A Major Rise in Car Towing on Campus

Many students have shared their concerns about the seemingly recent rise in towing on campus. Director of campus safety, Dr. Cathy Anthofer-Fialon, and towing company Autowerks Paint & Collision spoke on the issue.

First, Second, and Third Street are all fire lanes, making parking illegal. If the car is registered with the school, it only gets towed to the Ohio Lot, but if not, it gets towed to Autowerks Paint & Collision.

“You notice the streets are very narrow. So, for a fire truck or ambulance to get down, we can’t have cars parked there,” said Dr. Anthofer-Fialon.

Students also get towed when parked in faculty parking. A Campus Safety officer added that students parking in designated housekeeping parking, it potentially gets in the way of housekeeping doing their job and risks getting towed.

If towed, it usually costs 85 dollars. But, according to towing company Autowerks Paint & Collision, if the car is an all-wheel drive, it costs 100 dollars due to the harder physical labor and the longer amount of time it takes.

“If it’s all-wheel drive, you can’t slide it off. So, we have to winch it back off literally,” said Pat DeSalvo, owner of Autowerks Paint & Collision. “We feel bad for the kids. We know what it is like; you guys are not rich. You are going through college,” he added.

“Students wouldn’t have to pay for all this if they read the signs,” added another Autowerks employee.

Autowerks Paint & Collisions started towing for Bennington College around two months ago. However, towing procedures began around a year ago, but Dr. Anthofer-Fialon argues that students notice the towing more often due to increased staffing.

“We’re back up to the normal levels of campus safety staffing because we never want to tow a vehicle without one of our officers present with the tow truck driver. Unfortunately, that happened last spring. We called for a tow truck, and the officer could not meet the tow truck driver,” she said.

“Students came out and surrounded the tow truck yelling inappropriate things to the driver that honestly scared the truck driver so much that he dropped the vehicle he was supposed to tow.”

The company towing that day, All Service Citgo, now declines to tow for the school.

Mr. DeSalvo stated that his towing is not about the students but his job.

“We do not want to tow. We’re just providing a service,” he said.  

Dr. Anthofer-Fialon suggests that the rules are made very clear.

“I’m open for suggestions if there are better ways for students to get the message, but we have signage, the handbook, and then I also talked about it at orientation,” she stated.

However, some students shared that they feel the rules are not transparent enough and confusing.

“The rules are extremely unclear, like I have no idea,” said an anonymous student.

“I think they’re trying to establish some kind of power over us, if I’m being honest,” stated Milo Lis, a sixth-term student.

“Why isn’t there more accessible and available parking for students?” said another anonymous student.