The Jamie Davis Towing Discussion Thread

I seen a few episodes. Pretty interesting to watch.

 

They're already on season 5. You've got some catching up to do.

It's a good show. I liked the Fort Mac episodes best since I've worked up there the last few years. I've only ever been through the Coq in the summer in my pickup. TV does not do The Smasher/Snowshed Hill justice. It is much, much steeper than it appears on TV. Its worth a trip. The scenery from Merritt all the way down to Chilliwack is absolutely beautiful.

 

Another show made to make operators like morons. Just like irt did to ice roads

 

It's a great show.

It demonstrates that we have a significant number of idiots in this business.

It also demonstrates the importance of getting your ### off icy roads.

 

I have watched a few episodes. I am sort of fascinated by what all goes on. I find it interesting but how can people be so stupid. In one episode the insurance company wanted every bottle of wine that could be salvaged, to be salvaged. Screw you. We need to get the road open, not off load several hundred bottles of wine by hand. Stack it against the jersey barrier to be picked up later. Yeah right. Risk lives reloading the bottles onto to a trailer as brain dead drivers whiz by at who knows what speed. BTW the wine was $40 a bottle. Big ##### deal. Once it is back on a trailer it would need to go back to the shipper, each bottle would need to be looked at, relabeled if necessary, chipped bottles tossed,all of it re-boxed, and then shipped again. Somebody I am sure has a college degree that says all this makes sense dollar wise. That whole situation is a boatload of b.s. in my opinion.

 

I have been in the towing industry all of my life, many years full time and now part time while I run my car haul and consulting companies. To address the wine issue, yeah that was just total b.s., no insurance company in their right mind is going to try to salvage that load, the risk of injury later while consuming would have sent that load straight to the dump.

As for the highway workers, I imagine it is difficult when you have a mandate to keep the roadway open, down in the lower 48 US we have become accustomed to closing the roadways for the slightest bit of inclimate weather, look at my home state of Pennsylvania they are always closing the highways for snow.

Now for Jamie Davis, he is alright but takes a lot of chances with his rigging and equipment. He gives the true professionals a bad name and those of us with proper training wince when we watch his guys do their thing. It is NEVER ok to hook a winch line to a truck and then tug it up the hill, that shock loads the entire wrecker from the rigging attachment, winch line, right thru the winch drum and mounts. He is really taking a lot of chances, and if any of his crew, or worse yet a bystander ever gets hurt all the evidence the lawyers will need is on film! I realize a lot of this is dramatized for television, and I have met Jamie at a trade show in Baltimore, he is a nice guy and fairly easy to talk to. They just don't get the liability thing, maybe Canadian courts are easier than American courts?

Overall good show, it shows what goes into keeping a roadway open and the integrated roles the different responders play.

 

I met Jamie in Red Deer a couple years back. I thought he was a pretty decent guy as well. I met Samy too. Good guy as well.

@brian991219 what's the proper way to pull a truck up a hill? Just curious as I know nothing about towing. BC still seems to have a bit of a cowboy attitude towards safety. Its kind of like get the job done, don't kill yourself and don't wreck the equipment.

 

I figured a bit of it was just for show, the rigging aspect is interesting though. To a layman (me) i couldn't say hes rigging wrong. So thats neat to hear.. so its like the difference between a professionally trained rigger and a self taught?