[jedhead]

The $75K the article talks about is the fees that cities charge to the company to get exclusive towing privilege for the city. The cities have been demanding more and more of the impound fees that the towing company charges too. If the tow company sells the car at auction, the city gets a part of the auction price too. Since this source of revenue for the cities will be less, the impound fees will go up even more.
How towing companies in Australia when I was visiting there in 1980 was first come first serve. The police would just get on the radio and say they need a tow truck. The first tow truck to arrive got the tow. The interesting part was that eventually some of the fastest and most powerful vehicles on the road was tow trucks. I found out while hanging out with my Aussie friends on night in Perth. I heard a couple really hot sounding engines, lopey idle load exhaust. I looked around for the source of the sound and just then saw two tow truck take off smoking the tires from an interection. That is why if you watch "Mad Max" when Max's partner Jim Goose gets radio call you see tow trucks haulin' ass out the parking lot even before Goose get on his bike. The law was changed to exclusive contract because tow trucks were getting into to many high speed crashes and the situation was getting out of hand.

Bob