The Jamie Davis Towing Discussion Thread

Not so much poor driving as young punks with too much money and a #### everyone attitude.

 

Those oil field winch trucks are monsters and their operators are just a bit crazy. I ran one down here in Pennsylvania for about a year, did things with it I would never do with a tow truck, that is for sure.

 

As a matter of fact... it did. That was a cluster**** of epic proportions; west of Dawson Creek. Wrong directions, wrong information, wrong trailers, improperly loaded, etc.

 

I wish I had photos or a video of my C5500 Topkick service truck getting yanked out of a hole with a 14H grader. Some knob hydrovac'd a bunch of 8' deep holes in the ground while they were building one of the overpasses on 63 in Fort Mac. Covered them up with a piece of 3/8" plywood and a few inches of dirt. Caught my left front tire on it and that was it. Sunk it right up to the front axle.

 

Also a apparent air pressure alarm on at least one tire in the dash I imagine...

 

Had a mud hole with a COE 87' freightliner coming off a construction in PA near roughly York after off loading shingles. I punched that big cam and bounced through with the left steer. It covered the entire cab door with a inch of mud. Made it back to the yard without that driver window or mirrior. Parked it went to bed. Next morning safety was asking me questions.. essentially WTF? lol.

 

I'm not exactly sure what the regs are here in Michigan, but a lot of towing companies have red lights and it helps. My guess is it is not legal, but since that makes no sense nobody enforces it. There were some changes recently which allow highway snow plows to use green flashing lights, so maybe they threw that in too, but I don't know.

Good thread, Mike. The show used to be on when I got to my hotel, and a lot of times it would be on when I got up, so I watched a lot of it. It's been a couple years, though. Have they turned it into a competition yet? I used to like ice road truckers until that happened.

 

Some States allow use of colors other than amber, New Mexico for example allows blue and green and it does help. I think Oregon or Washington allow red on the wreckers contracted to the police.

A uniform light color nationwide would be helpful, example here in Pennsylvania blue is for volunteer firefighters and it is a courtesy light meaning we do not have to yield or pull over but down south many police departments run only blue and you better pull over!

I think tow trucks should be allowed rear facing red strobes and front facing blue/white, but only when parked in the right of way or causing a restriction to traffic flow. In no case should a tow truck be traveling with any flashing lights activated unless they are actually causing a hazard, such as a wide load or vehice not tracking correctly. So many towers run all day with their lights flashing, and way too many lights at that, just for attention. If we had uniform light colors and useage rules nationwide it would help. Sadly, some states still think a tow truck needs to have their lights activated when towing, example again of New Mexico, we had to have our lights on any time we were in-tow, but we were also running blue lights so we got a lot of 1 finger salutes after a vacationer from out of state dove for the shoulder only to find out we are a tow truck not a fire truck.

 

Not a long time back I read in HDT or a similar magazine that one "service" man was killed EVERY day on US highways.

 

That makes sense. Might be how it is here.

Of course, to many people it's only a suggestion. Back in my fireman days, I was in an engine blocking the right lane for crews working a couple hundred feet ahead and got rear ended. The driver told the state trooper that he couldn't see the right lane was closed because it was in a curve and he was late so he didn't have time to be in the line of traffic in the left lane. Instant double point, double fine, reckless driving ticket.