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Street‑safety advocates call out DPW for underusing vehicle impound authority
Summary
Traffic‑safety groups urged DPW to use its statutory authority to impound repeat dangerous drivers, publish weekly Scofflaw/Ster Act metrics and activate private tow capacity to clear backlogs; advocates tied failures to preventable crashes.
Advocates pressed the committee to require transparency and more aggressive use of towing and impound authority for repeat dangerous drivers. Karthik Balasubramanian of DC Families for Safe Streets said DPW has the authority under D.C. statute to contract with private tow companies to expand impound capacity and called the failure to do so a policy choice that has cost lives.
"Every car that they don't take is a choice," Balasubramanian said, and he asked the committee to require DPW to publish a weekly report showing how many vehicles exceeded Steer Act thresholds, how many were impounded, and what private towing contracts were activated. Witnesses also described the Scofflaw pilot as too small relative to the backlog of tow‑eligible vehicles and urged scaling the program and reporting to the public.
