Latest $9K parking-lot-trap truck tow: Turn state-local rules to your favor

A tip of the hat off the top of this week’s Overdrive Radio edition to our social media coordinator Jazzmin Campbell, who shared with me yet another towing mishap occurring in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina.

It bears some of the hallmarks of a parking-lot trap, the driver reporting a bill for upward of $9,000 in fees after he said he exceeded a time limit at the lot on Sunset Road by about a half-hour — mind you, during the big winter storm that hit the city with record snowfall back at the tail end of January.

Judging by the reporting from the Charlotte TV station that had the story first, it’s unclear where exactly the lot in question sat on Sunset Road in North Charlotte, but it’s certainly not the first time we’ve picked up on towing and booting shenanigans in that city and surrounding areas.

[Related: $6,000 for 16 miles? Viral video sparks towing outrage]

Tow companies in nearby Gastonia, N.C., to the west and south of Charlotte may well have originated the region’s parking-lot-trap dynamics, where in past booting was quite common.

Just last year, the state of North Carolina explicitly banned the booting of commercial vehicles, regular readers will remember, yet private-tow tactics for parking enforcement clearly remain available to towing companies.

2025 Small Fleet Champ semi-finalist Mark Ledford’s small fleet early this year experienced a similar incident in Charlotte he and his driver were able to work their way out of utilizing the very terms of Charlotte’s towing ordinance. If the lot or the tow company in question violates signage and other regs there, that could be a very simple way out of an incident with involvement of the authorities — simple, that is, if the truck hasn’t already been towed, of course.

Hear more in this week’s podcast, in part a re-air of small fleet owner Robbie Turnage’s story of a tow gone bad — and how he was able to, similarly, turn state law in Pennsylvania to his favor.

Overdrive Radio’s sponsor is Howes, longtime provider of fuel treatments like its Howes Diesel Treat anti-gel and Lifeline rescue treatment to get you through the coldest temps, likewise its all-weather Diesel Defender and Howes Multipurpose penetrating oil, among other products.Turnage’s tale was part of the roundtable conversation we conducted just prior to the 2025 Small Fleet Champ awards presentation at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference last year. We’re right in the middle of 2026 entries research and the judging round — with announcements coming soon of the full slate of semi-finalist small fleets, certainly an exemplary, diverse group of owners this year.

Keep tuned for it, and for now, dig into this conversation with Turnage and his Turnage & Sons milk-tanker fleet, Scott Denmark and Scott Cruthis of Thomasville Furniture Xpress, Wes Oberman of Oberman Logistics, and the small fleet named for and owned by Clifford Hay.