Towing a vehicle; this is the best post I've ever read.

I can only agree under some limited situations. In almost all situations before a truck gets towed a cop is involved. I have seen this process many times. The driver refuses to leave citing HOS and thinks HOS trumps a cop or property owner. THIS IS A MYTH! If a driver then attempts to block the driver by doing anything like refusing to get out that said cop can now arrest the driver! It is true it takes a while to hook up, drop the driveshaft, and string up the back lights. I have seen several drivers get religion during this process and attempt to leave.

While I have never actually been in the towing business I HAVE done many repos. In a lot of ways, this is the same kind of situation. I have seen very few tow drivers hook up to a truck without there being a cop close by or having security to call them.

 

I also want to clear up something so there is no confusion. There are three basic reasons a tow truck is called out. After a crash/disabled vehicle is one, this is self-explanatory and needs no further comment. Then you have a cop/security getting involved in a health and welfare check and the driver has been removed to be taken to the ER OR discovered OK and if everything else is OK left alone! This leaves the final reason. A driver is parked in an area and has been asked to leave by the legal owner or manager of said property. My best advice is don't use HOS as a trump card! You WILL LOSE!

I am thinking this jeff person is ONLY speaking about the last item I mentioned. For the reasons I have explained, I don't agree with his assessment!

 

If a property owner asks you to leave , and you do not , and the cops arrive and ask you to leave , and you do not ,
You’re gonna get cited for trespassing.
If asked to leave , just leave ! Before the cops get involved enough to the point where the cops boss is gonna want someone in custody.

I was the property manager at a large facility and the students from the high school across a the street would often use our parking lot to drink beer , smoke pot and have sex.

you could spot it easily because it was the car that’s parked in the far edge of the parking lot. As far as possible from the entrance to the building

One night as I’m getting ready to leave about 10 pm I’m driving around the parking lot picking up trash and see a vehicle parked as far away as possible.
The vehicle is pulled in up against the curb
I pull behind it , they fire up the engine and jump the curb and drive full speed into the woods and hit a tree,
A person jumps out of each side
And runs off into the woods ,
Leaving the engine running.
The tree is all that keeps them
From winding up in a swimming pool .
one person tries to climb the fence around the pool
And gets tangled in the the wire and vines.


At This point I have no choice but to call
The police.
Who arrive about the time I’m helping the girl Who got tangled in the fence , get loose and we
Walk back up to the parking lot.

turns out she and her boyfriend and smoking pot.
The cops call the parents and both sets of parents arrive in a few minutes.

except the boy refuses to
Come out of the woods.
So the cops get the boys parents in their patrol car and are driving around the neighborhood on the roads bordering the woods , and his father is talking over the patrol cars loud speaker. In a neighborhood where the houses start at $2 million and go up from there.

Doesn’t work . Kid won’t come out.
Finally the cop gets on the speaker and says “Richard , this is officer Jenks with the Fulton County Police , if you come out
Now, you can go home with your parents , but we have been on scene for 50 minutes . our policy is that if we spend more than 60 minutes on a call, someone IS going to jail. And Richard : a pretty little White Boy like you, does NOT want to spend the night in the Fulton county jail ! “

about five seconds later the kid comes out of the woods, gets a talking to by the cops and leaves with his parents .

 

Just an FYI, spotters are not all illegal, a property owner can engage them in many places to help enforce parking laws, one place near me has the company across from them as a spotter. There are huge signs that say no truck or RV parking and many times there is a truck sitting there. The reason isn’t because they hate trucks, but the problem with the foundation of their parking lot is sand and has many washouts, which cost a lot of money to fix.

 

The towing industry is not known for their stellar reputation.

 

If I am understanding what a "spotter" actually is, well it's not something most CMV operators have to deal with. To be 100% honest this is a problem with the small towing outfits. I did have a chance to speak to a DOT cop I know about this subject Wednesday night. He told me most of the time a non-disabled CMV only really gets towed when they can't find the driver and the vehicle MUST be removed!

Right up there with used car salesmen and Politicians!

 

Seems like dash cams that video the sign while pulling into the parking lot would put an end to this behavior .

the property management company I worked for had a couple of medical office buildings near a hospital and it became a big problem with people parking in the lot of the docs office building and walking across the street to the hospital to keep from having to pay to park in the deck at the hospital.

We never towed any cars , but two days a week I would spend a few Hours watching the parking lot and if a car
Pulled in and the driver got out and walked across the street, I would put the huge orange sticker on their drivers side window, and wrote the time and what clothing the driver was wearing , “10:34 am parked and walked
Across to hospital , blue shirt , black pants. “
, on the orange sticker , so they would know we were watching.

after a couple of weeks the people ,
Mostly employees of the hospital , stopped parking in our lot .

I know a guy that has stopped at a large gas station just north of Chattanooga and they have a lot of no parking signs and evidently it got so bad that the station has a tow company sit with their big tow truck there in the evenings.