LTO moving impounded vehicles to Tarlac

THE LTO main office on
East Avenue,Quezon City. PHOTO FROM LTOWEBSITE

Motorists whose vehicles have been impounded by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) better redeem them this week, as the agency will start moving them on Monday to a new site in San Isidro, Tarlac City.

LTO chief Edgar Galvante on Thursday said the cars currently being held at the agency’s main office on East Avenue, Quezon City, will be transferred to a 1-hectare government property in Tarlac.

The agency will prioritize cars that are still in good running condition to start decongesting the main office’s 4-hectare compound, which now holds 150 to 200 impounded vehicles.

“We would like this (main office) area to accommodate people with other transactions, like vehicle inspections,” Galvante said, adding that the compound has no more space available for impounded vehicles, including buses, which occupy even the driveway.

“We are adding to the traffic problem along East Avenue because our clients cannot even enter [the compound] due to the number of cars [inside],” the LTO chief added.

He advised the owners of the impounded vehicles—most of them seized for being “colorum” or used as public transport without a franchise—to immediately claim them to avoid incurring additional penalties.

Aside from paying fines for the violations, Galvante said, the owners will also be charged a storage fee, plus the cost of transferring the vehicles to Tarlac. The storage fee ranges from P150 to P1,000 a day, according to LTO records.

Vehicles not redeemed in the next six months will be put up for auction, the official also announced.

The Tarlac site is under the LTO Region III office and located along a major thoroughfare. “We looked for an impounding area here in Metro Manila but nobody responded to our advertisement,” the LTO chief said.