The Jamie Davis Towing Discussion Thread

Yup, doesn't suprize me. I was hit running wrecker on an uphill stretch of I-84 in Pennsylvania, right about the 49 mile post. Had a State Trooper on the downhill side of me, 1/4 mile of flares, and a Trooper on the uphill side of me. Two semis came drag racing up the hill, neither one backing off, hit the Trooper car, tore the hood off my wrecker and slammed my truck into the other Trooper car. Almost took me and one officer out. Best part, they caught the driver about 6 miles down the road and he denied hitting anything or even knowing the right lane was closed. He still had parts of my hood and the Trooper car stuck to his trailer.

 

That wouldn't suprize me, I am only aware of the statistics for tow truck operators. I imagine if you added in highway maintenance and construction workers, fire/ems, law enforcement and other responders it would be more than an average of one a day.

 

Sometimes when troopers start writing, the cuffs come out too. Click click.

 

Didn't know he sold the rotator. Why.
It's amazing what that thing could do.

 

In that particular situation, local protocol requires transport and medical evaluation. Cuffs come out after that.

That was an especially icy morning. At almost the same time, an Ann Arbor firefighter was struck a few miles away on I 94 and died a few days later.

 

Anybody have a clue how those guys make doing
The heavy towing. Looks like a hard job to me.

 

There is a clip on Discovery Canada but I can't find it right now, opening of the current season he was delivering it and saying goodbye. In the clip Jamie says it became too expensive for the work available to him since the start of the show too many other towers mived on to the Coq, part of why he went up to oil country, and with Adam out on his own Jamie is downsizing. It has been tough on most guys, even the towers are strugglng. As nice as a rotator is we have been doing the job for 80 of the last 100 years without them. By the way, the towing industry is celebrating it's centennial this year, in 1906 Earnest Holmes Sr. invented the mass produced wrecker, thus starting an entire industry out of his garage.

 

I can't speak for Jamie's crew specifically but in the lower 48 a good heavy duty tow operator capable of doing complex recoveries can bring home over 100k a year as an employee with the right company. He guys I worked with in Albuquerque all made better than $80k, even the lazy ones. Most tow operators are paid a commission, usually 20-25% depending on the job, ime of day, and the operator's experience level. If you're with a busy company and have mechanical skills the sky is the limit, but you have to be a excellent driver and a problem solver since you are the one called out to undo what ever the "professional" driver did.

 

My only rotator experience. Penske brought this guy in to lift the back end of my trailer to fix a broken spring. That fiasco was a whole nuther story, but it was pretty cool checking that unit out up close. I had plenty of time to look it over.

 

That is a nice truck, pretty much the same Century 1150 made by Miller Industries in Ooltewah, TN as Jamie Davis's rotator was only a different chassis.