The Jamie Davis Towing Discussion Thread

Having a flat bed tow service as part of one of my other businesses has given me a little bit of insight to what a tow operation cost to run.
I have had conversations about towing with some of my car haul friends who would complain about the cost of towing.
My remarks to them is “try buying a brand new car hauler set up for $350,000 ( half of what a heavy wrecker can go for) and insure it then be told you can only load it 3 times a month.”
“What would you have to charge for a spot on your trailer to pay the bills and make a living if you were forced to run your operation that way?”

 

You guys talk about customers and insurance companies ranting about your cost of service. I have years of experience in furniture moving and delivery and encountered a similar situation. I used the old plumber adage that says "you don't pay a plumber to bang on the pipes. You pay him to know where to bang." For tow truck drivers, maybe point out how you were nice enough not to hook up to their radiator or hood. Might make your point.

 

If you can only use it 3 times a month you bought it because you wanted not needed it.

 

Not true at all in the towing industry, which is what this thread is about. Towing companies have specific pieces of equipment they are required to own to qualify for a spot on the police rotation list. Often, the police agencies will have blanket requirements for trucks that may not be needed in the area, but the policy says you must have this.

The point is, towers are told they must own this truck, then are told what they can charge for each use of the required truck, and lastly only have a few chances to use it each month. Rather than trusting the tower to be the professional that they are, most are true professionals, the police agency sets ridiculous minimum equipment standards then wonders why the bills are as high as they are. Many of the required trucks are more luxury than necessity. This is partly the towing industry's own fault since the large metropolitan towers have the ears of the regulators and the small towers rarely get involved.

What this results in is increased costs for all levels of police towing services because the seldom used truck is subsidized by the often used trucks. The happens most often in rural areas and is the point Dennis was trying to make.

Trucking and towing are two very different animals, yet are governed by the same Federal regulations and trucking companies try to equate towing fee structure to freight rates. Not even close in terms of overhead costs, especially when factoring for availability. I look at it more like LTL freight, you pay a high price when something absolutely has to be there, same with towing.

 

All that said, if you are not getting a return on your investment you don't need it. I understand towing, it's like any other business, you supply the right equipment to provide the service you are paid to provide, If you want to be on a police rotation and have captive customers don't cry about what they want, there are lots of tow companies that do just fine without depending captive customers

 

I like the show, but some of my buddies up that way hate it... I replied, I hated Ice Road Truckers, could not stand it, I worked up there too. At least JD made you think, IRT made me cringe.

 

Using your logic we would have large gaps in rural areas without any heavy duty towing services for emergency response. As for return on investment, that is why the rates are what they are in many areas, to allow for a reasonable profit.

Even with decent rates, until towers are protected by law from insurance companies and vehicle owners that dump vehicles without paying the invoice the rates will remain high. When up to 40% of ones business has no guarantee of payment yet is mandated they respond and provide service, everyone suffers. And, yes I said mandated, simply put many rural towers can not survive without police work -there simply is not enough volume to have only consent towing, so to comply with the police contract they must respond without regard to being paid.

 

If there is not a market in your area for your service find another line of work. I would never start a business dependent on rates set by a third uninterested party.

 

Sorry not buying all the poor us talk about tow owners. I've watched every episode of this show many of them 2 or 3 times on TWC. One common "tactic" I see Jamie Davis Towing do is they get a call at 2 a.m. send up (2) $500/hr. wreckers up the hill knowing they wont be there till 3 a.m. just to say "oh cant do this job till daylight, lets head back to the yard". So he's got $2000 on the bill and hasn't even touched a cable yet and still has to drive all that equipment back for another $1000. Yeah if I could charge $500/hr. to go check a job I would use my truck too instead of sending a pickup truck. Another thing is I've seen them suck the fuel out of the wrecked trucks tanks and put it into their wrecker tanks. But I'm sure they credited them for that right.

 

The Coq is a wild animal. I could see some of those calls where they get told one thing from the customer (like yeah its just off the road) but its totally different once they arrive (200 feet off the side of a mountain with the trailer torn wide open). I have nothing to back that up but I can see that happening, especially when English seems to be a 2nd language in that region.