Cost of Towing a Loaded Truck & Trailer?

I was asking are you on I-85?

 

Oh ok no problem..... Patterson’s was who towed me and they were there in less than 20 minutes

 

I was quoted today in Florida, $250 hookup, $50 to R&R driveshaft, $4 per mile, tolls and 10% surcharge. Was estimated at alittle over $600 for 67 miles. Decided to wait on the service truck for 6.5 hours instead

 

Yeah they usually charge a flat fee for callout and hookup and then ridiculous per mile. I know in NYC you have to be towed by whoever has the contract and any outside contractor has to go to their yard to recover, meaning you pay a minimum of 1 day storage. Its also a heavy fine if you try to use outside haulers on their highway.

 

.......I’m in the wrong business.

 

I call B.S. on that, unless there was also a recovery or other special circumstance attached.

 

Yes unfortunately there was a cleanup involved and several recovery rigs and personnel.

But that was the “tow” bill for 7 miles.

I can sorta laugh about it now?

 

I will agree the contracted highway program in New York City is a problem, not fair at all and their regulations could use improvements.

Besides a restricted area like NYC where do you get ridiculous rates per mile? If a dry van is getting $2-3 per mile and flats are above $3 then a highly specialized piece of equipment operated by a trained driver that also has to be half mechanic is worth at least $5-7 per mile, even more if you compare the average length of a tow to short haul freight rates.

Half million dollar truck that has to be ready 24/7 without knowing if they will get any revenue for the day costs money.

I will never understand when folks want their second most expensive possession (personal car or business truck) towed for less than they would pay a plumber to clear a backed up drain. You want excellent service and damages to become almost nonexistent then stop looking for the cheapest provider and look for the best equipped and trained.

Besides, wanting to limit what one motor carrier makes, and towers are motor carriers subject to the same rules and authority requirements as regular trucking companies, while whining about low rates in your segment because brokers control the rates is hypocritical.

 

See, I don't laugh about that though because folks outside the tow industry hear that twelve grand tow bill figure and assume it was a simple tow job. That leads to ill informed law makers passing legislation that makes it impossible to run a profitable towing business and provide quality service. Just like they did with ELDs to prevent tired long haul truckers. By the way, many towers are also required to use ELDs which hurts us just like every other vocational trucking company.

A $12,600 recovery and cleanup invoice that happened to include towing the disabled or wrecked vehicles away, now that sounds more justifiable. It is semantics of language I know, but it leads to unneeded complications for my industry segment.