About to be towed in Miami Beach? The city will start giving residents a heads-up
Update: The Miami Beach City Commission unanimously approved the proposal at a Feb. 26 meeting.
Original story:
Miami Beach residents may soon get a warning before their cars are towed, giving them a chance to spare themselves hefty costs and headaches.
The city is considering implementation of a text message system that would alert residents who have received a parking citation and are about to be towed. They would then have 15 minutes to return to their cars and relocate. The warning system wouldn’t apply to tourists or locals who don’t live in Miami Beach.
The grace period would begin once a parking officer issues a ticket and the message is sent, said City Commissioner Alex Fernandez, who is proposing the change. Currently, people whose cars are set to be towed may avoid that fate if they return before their car has been hauled away. But there’s no official way for drivers to be alerted to what’s happening.
“It’s just a common sense procedure,” Fernandez told the Miami Herald. “The goal shouldn’t be to have to tow the resident. You just want to make sure that the car is moved.”
Fernandez’s proposal is on the City Commission agenda for Wednesday, Feb. 26.
Ralph Andrade, an attorney who represents Beach Towing and Tremont Towing — the two tow companies allowed to operate in Miami Beach — declined to comment on the proposal.
Under the program, text messages would be sent for “non-life safety parking violations,” such as unpermitted parking in a residential area or parking in a no-parking zone. According to a memo from City Manager Eric Carpenter, the notifications would not be provided for safety-related violations like parking in a fire lane, blocking lanes of traffic, illegally using a disabled parking space or parking in a freight loading zone.
The warning messages would go to Miami Beach residents who are signed up for the city’s resident parking discount program, which allows residents to pay $1 per hour at on-street and off-street meters.
About 20,000 residents are signed up for that program, and 16,000 of those have provided a phone number, officials said, meaning many of the city’s approximately 80,000 residents wouldn’t be immediately eligible to receive the messages.
Miami Beach Transportation Director Jose Gonzalez said at a Jan. 29 committee meeting that the city would need to conduct “extensive community outreach” to increase sign-ups and make the program successful.
Gonzalez said he hoped the program wouldn’t be “abused” by residents parking illegally with the knowledge that they will receive a text before getting towed. But Fernandez said he wasn’t concerned, given that drivers would still be slapped with parking citations that can cost $36 or more.
Still, the warnings could save residents much larger sums. Miami Beach residents pay a discounted towing rate of $150 if they can show a driver’s license and vehicle registration at a valid city address. Non-residents can pay more than $400 between tow rates and administrative fees.
READ MORE: Miami Beach just quietly increased towing fees. Here’s what it means if you get towed
San Francisco implemented a similar “text before tow” program in 2022. In the first two years, a total of 130 text messages were sent to participants, and 70 were able to prevent their cars from being towed, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Miami Beach officials said the text message program would cost about $20,000 to implement and about $7,500 per year after that.
“The cost of implementing this notification is minimal compared to the benefit of saving residents from unnecessary frustration,” Fernandez said.
This story was originally published February 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
