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Towed Over is a blog about the towing industry, tow trucks, repo, wreckers, rollbacks, heavy duty hauling and tow parts
A dangerous time to be in towing..
by Rucks Russell/11 News
HOUSTON—Tow truck operators spoke out Friday, hours after a deadly crash that claimed the life of a wrecker driver in northeast Houston.
The accidents occurred around 1 o’clock Friday morning in the 8900 block of Jensen Drive. Witnesses told police two wrecker drivers were racing when one of them collided with a car and struck a poll.
“It’s not a surprise to see this happen,” said Wilfredo Dejesus, who has been operating a wrecker for the last six years. “It’s a jungle out there, a concrete jungle.”
The man who died had been operating a tow truck for more than 20 years.
“You might make it home or you might not,” added Dejesus, who blamed the rules adopted by city council for creating what he called a climate that rewards reckless behavior.
Those rules guarantee that only the first two wreckers on scene will receive any money.
“Guys are fighting with one another and pulling out knives. It’s all about getting that dollar,” said Dejesus.
A few years ago, city leaders established strict guidelines regulating tow truck operators on freeways, but not city streets.
Jeanette Rash, the vice president of the Towing and Recovery Association of America, said she has spent years lobbying city hall for safer standards.
“This shouldn’t have happened and I wonder if there was more I could have done,” she said.
Rash believes the city should consider allowing four wrecker drivers at each accident scene.
“I’m hoping we can go back to the table and fix this now,” she added.
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Interesting towing article
From Union Tribune
San Diego
Four of Star Towing’s tow trucks idled on the same Ocean Beach block last week, waiting for their usual 2:30 p.m. Wednesday go time, when it becomes illegal to park on Newport Avenue between Cable and Bacon streets.
By 3 p.m., the only two vehicles left on the block had been ticketed, loaded onto the trucks and hauled away to make room for the weekly Farmers Market.
Some Ocean Beach residents complain that signs on the block aren’t prominent enough to fairly warn the usual one or two motorists a week that still get towed, which can cost upwards of $300. But the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association, which runs the market, says it’s doing the best it can to remind motorists to move their cars.
In addition to about nine permanent signs, OBMA posts about 25 temporary signs — two in each planter box — the morning of the Farmer’s Market, market manager David Klaman said. He walks around with a megaphone reminding people to move their cars, and asks the lifeguards to make announcements from their stations.
He said he thinks putting the signs up in the morning is plenty of advance notice since cars can only park there for two hours anyway.
Sgt. Gary Mondesir, special events sergeant with the San Diego Police Department, said if a group gets a permit to block a city street for an event, they have to notify drivers at least 72 hours before.
Mondesir has been to the street before the Farmers Market and said OBMA goes beyond what they’re required to do, even going into stores and telling merchants to warn their customers.
OBMA Executive Director Denny Knox said the permanent signs take care of the advance-notice requirement, although some motorists may be leaving their cars after a night at the bars and failing to come get them.
Knox said OBMA tried to hire a company just for the Farmers Market that would tow cars for less money, but the city said that was illegal.
“I don’t know what else we could do,” she said. “We feel terrible about it. We don’t want any cars towed.”
But on Wednesday, some pedestrians watching the truck drivers hook up the vehicles remarked that the warning signs were too small or too infrequent.
“What a total scam,” said Sean Ritz, 40, as he watched truck drivers load the cars onto their trucks.
The Mission Valley resident had been nearby at the beach that day. When he saw the vehicles being towed, he had a moment of panic, worried he might have been parked in the wrong block, although he was not. He said he empathizes with those people, who would come back to the block and not find their cars.
“The signs are not enough,” he said. “They aren’t in every space.”
Klaman, the market manager, thinks people either don’t think to read the parking signs when they park or they just forget to move their cars, but he understands the frustration.
“They yell at me saying, ‘Why did you tow my car?’ or ‘You didn’t have the signs up when I parked,’” he said. “I’ve got horror stories.”
Fox Ludwig, 46, who’s been driving a tow truck for Star for four years, said people have told him they forgot to move their cars or they didn’t think the prohibited parking applied to them, he said
Drivers are paid by the hour instead of commission, so he tries to wait until the last minute to pull someone’s car away, though he has to have the street cleared by 3 p.m.
“We make money, but we don’t want to tow anyone,” he said.
Ocean Beach resident Christina Reilly, 54, had her car towed from the block a few months ago. She said she didn’t see any signs when she parked there at 1:30 p.m. to go to a grocery store about a block away. She returned to find a tow-truck driver hooking up her car to his truck.
Reilly said there needs to be more permanent signs and a more consistent policy on where they are.
“There’s too much room for error,” she said. “It’s just discourteous to the public.”
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O.B. market says tow notice meets the mark - SignOnSanDiego.com
San Diego
O.B. market says tow notice meets the mark
Saturday, August 7, 2010 at 10:08 p.m.
