overcharged for tow job

Minimum charges are acceptable when they are not used to excess. When the law in BC says you have to pay a person for a minimum of 2 hours when called out and then bill for 4 hours and are only on scene for 1.5 hours, there is a little excessive money grabbing going on. Fair is fair. Minimum charge should start at the legally mandated 2 hours that an employer has to pay his employees and then add for each hour that it takes above that. The tow truck as a result of the traffic control being late added a full hour of extra time to the bill and the tow truck itself taking an extra hour over and above what they said the time to scene was also added. It is only 15 minutes to the town they are based in. If they want to stop and get a coffee and dinner, fine... but don't tack those hundreds of dollars onto the bill. Padding a bill is a form of fraud. Billing for a service you don't provide to the customer is in my opinion padding the bill. If the tow truck came to the scene, took 3 hours to get me on the road, then finished then bill me for the travel time, the 3 hours and the time to get home. Fine. Same with the flag crew. I know everyone has to make a living, but my company doesn't tack charge a customer if I don't make the delivery late and it costs more, my company eats the extra cost.

Why is a truck driver okay with being charged for services not rendered? It does beg the question, doesn't it? If I were quick to jump to conclusions, I would think that any driver that is okay with people being billed for services that were not provided might engage in that practice themselves. Of course, that is pure speculation which is not based on any fact and I am not accusing anyone of anything when I say that, but the attitude does have me wondering what a person's motives for saying such a thing are. It just confuses me is all.

 

Yeah... truck was leaning enough to make the fuel all migrate from the left side tank where all the fuel sensors are to the right side tank. If Freightliners didn't have that filter that is locked into place in the tank opening, it would have been easy to pump from one tank to the other but no dice... soon as the truck got level... the computer had a heart attack and killed the engine. Glad it didn't stall before that when I was abandoned waiting for the tow to finally show up. Was -20 to -25 Celsius outside.

 

Good for you. You have it all in hand and are the super trucker of the century. You obviously are better than anyone else on the planet and would rather kill 3 people in a car and mock me for avoiding that. Nice. Says something about character. What if it was your family in that car? Would you have such a cavalier attitude then? Would you forgive me if I wiped out your entire family when I could have avoided it? I know I could never forgive myself for killing anyone if it was avoidable in any way... oh, and the child seat in the back window that I saw as the car sped from the scene.... obviously that would have protected the child from my tractor and trailer smashing through the car.

Its nice that you get paid 4 hours minimum... its nice for anyone. But its something that the individual company pays... not something that you pad your bill with. Show up when promised and I would have nothing to complain about with the bill. And if the flaggers showed up on time the bill would have been less too so they should not be rewarded for being late to the scene.

Also... comparing mechanics to tow operators is like comparing a brain surgeon to a street sweeper. If I put my car in the garage for that 15 minute job they bill me for an hour or two because that`s what the book says the job should take, fine... but I also know that if the book says a job takes 2 hours and they spend 6 on it, I pay for 2 hours. The time taken to get to the scene should not include stopping to jerk off and then bill it to the customer. That is bull. Glad someone with your attitude wasn't the tow op... there would have been a 3 hour circle jerk before showing up and that would have been added to the bill... because, in my personal opinion, someone who defends others ripping people off obviously has no moral objection to ripping people off themselves. I am willing to say that I should pay for what I get... and I certainly did not get $1500 worth of service having my right side wheels pulled up off the icy shoulder back onto the roadway.

Oh ... and one more thing. I did zero damage to my rig when I avoided killing 3 innocent people who just happened to have the misfortune of coming into my path. I am proud that I was able to react quickly and safely and maintain enough control as to not end up going over the embankment that was a mere 5 inches to the right of where I did end up. I am proud of that... but then again... I am not a super trucker that can simply avoid the low shoulder at the expense of other people's lives.

 

Thank you for the elegant answers that I was unable to come up with.

I have only been towed one time in 5 1/2 years. That would mean that my record of keeping it between the lines is better.

... and anyone who can get a "fantastic" nights sleep after a head-on with a car makes me seriously wonder. Karma does come around eventually. I just hope that it catches up to him directly and not through an innocent person close to him.... but then again... other people have probably always paid for the sins of people like him.