Just some of the stupid things I see

Depends on the area. If you want to tow 100 cars a night for $27 a car, regardless of whether it's on the road or 100 feet up in a tree upside down and on fire, go for it. The guys that run that contract all have trucks that are literally falling apart and pay crap wages around here. Those contracts are the same as the cheap freight that the biggest companies run. The guys with the nice shiny trucks don't get them running cheap freight.

The heavy stuff goes by area. If it's our area, we get it. If it's their area, they get it. And the rates are between us and the company. Besides, DOT/HP isn't even going to try to tell the sheriff what to do or vice versa. Then the cities and towns are something else again.

 

Talk about dirt cheap tow rates. Around here, you do good to get off with a $50 tow bill. For CMVs, it starts at $1k, for starting the truck, then around $150 per hr, and around $50 per hook. So if they need to hook 3x to get your truck out of a ditch that's an additional $150.

Just like Big Don said, the government rotation, call-out contracts are the ones they fight over. They are guaranteed $$$. Not that they charge the government, but they sure do sock it to the vehicle owner/drivers.

 

That is a gov contract on the rotation for Kansas City. You get $27. Total. That's it. The surrounding cities aren't much different. Now the further out in the country you go, the better the rates can be. But there's also much less competition. So you go piss the guy that runs one company off, well, there's only 3 companies in the area and they all went to school together 50 years ago and/or are related by marriage or otherwise, so good luck.

Sure, they can call someone out of area but how pissed off do the officers out on the road get when they have to wait for 2 hours for them to drive up there? They want you there in 20 minutes, max. They get pissed off if you take 20 minutes. 2 hours? Forget about it.

Whoever it was higher up in the food chain that pissed off the local companies ends up catching so much flak from their own officers that they back down pretty quickly. It's been that way for years. There's nothing that's going to change that. They can try to set up and run their own tow company if they like but they've already tried and failed at it a couple times over the years.

 

Here's the interpretation for that:

"Question 10: Do tow truck operators who hold a CDL require endorsements to tow ‘‘endorsable’’ vehicles?

Guidance: For CDL endorsement purposes, the nature of the tow truck operations determines the need for endorsements:

—If the driver’s towing operations are restricted to emergency ‘‘first moves’’ from the site of a breakdown or accident to the nearest appropriate repair facility, then no CDL endorsement of any kind is required.

—If the driver’s towing operations include any ‘‘subsequent moves’’ from one repair or disposal facility to another, then endorsements requisite to the vehicles being towed are required. Exception: Tow truck operators need not obtain a passenger endorsement."

The emergency tow would be at an accident where the roadway is blocked. Sitting on the scale house parking lot is not an emergency and would require the tow truck driver have the hazmat endorsement.

 

Good luck with that. He wont even tell us what state he's from




American Trucker

 

I have a feeling the Banhammer is soon to visit...

Take that kind of uncalled for bs elsewhere. It takes class to be a carhauler, seems you're out of luck!

 

DB shares a lot of valuable knowledge with those who are willing to take it. If you have a problem with LE, maybe you should look in the mirror first to see if the problem might not start there, rather than with LEO's.

The comment you made above is neither wanted or needed in this thread.

 

So if you ever git down where the cowtrucks roll
And meet a trucker's lady named Bullhaulers Wife
If she ever asks you to quit causin' strife
Man, you better listen, if you value your life
Or it'll be "EEEEEEEEYYYOOOOOOWWW!" another man done gone.

 

Bring on that Bobby Bare

 

Now that would have been real handy to know back when I first got into towing (and truck driving for that matter). The first company I ran for had a heavy wrecker but we all thought you had to have a CDL to drive it so of course I couldn't. Not, uh, "officially" anyway. Come to think of it, the second guy I ran for was thinking about getting a heavy unit but didn't because I still didn't have a cdl. ####, we missed out.