Heavy Tow/Recovery Company Drivers and O/Ops --A Few Q's

You're probably going to have to learn to crawl before you learn to walk...start out driving the light duty wreckers to learn the basics and move up from there to the big stuff. That's how I was getting my start before the company was bought out & we all lost our jobs...that's when I got my CDL and went OTR (haven't driven a wrecker since...although I wouldn't mind going back to it someday). The only heavy duty wrecker operators I know anymore got their start turning wrenches in a shop...and eventually started getting sent out with the wrecker operator to bring trucks back until they were able to go get their CDL and go after the trucks on their own. In other words, they learned their way around a truck and then started towing them. There is a LOT to learn...last thing you want to do is tear up a guy's truck....and you've got to know what you're doing or else somebody is going to get hurt.

Hours? LEGALLY you are still going to be bound by the HOS...but that's pretty much don't ask/don't tell with the LEO's. Most of the time, you'll be operating inside of the 100 air-mile radius, so no log book is needed as long as you keep shifts to 12 hours or less and the company maintains a record of your hours worked. Off the record, though, you'll have to work whenever trucks need to be towed....especially if you're the only heavy duty operator the company has. That's a situation you want to avoid if at all possible....especially if you don't have much experience because it is easy to get in over your head, and you want to have somebody you can call if you run into something that you haven't seen before and are unsure how to proceed.

As for bottom feeder vs. quality company, if the company treats its drivers well and has a good reputation for getting the job done without tearing stuff up, I'd say they're pretty good. If your paychecks bounce, or they treat you like crap, they suck. It doesn't really matter what the equipment looks like, or how old it is, as long as it is well maintained and everything on the truck works. Personally, as an O/O, I'd rather see a simple, older truck show up with a competent operator at the wheel when I call for a hook rather than a brand spanking new top-of-the-line truck that's decked out with all of the bells & whistles. Why? Because that older truck was probably paid for 10 years ago whereas that new truck has a note attached to it...which means I'm paying for it.

 

I suspect that heavy recovery will get very competative for jobs. Just like, after "ice road truckers" came out there was a flood of guys wanting to run the ice, with "Highway Thru Hell" now on the tube, I suspect there will be a flood of guys wanting to do heavy recovery. Better get started sooner rather than later when there is 500 or 1000 guys veying for each possible job opening.

 

I have run everything from a 1-ton wrecker up to a tandem axle 35-ton wrecker and everything in between.

Right off the bat, and I'm sure anyone who has towed for any period of time will agree with me...towing is not a job...it's a lifestyle. You will no longer have a life, you will be attatched to that tow truck day in and day out depending on who you work for, and if you own your own...prepare to never sleep again.

Jumping right into heavy duty stuff...is going to get you in trouble very fast. You need to know the basics of towing first, and the smaller the stuff that you learn the basics on, the less trouble you can get yourself into. Think $300 car bumper being damaged when you tow it vs a shiny texas bumper thats worth $1000+. There is a LOT to know when it comes to heavy duty towing. your working with a lot of weight and a lot of money's worth of equipment (both on your end and the customer's end).

If your going to start off right away in the heavy stuff, you need to at the very least work WITH someone else for awhile. I worked for the same company for 5 years, 4 of which I was running a 3-ton ramp truck full time. I still got 6 months of training before I was even considered to go out on a call on my own, and even then it was only in our smaller single axle 7-ton wrecker.

As far as the hours go...the SUCK. I worked for a company that ran 4 service trucks, 32 light duty trucks, 4 ramp trucks, 1 medium duty, 1 tandem heavy and a tractor with a sliding axle trailer, we had guys for all of the light duty stuff and 4 guys that took turns looking after the heavy stuff. Those big trucks sometimes sat for weeks on end without moving, other times the 4 guys that ran them were going flat out for 3 days straight. We worked an on call system for the big trucks, had a 1st out and 2nd out. The first out guy got all the calls on "his days" and would decide when calls would get bumped to the 2nd out guy...basically when he started to get behind or didn't think he'd be able to get to calls in a reasonable amount of time the 2nd out guy would get called. I had seen that first out guy get woken up at 2 am...and he was still going full speed ahead at 11pm that night.

In BC anyways there is a rule that you don't have to run a log book for hours as long as you stay within 160km's of your home terminal, so your pretty much going until you can't go no more. I had seen the same CVSE officer multiple times over the course of 2 days...and he knew I hadn't been home since the first time he'd seen me the day before...I had gotten some sleep mind you...but hadn't actually made it home or to a bed yet.

For training there is a credible one out there, it's called wreckmaster. They have I think 7 levels of training right now. Level 1 is your bare bone basics, 2/3 is light duty towing, 4/5 is medium duty stuff and touching on the heavy duty stuff, and 6/7 is heavy/rotator type recovery work. You can check their website for training days in your area. It's not cheap, but is very useful...especially when you get into the heavier end of stuff. There are mathamatical formula's that can take into account everything from type of surface to mire etc that will let you figure out what size truck you need and that what you are attempting to do will not break anything the first time (not like on highway thru hell where they seem to keep braking and squishing things). btw...I'm 4/5 certified. With what I learned at the wreckmaster courses I attended...I can with confidence say that a 1-ton wrecker could be used to flat tow a tour bus with a single line and no worries of a single thing breaking.

Money...I made a decent living. I worked off commision and had a good base of MY customers, as well as being THE guy for a lot of the higher end dealerships etc. Also being in the heavy end of things helped because...the more the customer is charged...the more I made. Not everyone at the company I worked made as good a money as I did though. There was guys who'd been there a couple years making half of what I was...it all depends on how you do the job, and unfortunately...if nobody calls...no money comes in. Because of that I did have HUGE fluctuations in pay. Before I got into the heavy duty stuff my lowest paycheck was $850 for a 2 week pay period where I worked close to 100 hrs. All the way to my highest paycheck where for the same period of time I made over $2000 only working 75hrs.

There are TONS of legal loop holes when it comes to tow trucks in BC...especially the heavy stuff. You only need a class 3 license and you can tow anything of any weight with a tandem axle "tow car"
There are so many grey area's when it comes to weights, and over sized stuff. Hell in BC there is specific laws that say you can't tow a truck/trailer as a combination for anything more then to the next safe haven...yet I managed to get an oversized permit with allowances to tow a truck/trailer combo almost an hour from the point of breakdown. Got thru the scale with a tandem/tandem cement truck that was fully loaded! I'm not even gonna tell you what the weight on my drives was...no permit...no ticket.
On a primary tow...there is no such thing as being overweight for a towtruck basically.
When I did call for permits though it used to throw the permit office for a loop because they never could seem to understand how I had such a low weight on my steer while wanting to max out the weight for my drives.

In a nutshell I guess...I loved it, wish the politics hadn't forced me out, but I would be hesitant to ever recommend someone get into it...

 

Did some heavy recovery in the Army - have tp go to work now - promise to read up on this thread and post later.

SL

 

Spent some time towing. As mentioned it's deff something different. Will deal with fatal accidents, most of the time you arrive after body removal is done but not always. Hours can vary depending on situations.

Check out this forum, http://tow411.yuku.com/
Lots of info and some real interesting recoveries posted.