LONDON, ONT. -- Some drivers are being charged exorbitant fees to retrieve vehicles from unregulated impound yards secretly operating in London.

“Illegal impound yards where your vehicle gets towed to from an accident scene, then they wait a few days, and then they give you a bill well north of $1,000 to retrieve your car,” explains city hall’s Director of Municipal Law Enforcement Orest Katolyk.

City staff are cracking down on the unregulated yards, but need drivers who have fallen victim to come forward, “Often these locations are behind vacant buildings, behind barns and such. We need to know about those places.”

Those yards are the latest wrinkle in ongoing efforts to curb the behaviour of ‘chaser tow trucks’ that listen to scanners, race to collisions, and utilize high-pressure sales tactics on drivers.

City staff are developing a set of draft licensing rules for tow truck operators, which will regulate impound yards and may establish minimum setback distances that trucks must remain from collisions - unless invited.

Last week, more than two dozen tow truck operators met to discuss the possibility of creating a new tow truck association in London that would enforce a code of conduct and standardize pricing.

“There will be compounds, trucks and professionalism. Clean up the industry,” says Dwayne Cameron of Clarke’s & Sturdy’s Towing. He says a few bad players, many from other cities, are hurting local family-run companies.

Cameron wants to see the industry self-regulate rather than city hall impose rules with a bylaw, “People will fight that and they will win. There was a case in Waterloo and they did win."

On Jan. 30, a Kitchener-based tow truck driver beat a ticket for violating Waterloo Region’s 200 metre setback distance.

But London Councillor Shawn Lewis, who first raised concern about chaser tow trucks, says the court decision shouldn’t dissuade London from considering its own setback distance.

“I think it’s something that gives us some food for thought in drafting our bylaw. I'm not going to be worried about one ruling by one justice of the piece on one bylaw.”

Lewis adds that the province could help municipalities by implementing Ontario-wide rules.

In the meantime, he’ll keep pushing to have tow truck operators licensed even if a local towing association is formed, “Form an association of licensed tow truck operators, I think that really raises the level of creditability that their tow truck drivers will have when they respond to a call.”

London police Chief Steve Williams will report on the state of London’s towing industry at this month’s London Police Services Board meeting.

City hall’s draft licensing rules will be considered at a public participation meeting in the spring.