Specialty Towing is one of several tow companies suspended by SF City Attorney David Chiu for illegally towing cars.
Redditor /u/StoryInMemo shared a shocking smartphone video showing a tow truck driver in a Specialty Towing truck trying to tow away a car on San Francisco streets with a driver still behind the wheel.
Check out their smartphone video via Reddit below.
Specialty Tow trying to grab an occupied car from the travel lane on Bush St
byu/storyinmemo insanfrancisco
The incident happened at the intersection of Bush St. and Montgomery (exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
In the video, we can see the Specialty Towing tow truck driver actively backing up to align his yoke with the front tires of a Toyota Corolla behind him.
As the Corolla was not parked on the side of the street and was moving, it’s hard to believe the tow truck driver didn’t know someone was inside.
A Waymo driverless car can be seen in the foreground.
“What the f*** are you doing?,” you can hear OP shout.
The Corolla evades the tow truck yoke’s grasp, drives around the tow truck, and speeds off.
Unable to grasp the Corolla, the tow truck driver speeds off down Bush, presumably in hot pursuit.
As many commenters pointed out in the thread, Specialty Towing, owned by Abigail Fuentes and Jose Badillo. was suspended by San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu for predatory towing practices that, over several years, netted the tow company owners over $2 million.
“Between February and May 2023, Auto Towing employees illegally towed several cars from a bank parking lot in the Portola neighborhood without the permission of the property owner, investigators said.”
“Victims whose cars were towed were primarily Spanish- and Cantonese-speaking residents, who are especially vulnerable to predatory tows,” the city attorney’s office wrote.
“Dude where’s my car? San Francisco towing company preyed on drivers, city attorney says
” KRON 4
Since /u/StoryInMemo’s posted this thread, it’s made it to the front page of Reddit and gained the attention of a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, who can hopefully get to the bottom of this strange and infuriating incident.
