but only 5 or 6 cars that park on the lot. It’s bad enough that the home owners surrounding the complex are forced to compete for parking with their tenants who HAVE A DESIGNATED lot to park on but chose instead to park on the street. Whenever there is an event like Miracle on 34th St., Auto Barn literally waits for “tourists” to park on one of the apartment’s lots and they literally appear within 2 or 3 minutes. They have their tow truck driver take pictures of 2 or 3 of the illegally parked vehicles then quickly hook them up. They actually tow the vehicles within a a few blocks around the corner, so they can come back and quickly hook up the other vehicles and tow as many vehicles off the lot as possible. We watched them do this and when the owners of one of the vehicle owners (a family with 2 small children) realized their car had been towed, my husband told the owners to look about a block up Beech Ave. for their car. Thankfully, it was there! He was able to start it up and come back around the block to pick his family back up. He did this w/o having to pay any fine. I used to work in Baltimore County for a private station w/ a tow business. They used to do this frequently. At the time it wasn’t legal. I noticed that the Auto Barn driver seemed to be towing cars away and returning way too quickly (within 10 minutes) when he was towing these cars. I told my husband that I knew this guy wasn’t dropping these cars off at their lot on Lafayette St. He couldn’t have had enough time. I wish we could help more people in this situation. I wanted to at least pass the word along so that others may be aware in the event that they were in a similar predicament.
NOT OUR SITE NEVER HAS THIS SITE NOR NUMBER PLEASE REMOVE THIS POST . WE DO NOT TOW FROM PRIVATE LOTS.
Sorry for the confusion. I will edit this post when I return to Baltimore ASAP.
MCDELS DO NOT TOW FROM PRIVATE LOTS NO SURE WHO IS PLAYING GAMES OR WHO WOULD HAVE POSTED THIS . PLEASE REMOVE THIS WEBSITE MCDELSTOWING.COM SINCE WE HAVE NO CONNECTION WITH THIS SITE. NONE WHATSOEVER.