Day 3 Of Consumer Pet Peeves - Tow Truck Drivers

Posted on June 13, 2007
Filed Under Things That P*** Me Off |

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This is Day 3 of a 5 day series on my Pet Peeves as a Consumer. If you missed them, here is Day 1 and Day 2.  You’ve seen these vultures of the highway hovering around an accident, just waiting to get a chance to pounce on a disabled motorist.

Question: What’s the difference between a tow truck driver and a Vulture?

Answer: A Vulture will wait until the roadkill has stopped kicking before it moves in to feast.

Before I start my rant, I want you to know, that I Know, that there are decent hard working tow truck owners out there. However, I believe they are in the minority rather than the majority. I do not believe this is a case of “A few bad apples.” I think the stereotyping the industry gets is just and the industry doesn’t seem to care what the general public thinks of it. If they did, they’d work to clean up their image.

Years ago I heard a statistic that said that for every single car wreck in the Houston metro area, there would be 3 wreckers waiting to get the car. I’d say that statistic has doubled.

More often than not, tow truck drivers cause more of a distraction at the scene of an accident than they help. Hell, people are wondering why there are so many wreckers at an accident. “Must be a heckuva wreck with all those wreckers around” When they finally see the accident they’re disapointed that it was only a fender bender.

Tow truck drivers routinely break all the rules of the road in an effort to get to the scene of an accident. I’ve seen these bozo’s blast through red lights, drive the wrong direction on a street to bypass stopped traffic, tailgate within a few feet of a car in front of them trying to intimidate the driver to pull over so they can go around, not to mention flying down a road at a high rate of speed. There is no Texas law that allows them to break the law in order to get to an accident, yet they somehow feel they have the right to put innocent motorist at risk in order to get there in time to put their token in a hat for the drawing to see who gets to haul away a car.

Many moons ago I did the night delivery thing for a major auto parts corporation. My route ran from Houston to Lake Charles La. and back. I could write a freakin’ book on how bad wrecker drivers are. In fact, I’d classify them right up there with Metro Bus drivers as the worse drivers on the road. I don’t know where the tow truck companies find these people, and I’m sure they don’t care, but they should show them how to drive.

Many also cheat the public with ridiculous fees. Every major TV station in every major Texas city has done an expose on how crooked tow truck drivers are.  They common theft happens when they tell you a price, get you to sign the ticket, then write in the amount AFTER you have signed their ticket. Never sign a ticket until the form has been filled completely out with the amount of the tow included. This also means the tow truck driver should sign the ticket along with you. This way, they can’t tell you that it’ll be $75 for the tow then charge you $200 or more.

Tow truck drivers are also notorious for making deals with shopping centers to haul away cars of people not shopping in the shopping center. Tow truck drivers routinely haul away legitimate customers cars as well as those who are parking there for other reasons.

There was a story recently here in Houston where an owner of a tow truck company was hauling away cars from a parking area where there were posted signs that cars would be towed. The catch? The owner of the tow truck company put the signs there his self! No authority was given this guy to do this. Surprisingly he was arrested.

It’s no big secret either than Tow Truck Drivers give kickbacks to police officers. The scam goes like this. Whenever there’s  wreck or the Officer pulls someone over, the Officer gives the tow truck driver a call. This gives them a heads start in arriving before other tow truck drivers. In many cases, the tow truck driver will hook up and take the car away before other tow truck drivers can arrive after hearing the call on their police radios.

I’m not the only one who has a beef against the tow truck industry, check out this bloggers post.  (warning, he was a little PO’d when he wrote that article and he uses some “adult” words to describe tow truck drivers)

How about your area? Are tow truck drivers more of a menace to the public rather than a help?

Tune in tomorrow when I’ll have Day 4 of my Consumer Pet Peeves - Home Builders and Real Estate Agents

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Comments

2 Responses to “Day 3 Of Consumer Pet Peeves - Tow Truck Drivers”

  1. GHOST on August 5th, 2007 4:32 pm

    HEY DUMB F*** FOR ONE IM A WRECKER DRIVER AND IM NOT A VALTURE A** WIPE AND FOR TWO YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE F*** YOU ARE TARKING ABOUT JACK A** YES THERE ARE BAD APPLES IN ANY TRADE IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE COPS DO NOT GET A KICK BACK FROM WRECKER DRIVERS F*** FACE IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU HAVE HAD YOUR CAR TOWED AND YOU WERE PARKED ON PRIVATE PORPERTY AND NOW YOU WANT TO TALK S*** ABOUT HARD WORKING MEN AND WOMEN THAT DRIVES A WRECKER I HAVE BEEN IN THIS TRUCK FOR OVER 25 YEARS AND HAVE SEEN DUMB A** DRIVES COME AND GO AND HAVE DEALT WITH JACK A**** LIKE YOUR SELF I MAKE 65,000.00 A YEAR DOING MY JOB AND I JUST BET YOU MAKE AS MUCH AS 35,000.00 A YEAR HA HA HA YOU ARE A BROKE DICK MOTHER F**** SON AND IT’S TO BAD WE HAVE NEVER RAN INTO EACH OTHER HA HA LATER F*** FACE GET A REAL JOB B****

    Don’s Notes: I had to edit this post with ****. I started to delete it altogether due to the language, but felt it proved my point about most wrecker drivers. They’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer as you can see by this reply. I always love how people like this tell you how much money they make…they think it gives them instant credibility and intelligence. Sadly, as you can see by this reply, it doesn’t. Of course, the all caps and lack of sentence structure could also prove the lack of credibility and intelligence! LOL

  2. Wrecker Driver Sentenced to 18 Years In Prison For Illegal Tows. : DirtFromTexas.Com on October 12th, 2007 8:21 pm

    [...] RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Finally, some good news from our Justice system. A Judge sentenced a Wrecker driver to 18 years in prison for illegal [...]

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