For more than 20 years, Antwon Temoney has worked for D.C.’s car impound lots. When he started, D.C. had only one lot. Now there are three.
News4 visited the newest impound lot, which opened just months ago. It’s where the city keeps cars with the most unpaid fines. Cars with thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid fines. The scofflaws.
“They have 28 days to claim these vehicles. If they don’t claim the vehicles, then they’re auctioned or scrapped,” Temoney, a program manager for the Department of Public Works, said.
Drivers owe D.C. well over $1 billion in unpaid tickets, primarily from out-of-state drivers.
Earlier this year, D.C. started a pilot program using more tow trucks and automated license plate readers to find the cars with the most in unpaid fines and impound them.
In the five-and-a-half months of the pilot program that focused primarily in Ward 1:
- D.C. impounded nearly 300 cars that owe a total of more than $2 million
- D.C. booted more than 2,000 vehicles that owed a total of almost $6 million in unpaid tickets
The program has now gone citywide, with ramped-up enforcement in all eight wards.
It’s not just the cars of scofflaw drivers that take up space at impound lots; illegal scooters are ending up there too.
Just because D.C. impounds a car doesn’t mean they’ll collect on the tickets.
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D.C. officials don’t expect most of the cars to ever be claimed. Some of the drivers owe more in fines than the cars are worth.
News4 ran a few of the tags ourselves. One car had more than $19,000 in unpaid fines.
None of the cars being held at the impound lots are stolen cars that got tickets after being stolen; those cars are kept by D.C. police.
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Temoney has some simple advice for the millions of drivers who have unpaid tickets in D.C.
“Just pay your fines. That’s it. Just pay your fines,” he said.
