A 27-year-old mum of twins from Perth said she was forced to breastfeed her four-month-old sons on the side of the road after a tow truck took her car and refused to give her car seats back.
Brooke Feeney returned to her car on a busy Perth street on Thursday afternoon at about 4.20pm – five minutes after the spot became a clearway.
Talking to Perth Now, Ms Feeney said as she approached her car, the driver was in the final stages of towing it away. However, the new mum was desperate to retrieve the capsules from the back of the car, knowing her two baby twins couldn’t travel legally without them.
“He wouldn’t let me get the blankets or anything,” Ms Feeney said. “He just said, ‘Call Main Roads’, and drove off.”
In a separate interview with 7 News, the 27-year-old said she was “disappointed” with how the whole thing eventuated.
“I was ropeable. I was angry, upset, disappointed,” she said. “I wouldn’t have expected this from Perth.”
After the tow truck had pulled away, the stranded mum said she was forced to breastfeed her twins on the side of the road. She then called Main Roads and spoke to a manager, who she said was “unsympathetic” and “unhelpful”.
“She just told me it was my issue and I need to be more organised, that I should’ve left earlier and it was pretty much my problem and not her issue.”
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In a statement to Perth Now, a Main Roads spokesman said the agency regretted the “inconvenience and distress” caused to the young mother but refuted her version of events. They claimed her car was already “under tow” when she approached the tow truck driver at 4.22pm.
“Tow truck drivers cannot pull over in peak-hour traffic,” the spokesman said.
Ms Feeney denied this, saying “he was just getting in his car so he hadn’t actually left.”
With nowhere to go, the 27-year-old was forced to call her mother who looked after her babies so she was able to retrieve her car.
Top Comments
Fair enough, tow the car. But give the poor woman her car seats, for goodness sake!
I'm calling shenanigans on her only being 5 minutes late to get to her car. In order for a tow truck to get to an illegally parked car, pull in, and get it up into the trailer ready to be driven away, that would suggest the truck was loitering *right next* to the car in question, and then swooped in, as soon as the park turned into a clearway, and then load the car onto the trailer at supersonic speed.
More likely scenario: the mother arrived much later than "five minutes" after the park turned into a clear way (evidenced by the fact the car was about to be driven away on the back of a truck as she arrived), and then had a hissy fit about not being able to access stuff from the car. Better to acknowledge who was in the wrong here, lady, and stop using motherhood as a reason to expect special treatment.
Except it becomes a clear way at 4.15pm and the Main Roads spokesperson said the tow driver was already "under tow" at 4.22pm.
She doesn't deny being in the wrong and her car requiring tow. Her issue is the tow truck driver refusing to give her the capsules for her twins so she could get them home legally and safely!
Apparently the tow trucks park in the side streets and wait for the clock to hit 4.15pm, so they can swoop on any cars left there. I don't think there's much margin for error. I think she is justified in being annoyed about the baby seats. That seems totally unreasonable to me.
That's ridiculous! Only in Australia would people tolerate this sort of thing - enough with the nanny state and stop treating adults like naughty children.
Annoyed enough to go on social media to huff and puff about it? Some people really are All About The Drama.