By 3 p.m., the only two vehicles left on the block had been ticketed, loaded onto the trucks and hauled away to make room for the weekly Farmers Market.
Some Ocean Beach residents complain that signs on the block aren’t prominent enough to fairly warn the usual one or two motorists a week that still get towed, which can cost upwards of $300. But the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association, which runs the market, says it’s doing the best it can to remind motorists to move their cars.
In addition to about nine permanent signs, OBMA posts about 25 temporary signs — two in each planter box — the morning of the Farmer’s Market, market manager David Klaman said. He walks around with a megaphone reminding people to move their cars, and asks the lifeguards to make announcements from their stations.
He said he thinks putting the signs up in the morning is plenty of advance notice since cars can only park there for two hours anyway.
Sgt. Gary Mondesir, special events sergeant with the San Diego Police Department, said if a group gets a permit to block a city street for an event, they have to notify drivers at least 72 hours before.
Mondesir has been to the street before the Farmers Market and said OBMA goes beyond what they’re required to do, even going into stores and telling merchants to warn their customers.
OBMA Executive Director Denny Knox said the permanent signs take care of the advance-notice requirement, although some motorists may be leaving their cars after a night at the bars and failing to come get them.
Knox said OBMA tried to hire a company just for the Farmers Market that would tow cars for less money, but the city said that was illegal.
“I don’t know what else we could do,” she said. “We feel terrible about it. We don’t want any cars towed.”
But on Wednesday, some pedestrians watching the truck drivers hook up the vehicles remarked that the warning signs were too small or too infrequent.
“What a total scam,” said Sean Ritz, 40, as he watched truck drivers load the cars onto their trucks.
The Mission Valley resident had been nearby at the beach that day. When he saw the vehicles being towed, he had a moment of panic, worried he might have been parked in the wrong block, although he was not. He said he empathizes with those people, who would come back to the block and not find their cars.
“The signs are not enough,” he said. “They aren’t in every space.”
Klaman, the market manager, thinks people either don’t think to read the parking signs when they park or they just forget to move their cars, but he understands the frustration.
“They yell at me saying, ‘Why did you tow my car?’ or ‘You didn’t have the signs up when I parked,’” he said. “I’ve got horror stories.”
Fox Ludwig, 46, who’s been driving a tow truck for Star for four years, said people have told him they forgot to move their cars or they didn’t think the prohibited parking applied to them, he said
Drivers are paid by the hour instead of commission, so he tries to wait until the last minute to pull someone’s car away, though he has to have the street cleared by 3 p.m.
“We make money, but we don’t want to tow anyone,” he said.
Ocean Beach resident Christina Reilly, 54, had her car towed from the block a few months ago. She said she didn’t see any signs when she parked there at 1:30 p.m. to go to a grocery store about a block away. She returned to find a tow-truck driver hooking up her car to his truck.
Reilly said there needs to be more permanent signs and a more consistent policy on where they are.
“There’s too much room for error,” she said. “It’s just discourteous to the public.”
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O.B. market says tow notice meets the mark - SignOnSanDiego.com
A towers view on safety
Safety safety safety.
I can’t stress this enough. Too many drivers are getting injured or killed on the highways from numerous things. The biggest thing that I can stress is BE SEEN!!! Wear a vest to light up the scene. There are numerous things you can do. I remember one time where I was dispatched to a disabled motorist on a toll road. It was a BMW and came out as a flat tire. I thought to myself great, this person has never changed a tire before in their entire life and will most likely sit in the car and leave me to the work. I arrive on the location of the disablement and find that the shoulder was barely enough to have the BMW on the side of the road, let alone my 21’ ford Jerr Dan Rollback. I saw the disabled car and turned on every light I had so other motorists could see me. I positioned my truck behind the disabled car so that as motorists came flying by they could see all the lights much better and not slam into us. I also pulled a page from the police and decided to angle my truck so it gave me a little more room to work, keeping me out of harms way.
Safety is the biggest thing that we need to follow out there, but so few drivers do. Wear the safety vest. Turn on all your lights especially at night. People can see those work lights and your warning lights. Put extra warning lights on the back of the truck, more than the front. And if that does not work, flares and triangles are a great tool to keep you safe, whether they are battery powered or the old fashioned ones.
Matt Thompson
Wrecker Division Resident Tower and Jerr-Dan specialist
East Coast Truck and Trailer
2906 Elmhurst Lane
Portsmouth, VA 23701
1-800-849-2178 (toll free)
(757) 465-2200 x336
LaHood Rules Out Fuel Tax Increase | Transport Topics Online | Trucking, Freight Transportation and Logistics News
LaHood Rules Out Fuel Tax Increase | Transport Topics Online | Trucking, Freight Transportation and Logistics News
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There are going to be some busy towers in New York
City to give red-light scofflaws the hook
Last Updated: 7:46 AM, August 2, 2010
Posted: 3:16 AM, August 2, 2010
The city is about to put the brakes on thousands of drivers who've beaten the red-light camera program out of $47 million, The Post has learned.
