Clarendon County Vehicle Impound Guide

A vehicle towed after a DUI arrest in Clarendon County goes to whichever wrecker service was next in the SCHP Troop 1 rotation, which could mean Bob's Body Shop & Towing on Alex Harvin Highway, Prince's Towing, or Mack's Towing out toward Hopkins, depending entirely on where the arrest happened. Calling the Sheriff's Office dispatch line or SCHP Troop 1 with the plate number or the arrestee's name traces which lot actually has it.

Watch for the "special operations" reclassification on the final bill. Standard tows have to be billed at a flat rate, but if a vehicle gets pulled from a ditch, needs uprighting, or requires special equipment, the job can legally shift to hourly billing, and those rates get steep fast: $271 an hour for a skid steer, $305 for a backhoe, $864 for an air bag unit. The wrecker service is required to get on-scene confirmation from the investigating trooper that special operations were actually necessary before charging that way, so demanding an itemized invoice and verifying that confirmation happened is worth the extra few minutes.

These lots won't release a vehicle to just anyone. If the arrested driver isn't the registered owner, the actual owner has to show up with the title, registration, and photo ID, or provide a properly notarized letter of authorization if showing up in person isn't possible. There's no informal workaround for this.

The bigger trap is timing, not ownership. Towing operations run around the clock, but the administrative side, the office that actually processes payment and verifies documents, generally keeps standard business hours regardless of what the dispatch line advertises. Showing up at 3 a.m. straight from a jail release almost never works. The better approach is identifying the specific lot through dispatch, calling during normal business hours to confirm the exact total owed, avoiding a surprise card processing fee or a cash shortfall, and scheduling a real pickup window instead of guessing.

If a defendant believes the tow itself was unlawful or that a wrecker service ignored the state fee schedule, that dispute goes to Magistrate Court, which handles civil claims up to $7,500.