Tuscaloosa, AL Parking Rules: Abandoned Vehicles (2026)

On private property, City Code Sec. 13-71(a) makes it unlawful for any tenant, owner, occupant, or lessee to allow a vehicle that is partially dismantled, nonoperative, wrecked, junked, or discarded to sit on the premises. The section defines nonoperative broadly: a vehicle counts if it cannot be safely operated, cannot move under its own power, or cannot be legally driven because it is missing a required item such as a current license tag. Three narrow exceptions apply under Sec. 13-71(c): vehicles kept inside a permanently enclosed building or shelter, vehicles on a licensed business's premises where keeping them is necessary to that business, and vehicles in a storage depository lawfully run by city law enforcement. Instead of citing under this section, Sec. 13-71(b) also lets the city fall back on the state's abandoned vehicle law.

On public streets, a separate provision, Sec. 22-10, gives any police officer authority to remove and impound a vehicle the officer reasonably believes is lost, stolen, or abandoned, an obstruction, unprotected because the driver was arrested, parked in the same spot longer than 24 hours, parked unlawfully, or found to contain contraband; non-street-legal vehicles such as golf carts and ATVs found on a public street or in a park are towed after a citation is issued to the driver. The city holds a lien on any impounded vehicle for towing and storage: a flat $30.00 charge if city equipment does the tow, plus $5.00 per day or part of a day in storage, both payable before release unless the chief of police finds the vehicle was improperly impounded. The chief of police and director of transportation may also rotate the towing work to private wrecker services under a designated rotation system.