Broken Arrow, OK Parking Rules: Towing & Impound Rights (2026)

Broken Arrow's towing rules sit in the business-licensing chapter, not the traffic code: Chapter 7, Article XI, Wrecker Services, Secs. 7-260 through 7-267. The placement tells you what the article is for. It regulates the wrecker company the police department calls, and it is not a consumer rate ordinance. The article contains no schedule of hook fees, mileage charges or daily storage rates, and no cap on what a wrecker may bill you. Maximum non-consent towing and storage charges, and the lien, notice and sale process for a towed vehicle that goes unclaimed, are matters of Oklahoma state law under the wrecker statutes at 47 O.S. Sec. 951 et seq. What the city does control is who may respond, how fast, what happens to your property at the scene, and when the lot must open its gate for you.

Only a contracted operator may tow at the city's request. Sec. 7-260 makes it an offense to dispatch or operate a wrecker to provide wrecker service to the City of Broken Arrow without a city contract, but it carries a carve-out that protects driver choice: no contract is required where the vehicle's owner or operator specifically requests a named wrecker service that has none. Sec. 7-261 fixes the contract terms. Bidders must hold a current class A wrecker license or better issued by the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, the city must be carried as an additional insured, and no term may exceed one year, so the rotation is re-bid annually.

At the scene, the inventory of your belongings is a police duty rather than the tow driver's. Sec. 7-264(g) requires the police officer to prepare an inventory of all visible personal possessions and equipment in the vehicle before it is removed, and the wrecker driver must give the officer his or her name for the vehicle impound sheet. That subsection also draws a line the driver may not cross alone: preparing and verifying the inventory does not authorize opening locked containers in the absence of a Broken Arrow police officer. The same section requires the steering wheel of every towed vehicle to be secured with a tie-down before towing. If you are working out who took your car, Sec. 7-262(a) helps: every contractor's wrecker carries the service name on each side in letters not less than two inches high and one-half inch wide, in a contrasting color.

Response and release both run on a 24-hour clock. Sec. 7-264(a) requires immediate wrecker service 24 hours each day, seven days per week, and Sec. 7-264(b) requires the driver to tell the dispatcher, who tells the police dispatcher, whenever arrival will be delayed more than 20 minutes from the time of dispatch. Each contractor keeps a minimum of two wreckers and two drivers with one driver on duty around the clock. For owners the operative provision is Sec. 7-264(j): the contractor must have employees on call or otherwise available to the public as needed to allow the recovery of towed vehicles on a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis. Nothing in the article lets a lot refuse to open after business hours. The exception is a police hold under Sec. 7-264(k): once a Broken Arrow officer decides a vehicle's secured status must be preserved and tells the wrecker service to hold it, the operator may not release it except in conformity with applicable police procedures or a court order.

Two money provisions in Sec. 7-261 matter before you pay. Item (9) adds a $25.00 administrative fee to any vehicle towed at the request of the city, which the wrecker service collects and pays to the city monthly with itemized documentation of which vehicles were and were not charged. Item (6) is the one to raise if the tow was a mistake: the contract must provide that the city will not be liable for payment of any fees for impounded vehicles, and that vehicles impounded at the request of the city will be released at no cost to the vehicle owner when the city determines the vehicle was impounded through a city error. Sec. 7-267 confines storage of towed vehicles to parcels zoned for C-4, I-1 or I-2 use.

Damage and missing property claims run through the chief of police. Sec. 7-266 requires the contractor to log each police call, when it was received, when the wrecker reached the scene and when it returned to the impound lot, kept daily and open to police inspection on request, and to file a written report with the chief within seven calendar days of any damage or alleged damage to a towed vehicle in its custody or any loss or alleged loss of personal property from one. Equipment failures reach the same official: under Sec. 7-263 the city's fleet maintenance personnel inspect wreckers at intervals the chief sets, the chief orders a deficient vehicle out of service, and the owner must prove the repairs through a hearing before the chief before it returns.