In light of recent events, there appears to have been some misconceptions and exaggerations about the “new” towing policy here at Northwestern. On October 5, an e-mail was sent out from Peter Boerema, the head of campus safety and security, notifying the entire student body and faculty that a total of seven vehicles were towed due to parking violations and multiple infractions.
“One of the problems was that we were receiving complaints from students who could not find any parking when they had paid for their parking permits,” said junior David Green. Green is a member of the campus security team that writes out tickets.
This ultimately led to vehicles being removed from campus at the owner’s expense.
“Towings occurred because of the presence of a large number of student vehicles in campus parking lots that were not registered and had received multiple parking tickets in the first month of the school year that remained unpaid,” Boerema said.
Prior to the cars being towed on the 5th, two e-mails had been sent out beforehand by Boerema explaining the parking registration and towing policy in the student handbook, which applies to the faculty as well.
“These policies are not new at all to my knowledge and have been the same since I was a student here from 2000 to 2004,” Boerema said.
Students who have a car on campus and are not yet registered should do so to avoid having that privilege revoked and to keep the fines from accumulating.
To recover a towed car from Elite Auto Body, which is located on Highway 10, costs $40. Tickets on campus start out at $10 if paid for within three business days. The fine is raised to $15 until a week has passed. After a week it becomes $30.
When tickets are given out, pictures are also taken by ticket writers to prove that a violation occurred.
“Before I came to Northwestern, I registered my car online on the My Northwestern site,” Green said. Ever since then the cost of the parking registration just became a part of my tuition invoice.”
In Boerema’s Sept. 24 and Oct. 2 emails, he warned students that failure to register a vehicle will result in a fine and if a vehicle is not registered, it may be towed away at the owner’s expense. The year-long parking registration costs $96 for residents and $48 for commuters. In the event of emergencies, the registration tags make a big difference in the amount of time it takes to identify the owner is of any vehicle.
Visitors also need parking permits, so when a student’s friends or family members are visiting, they’ll need to visit Darla Hettinga in the RSC Student Development Office. She will issue them a permit free of charge after filling out a short form.
“We usually set the time period to however long you think your visitors are staying, but the time limit goes up to two weeks” Hettinga said.
The towing policy didn’t need to be enforced as often in previous years which could have given the impression this policy was a new one. Boerema said that he wants to make the information more clear to everyone so miscommunication is avoided.
On the day that the seven cars were towed, two of them belonged to visitors and were mistakenly towed. NW covered the costs of the towing and waived the tickets.
