Clear Creek County Vehicle Impound Guide

Don't assume your car is in Georgetown. Clear Creek County has no central police impound lot — a rotation of private towing companies covers the county based on where the stop happened along I-70 and whose turn it is in the dispatch queue, and the wrong guess means driving to the wrong yard entirely. Call the Sheriff's non-emergency dispatch at (303) 980-7300 first and ask which company actually has the vehicle. The rotation includes Clear Creek County Towing, Allied Towing and Scorpion Towing (both based in Idaho Springs), Bragg Towing (Georgetown and Silver Plume), and Colorado Mountain Towing, which covers the corridor from Georgetown up to Vail.

The fees follow Colorado Public Utilities Commission mountain rates, which run higher than standard non-consensual tows because of the complexity involved in recovering a vehicle off an I-70 shoulder. The hook fee — covering the truck and driver — runs around $279.78 per hour for vehicles under 10,000 pounds. Storage adds $47.12 to $58.13 per 24-hour period, and it accrues daily including weekends, whether or not the lot is even open to release the car. Picking the vehicle up outside standard business hours, generally Monday through Friday 8 to 5, adds an after-hours release fee of roughly $103.70. If the car sits unclaimed for two or more days, the tow company has to send a certified notification letter to the registered owner or lienholder, and that cost — $75 to $150 — gets passed along too. A typical scenario, towed Friday night and retrieved Monday morning, usually lands somewhere between $500 and $800 once mileage and multiple storage days are factored in.

Before heading to the yard, confirm there's no police hold on the vehicle. If it's evidence in a vehicular assault case, it can't be released without a specific order from the district attorney or the investigating detective — showing up with the right paperwork otherwise won't matter.

Getting the car back requires the registered owner in person with a valid photo ID, proof of ownership through current registration or title, and a valid insurance card for that specific vehicle — no current insurance, no release. And if the owner's license was seized or revoked at the time of arrest, which is common in a DUI stop, they legally cannot drive the vehicle away themselves. That means bringing a licensed second driver, or arranging for the car to be towed out instead.

One right that's easy to miss under the stress of an arrest: owners can retrieve "life-essential" personal property — prescription medication, a child car seat, a wallet, a phone — from an impounded vehicle without paying the full tow bill up front. The vehicle itself stays held until payment, but those specific items don't.