How much damage does towing a car that's in "Park" or in gear do?

[Freefaller]

I think I know the answer to this... it's pretty bad for the gearbox and drivetrain in general. But if it's only over 5m or so how bad is it?

The reason I ask, is that a large truck came down out road (small town in the countryside) in the evening after people have returned from work. There were a handful of cars parked on the road - here's a google earth photo:



It's a small 30mph road, but as you can see cars park on both sides (which means that only 1 car can drive down the road at a time).

The driver of said truck had an wide load (one of those traveller-type homes) - and to his credit did knock on doors and try and get people to move their cars. However his support car came along and strapped a towing rope onto 2 cars (one at a time, and directly on the axle, car was untaxed and not MOT ) and tugged them out of the way, no more than 5m or so.

I have a couple of questions - how dangerous would it be for those drivers to drive their cars? Could it cause serious damage?

It feels wrong but not sure where the law stands on this - is what they did illegal? But if not, I'm worried that they may have damaged the cars.

I know most of the people on the street but don't know which car belongs to whom. Would you leave a note? Or try and speak to them tomorrow?

 

[Rroff]

If it is an automatic in park the damage could be substantial and well into the thousands to rectify if not a write off, I can't really comment on the dangerous side of it - but I'd imagine it has potential to be highly dangerous but most likely the damage would be noticeable as soon as you tried to drive it.

 

[Freefaller]

If it is an automatic in park the damage could be substantial and well into the thousands to rectify if not a write off, I can't really comment on the dangerous side of it - but I'd imagine it has potential to be highly dangerous but most likely the damage would be noticeable as soon as you tried to drive it.

That's what I feared. I'm not usually a busy body, but it was quite a site seeing such a big truck on our road, I only caught it by chance.

 

[tom_e]

If they're legally parked on a public road I'd be questioning why a private company has any right to touch them.

 

[Freefaller]

If they're legally parked on a public road I'd be questioning why a private company has any right to touch them.

It's a public road with a single yellow, but it's after hours, so technically completely legal to park there.

 

[Rroff]

AFAIK it isn't actually illegal to move a parked car a short distance, however it becomes a very different matter if you do damage in doing so, which in many cases it is almost impossible not to (you can lift the parked wheels on a single axel driven manual and move them without damaging them).

We had an interesting one once where someone parked inconsiderately blocking in a delivery vehicle and the police wasted no time in putting in a window when they couldn't make contact with the owner so they could take it off the handbrake and move it and when the owner came back and started getting angry the police gave them a right dressing down.

 

[geekman]

It's supposed to cause a lot of damage, but in reality I've seen lots of cars towed very short distances in park and none of them have ever been damaged.

 

[Uther]

Wouldn't that come under criminal damage? What gives that company the right to drag legally parked cars out of the way?

 

[Freefaller]

Wouldn't that come under criminal damage? What gives that company the right to drag legally parked cars out of the way?

This is what I don't know. They don't have the right I don't think? but then again there was 0 chances of him reversing the truck, there were already a dozen cars / vans behind it. The fact that the car that towed them was not road legal makes it feel super dodgy.

 

[Freefaller]

It's supposed to cause a lot of damage, but in reality I've seen lots of cars towed very short distances in park and none of them have ever been damaged.

I mean they didn't move it very quickly, but still the tyres were skipping a fair bit, I doubt it did the car any good.

 

[Rroff]

The fact that the car that towed them was not road legal makes it feel super dodgy.

The support car? certain business vehicles won't show as having tax and MOT though that is more appropriate to car garages/dealers than that kind of use AFAIK.

 

[Uther]

If they are dodgy I dare say they will just deny doing it. Hopefully there's some proof (mobile phone / video doorbell footage) or a few witnesses.

 

[Freefaller]

The support car? certain business vehicles won't show as having tax and MOT though that is more appropriate to car garages/dealers than that kind of use AFAIK.

ah fair enough.

I just don't know who the owners are unfortunately, just want to make sure they're aware that their car was moved forcefully (albeit not fast). Maybe I'm making something out of nothing. It just didn't feel right - but at the same time, the truck had nowhere to go owing to the exceptional load.

 

[Rroff]

ah fair enough.

I'm not really sure on the particulars - so might be wrong in respect to whether it applies in this case though.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Mate who is a truck driver got blocked in by people illegally parking. It was a narrow road and by the time he needed to leave there was no way to squeeze through.

So he called the police, the police told him to drive through it anyway, my mate was like, you know I cannot do that without hitting the cars, the officer said, just drive through.

Apparently he was as careful as he could be but a few wing mirrors and no doubt a scrape or two later, and never heard anything of it again.

 

[dave28]

possibly a huge amount of damage, sounds illegal to do that to other peoples property. The cars may have been SORN and legally allowed to be there as long as they did not drive the cars.

 

[Freefaller]

possibly a huge amount of damage, sounds illegal to do that to other peoples property. The cars may have been SORN and legally allowed to be there as long as they did not drive the cars.

I thought SORN had to be off the public highway?

 

[LuckyBenski]

possibly a huge amount of damage, sounds illegal to do that to other peoples property. The cars may have been SORN and legally allowed to be there as long as they did not drive the cars.

I think it was the truck driver's support car that is no tax/MOT, not the parked cars.

 

[dave28]

I thought SORN had to be off the public highway?

yes your right

 

[Rroff]

It's supposed to cause a lot of damage, but in reality I've seen lots of cars towed very short distances in park and none of them have ever been damaged.

From some reading it seems with an automatic nominally the tyres will skid before enough force is applied to the parking pawl, if parked properly, to cause any damage, but if the tyres hit resistance i.e. speed bump or pothole, etc. potentially enough force will be applied to the transmission to do damage. With 4x4s and some types of automatic though you can cause damage via transmission wind up.