If you’ve been following along with the madness that H2Oi has become, you’ll know that the Ocean City Police Department weren’t playing around this year.
Similar to a certain Parks and Recreation episode, even the most minor infraction could result in a car impound and/or jail time for the driver.
Picture this… you’re in town, cruising the Ocean City strip in your lowered Miata, and decide that it’s the right time to lay some rubber for the folks watching on from the sidewalk. Of course, you didn’t see the OCPD cruiser coming the other way, which promptly pulls a u-turn and lights you up. The reward for your heroic one-wheel-peel? A $984 tow fee, plus storage fees, and a long list of other tickets resulting in fines totaling more than the car’s worth.
What do you do next? The only thing you can do to recoup any money to buy a bus ticket home is strip the car of its valuable parts before the tow truck arrives and hauls it away.
I’m not sure what this particular Miata’s crime was, but it was one of many cars in town for H2Oi 2020 that ended up in the Ocean City Police Department’s impound yard. It was minus its seats, front bumper, and perhaps anything else able to be removed in a hurry.
I’m sure someone will be able to get a steal of a deal on a banana Miata with more water in it than the Atlantic when it goes to auction in the coming months…
But slammed Miatas weren’t the only things stuck in the impound lot when I visited. It was a proper meet with a bit of everything for the whole family.
With everything from cambered-out Hondas and BRZs and FR-Ss, to Lamborghinis and Toyota hybrids – the OCPD wasn’t playing favourites.
To give you some idea of how hard the crackdown was this year, the total number of tows from the entire H2Oi weekend in 2019 was 65.
This year, there were 345 tows at $1,000 a piece. Let’s just hope that money is going back into improving Ocean City…
As it turns out though, getting your car into the impound lot during H2Oi is the easy part. Getting it out is a little harder.
Even if you have the money to pay for your car’s release, chances are you’ll be waiting through a few days’ worth of delays – with storage fees continuing to be accrued of course. And then there’s the surcharges on the towing fees out of the impound, as tow companies are the only ones able to do this.
But wait, there’s more…
I spoke to numerous folks who had just paid a few thousand dollars to get their cars out of impound for silly things like suspension modifications, exhausts, and window tints, only to find that their keys had been misplaced. So now you’re flat broke and own a car without keys, so therefore also require the services of a locksmith.
But despite all this, there’s a high probability that’ll you’ll do it all over again in 2021…
But will, or should there even be a next year for this ‘event’? We’ll discuss that in my final story from H2Oi 2020, coming soon.
Keiron Berndt
Instagram: keiron_berndt