When Donating a Car Drives You to Distraction

Every community has its traditions, its seasonal quirks that give its calendar a sense of place. There are Manhattan’s department store windows and the Christmas luminarias of Santa Fe. And Southern California--well, customs abound, but for sheer Only-in-L.A.-ness, you can’t beat those annual appeals to the very heart of this culture, in which some kindly radio voice begs the fortunate to dig down where it counts and . . . give a car to charity.

So ubiquitous are these ads that some imagine charitable car-giving to be an ordinary phenomenon, along the lines of, say, Salvation Army bell-ringers and that fruitcake you give every year to the poor slobs in the apartment next door.

Trust me, Virginia. There are places where the needy would burst into tears if presented with a rusted-out junker.

Nonetheless, in these parts, nothing says brotherly love like the gift of wheels, and nothing betrays like having that kind of generosity backfire.

Such was the betrayal for one Mike Bednar, a guy with a deep appreciation for the nuances of transport, seeing as how he lives in Playa del Rey and works in Irvine, about an hour away on a good day.

Last autumn, as the giving season descended upon the palmy banks of the southbound San Diego Freeway, the 44-year-old mechanical engineer was moved by one of those dulcet-toned radio commercials to give his 1984 Thunderbird, light blue in color, to some soul less fortunate than he.

Oh, it wasn’t all largess. Bednar admits that he liked the tax deduction too. In any case, he called the American Red Cross, which has an 800 number for vehicle donations. A little paperwork for the IRS and the DMV, and before long a flatbed truck was hauling his T-Bird off to a greater good.

“After that, not a lot happened until Dec. 3, 1997,” he recalls. “I came home and there was a letter from the Los Angeles police stating that the car was impounded and they were going to be lien-selling it.

Then came another letter, and it said, ‘Your automobile has been in an accident, and you’re required to appear in Van Nuys court within two weeks, or a warrant will be issued for your arrest.”

Bednar called the detective whose name was on the letter, explained that the accident had happened weeks after he’d given the car to charity, hung up and figured that was that.

Uh-uh.

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Ten months later, an invoice arrived from the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, saying that his light blue Thunderbird had wrapped itself around a city-owned lamppost to the tune of $1,361.62 in property damage.

Stifling a maniacal laugh over the fact that the invoice was dated May 29 and it hadn’t reached his hands until October, Bednar sent a certified, return-receipt-requested letter with supporting documentation to the city, again explaining that the wreck wasn’t his.

He failed to make a dent. A month later, another letter arrived, this one from the city attorney’s office, with a stamped, self-addressed return envelope.

“The enclosed invoice indicates that the cost to replace the damaged property is $1,361.62, which amount is now due and owing,” it said.

So Bednar did what any self-respecting Southern Californian would do.

“I called the city attorney and yelled and screamed and threatened a lawsuit,” he said.

Last week, there was a message on his answering machine from the city attorney’s investigator, apologizing for the mix-up. Their explanation: The DMV failed to record his release of liability right away.

Paul Westerfeld, manager of the Red Cross’ vehicle donation program in Van Nuys, says such snafus are rare amid the thousands of donors whose cars are resold by the charity to auto dealers and dismantlers every year.

However, they’re irritating enough that the Red Cross now instructs benefactors to send their paperwork to the DMV either in person or by registered mail.

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As for Bednar, well, it is with some trepidation that he approaches this, the anniversary of his adventure.

“They said it was over, but I’m still waiting for something else to happen,” he frets. How can he be sure that this gift won’t just keep on giving him grief?

“All I can think of is that that invoice was in quadruplicate. . . .”

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Shawn Hubler’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com.