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Having your car towed and impounded is extremely costly. But Global News has learned that owners who lose their vehicles for excessive speeding and impaired driving in B.C. are receiving huge discounts.

“I don’t believe it’s widely known. I believe most people are unaware of the price structure,” said Mitchell Martin, who owns Mitchell’s Towing in North Vancouver.

Martin says dangerous drivers get free towing for the first six kilometres, and their storage cost is almost half-price.

“Currently ICBC pays $23.28 for Zone One, which is North Vancouver, and normally our retail rate is $44 per day, so it works out to be almost 50 percent lower using ICBC rates,” Martin said.

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It appears the deals are unintended: a result of bulk discounts that were negotiated by ICBC and then passed on to RoadSafetyBC, the government agency that works in partnership with police.

When told about the discounts, B.C.’s Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said he was “surprised.”

“I’ve instructed my staff to look into it and get a better understanding exactly of what it is and what it entails,” he said.

“It does strike me as somewhat odd that people who have had their vehicles impounded for excessive speeding would then get a discount on the towing rate, and ordinary people who may have had their car towed don’t.”

2:01 Shocking numbers on excessive speeding in B.C. Shocking numbers on excessive speeding in B.C.