Have you ever felt Maryland’s towing companies are out of control? Well, the towing industry does.

Towing company owners are among the members of a task force charged with bringing a recommendation to the state legislature outlining what, if any, towing regulations it should adopt.

The task force, which also includes about two dozen police officers, state delegates, Motor Vehicle Administration officials, insurance company representatives and members of the public – met for the first time yesterday in College Park.

Towing industry representatives at the meeting blamed most predatory towing problems that trigger common complaints – such as overcharging and over-aggressive towing – on “gypsy towers” and “snatch-and-grabbers” who call themselves towing companies simply because they own a tow truck.

“Right now, anybody in this room can walk out and buy a tow truck and start towing cars,” said Fred Scheler, president of Towing and Recovery Professionals of Maryland.

Towing representatives said these “rogue towers” – which they estimated to be up to 60 percent of the state’s towing companies – can be bad apples that spoil public trust in their more reputable competitors.

State law already includes a few rules governing towing practices, but most are left up to county governments, some of which have no further rules or inconsistent enforcement.

“The counties aren’t doing their jobs,” Scheler said. “The industry feels it would be good to have a set standard statewide.”

Representatives from GEICO on the task force said they had seen bills of more than $1,000 for a towing job they said should have cost only a few hundred dollars at the most, as well as similar fees for a few days’ worth of storage.

“It’s the insurance companies that end up paying these ransoms to get policy holders back to their cars,” and the policyholders who are stuck with the resulting increased premiums, said Tom Gross of the GEICO Special Investigations Unit.

Scheler and others said they would like to see the state set price ceilings for towing and storage, and enforce the new laws with police rather than code enforcement officers.

Another GEICO representative, Don Sigrist, said he was glad to see industry support for increased state regulation of towing.

“It’s gotten to the point where certain towers are not responsible and need to be regulated,” Sigrist said. “Everyone seems to be in agreement on that.”

Members of the task force also said standardization throughout the state makes it easier for consumers and inter-county towers to know what rules they’re operating under.

But some members of the task force, like Baltimore County Police Cpl. Al Friedman, said police have more important things to do and that the state doesn’t have the resources to enforce towing regulations.

“This is no rocket science. It’s towing. Let police do police work,” Friedman said. He added that regulation should remain mostly at the county level.

The state law setting up the task force mandates recommendations by the end of the year.

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