How to Find Your Towed Car in New Bedford, MA: Who to Call

Published 18 September 2026

New Bedford Towing is the company you call for yourself, and a car that vanishes from a New Bedford street or lot was moved by a different kind of tow: one somebody else ordered, ending at a storage yard rather than at your mechanic. We hear from people trying to find that car, so here is what we tell them.

The first call is to the police, not to the yards. The second question is which of three kinds of tow it was, because your rights, and the size of the bill, depend on the answer.

The New Bedford Police Department's own guidance is one sentence: contact the station closest to you, or call the non-emergency line at 508-991-6350, "to find out who towed it and where it is." The stations are West End headquarters on Rockdale Avenue at 508-991-6300, the South End station at 508-991-6355 and the North End station at 508-991-6360.

The police know because every lawful way a car leaves a street or a lot without its owner runs through them: a police-ordered tow is theirs from the start, a snow-ban tow is ticketed and towed by the police, and a trespass tow from private property is lawful only if the property owner notified the police first, with the registration number and the name of the towing company.

If the police have no record of a tow, report the car stolen: the Central Records Bureau, 508-991-6300 extension 79406, handles police reports and stolen autos.

A car towed without its owner in New Bedford left for one of three reasons, each with its own rules. The first two are police matters from the start; the third is the one where a record is supposed to exist before the truck moves, and where the law gives you the most specific rights.

Whichever it was, the car is at a storage yard rather than at a shop you chose, and the storage meter started when it arrived. The three:

• A police-ordered tow. An officer had the car moved - after a crash, because it was blocking a road or a hydrant, or because it had stood more than 72 hours on a way or on property without permission, which is the definition of an abandoned vehicle under M.G.L. c. 90, § 22C.
• A snow-ban tow. Once the city declares a snow emergency, the parking ban is enforced for 48 hours and cars on the wrong side of the street, or on a double-sided ban street, are ticketed and towed at full cost to the owner, plus storage; 170 vehicles were towed overnight in the ban of January 18, 2026.
• A trespass tow. The person in lawful control of private property - a landlord, a lot owner, a business - had the car removed under M.G.L. c. 266, § 120D, after you were forbidden to park there directly or by a posted notice.

Massachusetts puts conditions on a private-property tow, and each is a lever. Only the person with lawful control of the property may order the removal, and before the car moves that person must notify the chief of police or a designee with the registration number, the addresses involved and the removal company. In New Bedford that notice is a police form titled "Auto Towed Away on Private Property": it asks where the car was towed from, where to and by whom, and states that it must be submitted to the station before the vehicle is towed.

Two remedies follow. If you appear before the tow is completed, the car may be released and you may be charged one half of the fee usually charged for the tow. And a remover who did not comply fully with the section "shall release such vehicle to its owner without assessing any charges for its removal or storage" - no tow fee, no storage.

The fee itself is capped at the state's figures for police-ordered tows, so a trespass tow is billed under the same 220 CMR 272 schedule. If the yard cannot show that the police were notified, or the notice came after the truck moved, say so before you pay, and ask the station whether a form is on file.

After an involuntary tow, storage is capped by M.G.L. c. 159B, § 6B at $35 per 24-hour period for a passenger vehicle, and only in a lighted outdoor lot enclosed by a secure fence at least six feet high; any other outdoor lot may charge at most half that. The tow itself is capped at $132 for the first five miles under 220 CMR 272.03. Storage is what makes speed matter: it is charged by the 24-hour period, so a car found on Monday and collected on Thursday costs more than the same car collected that afternoon.

Bring your driver's license and the registration, since the yard needs to know the car is yours, and ask for an itemized bill so each line can be checked against the caps.

Then the question nobody asks until they are standing at the gate: how do you take payment, and when? Massachusetts does not currently require a tow yard to accept credit or debit cards or to post its release hours - a bill that would require both, S.2779, had not become law as of a May 2026 report - so ask on the phone before you go. If a bill runs over the caps, the DPU's Transportation Oversight Division takes complaints at (617) 305-3559.

Everything above describes a tow you did not order. The other kind is the towing company you call yourself: the car goes where you say, home or to a shop, there is no storage yard and no daily meter, and the price is a total quoted on the call before the truck moves. The emergency page covers the difference between an impound and a tow you order yourself, including what happens after a crash when the police decide where the car goes.

One more distinction: if the police ordered your car off a crash scene on I-195 or Route 18 to clear the road, that was a police-ordered tow, priced under the state schedule, and the station for that area knows where it went.

The winter version of this problem has its own rules, its own ticket and its own free lots; what happens to your car in a New Bedford snow emergency walks through them.