How to get your vehicle impounded in the Philippines

What better place for your car to stay than an impound lot? It’s pretty convenient to have a towing crew bring it for you so you don’t have to, and it’s also free parking until you actually need to use your car. Just pay a fee and you can claim your vehicle once again, right? 

So for everyone who wants to get their car impounded, here’s a cheeky little guide on some of the fastest ways to get your vehicle towed and placed in the lot. 

Editorial note: This article must not be followed to the letter. Always stay safe on the road, be on top of all your documents, and obey all the traffic rules and regulations. 

This is probably one of the easiest ways to get your car towed and impounded almost immediately, but you have to play it a little close if you want to see your vehicle get wheeled off to the lot. 

First, you have to park in a very illegal spot. Not only will this alert authorities, but it will also give them leave to tow your car to the nearest impound. For the best result of alerting the authorities, make sure that you park at a “No Parking” sign that is also paired with a “Tow-Away Zone” signage. 

Once you’ve parked, make sure to leave it unattended. The tow truck will beep several times to get you to come out, and you get about a five-minute grace period before they start working on your vehicle. You want to come down at the sixth minute, talk to the guys, and probably thank them for the towing service to the impound lot. Once that is done, they may even offer you a ride to the impound lot so you get the full experience on top of other pertinent fines and tickets you will incur along the way. 

Here’s an idea, why don’t you purposely leave your car on the road? There are a few ways to go about this, but the general concept is to make sure that your car is in a condition where it’s unable to move under its own power, or it is immovable and obstructing a major thoroughfare. 

A more long-term solution would be to neglect your car’s maintenance and let it run itself to the ground. Skip your oil changes, neglect the coolant, make sure your tires are old and unable to hold air, or maybe even poke holes in your oil pan. 

Though, the quickest way to get your car towed is just leaving it in the middle of a highway, intersection, or just in the middle of a street. Block someone’s driveway or fill up an establishment’s parking slot for a good amount of time, let the owner notice, and call the authorities. Just like illegal parking, you have to make sure that your car is unattended. 

Here’s a different take on becoming an obstruction on the road, but it is rather extreme. If your car’s in good working order, there is a quick way to turn it into a non-moving obstruction in an instant. Getting into an accident that will render the car immovable is a sure-fire way to get towed. After all, obstructing the road with a working car is one thing, but getting into an accident is another. 

It’s a lot more hassle for tow crews to move your car to the impounding lot if it got into an accident. It’ll be difficult to position your vehicle properly onto the tow truck, and it’s even more of a hassle to get your car repaired or recoup its loss if you don’t have insurance. It’s the riskiest way to get your car into an impound lot by any means, and it could end a life or even yours. 

Thankfully, a lot of cars nowadays have good safety features and safety ratings to keep their occupants safe and well. Make sure that you buckle up if ever, though. 

Car? Check. Knowledge on how to use a steering wheel? Check. Enough finesse to use brake and accelerator pedals? Check. How to use a clutch? Trial and error! You don’t need to take a test to get out on the road, at least, not legally. 

So skip the driver’s license, but if you already have one, forget about it. To get your car impounded this way, all you have to do is get caught in a traffic violation, and then when the apprehending officer asks you for a license, say you don’t have one and they’ll be inclined to impound your vehicle. Getting caught will be the easy part if you’re not a licensed driver since you’ve never taken a test and you’re probably unaware of some of the traffic rules and regulations on the road. 

If you do happen to be a licensed driver, leave it at home, allow it to expire, and simply violate the regulations without a license. Oh, you have a license but it’s been confiscated? That can speed things up a bit. If your license gets confiscated and you get a traffic ticket in return, allow the traffic ticket to expire and get caught in a traffic violation once again. This is tantamount to driving without a license, or an expired license, and the result is similar: off to the impound lot with you. 

Or you can even get a fake license. Get one of the fixers to help you procure one, and then get caught. Licenses can be faked to varying degrees of accuracy. Get the worst one, get caught, and your vehicle is sure to be impounded. To top it all off, you get a hefty fine to boot. 

Just in case you forget to forget your license, you can opt to forget your car’s registration instead. If your car is pretty new, then you might have to wait up to about three years before that happens. Otherwise, you will have to make do with the other options in the guide. Anyway, forget to register your car then get caught for something that will require the apprehending officer to check your OR/CR. Then just sit tight for the tow truck to come. 

Either that or you can also go and mess up your registration of illegally modifying your car. For instance, you can paint it a different color and fail to indicate it on the registration. Better yet, you can also change your car’s engine and also fail to indicate it on the registration. 

For public utility vehicles, having no body number indicated on the vehicle, or having a tampered franchise document will be a sure-fire way to get the vehicle in the impound lot. Breaching franchise conditions are also an impoundable offense. 

License plates are required by law to make sure that cars are identifiable. Though, isn’t that a little bit of a hassle especially since we have all these CCTV cameras around? That being said, Other people can also run your plates with the LTO to see if you have any outstanding violations and how many tickets you’ve collected. You don’t want that, and you want to get your car to an impound lot, right? 

To do so, simply take off your plate number, and while you’re at it remove the conduction sticker too. Either that or why don’t you swap around your plate number with another car? Then to speed up the impounding process, hang around areas where you know that the MMDA, or the HPG. Why not head to a police station and illegally park as well? That’s a sure-fire way to get yourself into trouble, right? Also, fake a license plate while you’re at it. Get one that doesn’t match what a Philippine license plate should look like, and also get one that doesn’t even match what’s supposed to be on the car. 

Not only will your car be impounded almost immediately, but you will also be slapped with heavy fines that can amount to thousands of Pesos. One violation alone from what we’ve mentioned is enough to shoot your fine up into the tens of thousands and not to mention some quality time in the big house. Oh, and your car is also in the impound lot, so you got that out of the way as well! 

By following every word in this article to the letter, you will get impounded—it’s almost guaranteed. 

All satirical humor aside, be sure not to follow any of the things we’ve written here. It’s not worth getting your car impounded because it is such a hassle to get it out of the lot, and not to mention, paying off the fines. Remember to keep your license, registration, and your car’s maintenance in check. Also, be mindful of the rules and regulations on the road and make sure to always park and drive safe.