The red-light runners will be in for a shock when they check their parking-violation records and find past-due summonses dating back to 2003 added to their accounts.
And that's not the worst of it.
About 40,000 drivers who owe less than $350 each in unpaid parking tickets and, therefore, haven't been subject to towing are going to leap onto the towing hit lists when the unpaid red-light infractions are added to their totals.
Starting Sept. 13, following public announcements, city marshals will be authorized to tow any vehicle with a combined $350 owed for parking tickets and red-light summonses.
Red-light summonses have been overseen by the Transportation Department since 1993 and weren't included in Finance Department's database of parking violations.
As a result, city marshals and deputy sheriffs assigned to hunt down parking scofflaws didn't pursue drivers who ignored tickets after being caught on camera blowing through red lights.
The Transportation Department employed collection agencies to track those drivers with limited success.
With 664,000 unpaid red-light summonses -- totaling $47 million -- in judgment, officials are making no apologies for the sudden crackdown.
"We've always said these violations would subject you to being towed," declared Finance Department spokesman Owen Stone.
Most drivers caught zooming through red lights tend to cough up the $50 fine fairly quickly since it's tough to dispute photographic evidence. In 2009, the city generated $32.3 million from 150 hidden traffic cameras.
But some cunning culprits discovered that ignoring red-light summonses didn't necessarily mean risking having their cars towed.
"If you didn't pay, it didn't stop you from registering your car," admitted one red-light scofflaw who works for the city and said everyone in his office was aware that enforcement of the red-light violations was limited.
The scofflaw said he forked over hundreds of dollars to immediately settle all his fines, fearing the new towing offensive.
Lucky for him, he settled up.
About five dozen vehicles were mistakenly yanked from the streets last week despite the grace period. Officials promised to rectify matters for all the affected owners.
The red-light runners will be in for a shock when they check their parking-violation records and find past-due summonses dating back to 2003 added to their accounts.
And that's not the worst of it.
About 40,000 drivers who owe less than $350 each in unpaid parking tickets and, therefore, haven't been subject to towing are going to leap onto the towing hit lists when the unpaid red-light infractions are added to their totals.
Starting Sept. 13, following public announcements, city marshals will be authorized to tow any vehicle with a combined $350 owed for parking tickets and red-light summonses.
Red-light summonses have been overseen by the Transportation Department since 1993 and weren't included in Finance Department's database of parking violations.
As a result, city marshals and deputy sheriffs assigned to hunt down parking scofflaws didn't pursue drivers who ignored tickets after being caught on camera blowing through red lights.
The Transportation Department employed collection agencies to track those drivers with limited success.
"We've always said these violations would subject you to being towed," declared Finance Department spokesman Owen Stone.
Most drivers caught zooming through red lights tend to cough up the $50 fine fairly quickly since it's tough to dispute photographic evidence. In 2009, the city generated $32.3 million from 150 hidden traffic cameras.
But some cunning culprits discovered that ignoring red-light summonses didn't necessarily mean risking having their cars towed.
"If you didn't pay, it didn't stop you from registering your car," admitted one red-light scofflaw who works for the city and said everyone in his office was aware that enforcement of the red-light violations was limited.
The scofflaw said he forked over hundreds of dollars to immediately settle all his fines, fearing the new towing offensive.
Lucky for him, he settled up.
About five dozen vehicles were mistakenly yanked from the streets last week despite the grace period. Officials promised to rectify matters for all the affected owners.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/city_to_give_red_light_scofflaws_YWqie986OgpG6gstmNdREO#ixzz0vSAzaj27
City marshals will soon target cars owned by scofflaws ignoring red-light summonses - NYPOST.com
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- msaks@ectts.com
Police: Tow Truck Driver Critical After Kensington Shooting, No Relation To "Towing War" - cbs3.com
Tow Truck Driver Shot In Kensington
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―Philadelphia police are searching for a gunman who shot a tow truck driver in the back multiple times in the Kensington neighborhood.
According to sources, the tow tuck driver was cleaning his vehicle near the intersection of Front and Silver Streets when he was shot from behind.
Neighbors of the victim tell Eyewitness News the driver lives in the area and witnessed a black male running down the street after the shooting.
Police say the victim, who is an employee of "Straight Up" Towing and was not on-call at the time of the shooting, was spotted on the ground by two Good Samaritans who picked him up from the ground and transported him to Episcopal Hospital.
The driver has since been transferred to Temple University Hospital where he is listed in extremely critical condition.
Police have not released the victim's name at this time and also have stated they do not believe this incident is the result of any "towing wars" altercation.
On July 22, a Philadelphia tow truck driver was shot and properties connected to an ongoing tow truck rivalry were riddled by gunfire and set on fire.
This incident remains under investigation.
Police: Tow Truck Driver Critical After Kensington Shooting, No Relation To "Towing War" - cbs3.com
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