Insurance Impact from Costly Fees
By The Editor
Senior citizen James Cole, Jr., decided he had had enough May 13. He could not afford car insurance, and received several tickets for driving without it. He could not afford to pay the tickets, which resulted in the suspension of his driver’s license and a ban on registering his cars.
He could not afford thousands of dollars to pay the state driver responsibility fees to get his driver’s license back. But he still owned his cars, his only possessions.
On May 13, his city-owned apartment building called Troy’s Towing to seize his cars from the building’s parking lot, citing lease regulations banning unregistered or inoperable cars. More fees loomed in the future for towing and storage at city-designated impound lots.
Cole got inside one car and conducted a sit-in, preventing the tow truck driver from leaving with his property.
“They were finally forced to take the car off the truck because they could not kidnap me,” said Cole. “I spent the next three hours inside until I could get it moved to a friend’s land. Poor folks all over Detroit are having their cars stolen; this is unjust and we must fight back.”
Troy’s Towing did take Cole’s other car, but he said the one he sat in was worth more.
Troy Ginyard, who owns the towing company, a Black-owned business, said, “Our policy is never under any means to take a vehicle with anyone inside. We’ve been in business for 12 years, and we pride ourselves in doing things the right way.”
Cole is a student at Wayne State University, a legal researcher, and a prolific writer who has long assisted the grass-roots organization Call ‘em Out in their endeavors to obtain justice for poor and working people in Detroit.
“In stressful economic times like this, that driver’s responsibility law is just devastating,” said Agnes Hitchcock, leader of Call ‘em Out. “First you start out with insurance redlining ...
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Tags: Car Insurance News, Car Insurance Policies, Car Policy News
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 9:19 am and is filed under News, Policies.
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