I was in an accident last week. Nobody was hurt, both cars were drivable but towed. They both look shitty, but it was cosmetic damage. The cop told me I needed mine towed because of the airbags.
Today I went to get my car from the towing place. Part of the reason why it took so long is that they required a notarized letter from the owner. $800. $475 instantly for the tow, administration fees, and one day of storage. The guy at the towing company told me that they have a contract with the police department. Every accident, they clean up to the tune of $500 minimum. Is this even legal?
I’ve got to find out who I need to write a letter to. I’ll be back later with more swearing. I’m too tired right now to work up the correct level of vitriol.
That having been said, it does seem like your insurance would reimburse you.
THAT having been said, SOMEBODY’S getting kickbacks, count on it. Whatever legal jurisdiction the wreck happened in? there is someone in that jurisdiction responsible for setting the towers up like that, and they are likely getting paid well for their trouble.
(Brought to you from the department of suspicious minds.)
I know we’ve been back and forth over this on the Dope. But, regardless of injuries, it’s always a good idea to get the police involved. If both people just shake hands and walk away it’s really your word against his over who ran the stop sign or who was going the wrong way down a one way street or if one of the drivers shouldn’t have been driving. The report the police officer makes is extremely valuable to the insurance companies when it comes time to decide who’s going to pay for who’s damage. Also, assuming you’re not the party at fault, it’s even more valuable if the other driver get’s cited for something (like running a stop sign). Also, the officer will note things like weather and road conditions, obvious injuries etc…
I had a friend get hit by someone who ran a stop sign (she didn’t have one). He agreed to pay for the repairs and they both walked away. A few weeks later she found herself in court. He lied about their direction of travel and said she ran the sign. He sued her for damage to his car, injuries he sustained and I think she would up with a hit and run ticket.
…Oh, that’s the other thing. If you get the cops involved, you don’t have to worry about a possible hit and run charge.
Auto body shops, car insurance, and car manufacturers are all in the big scam together to start with (“Hey - here’s an idea - let’s make cars so that they can’t ever touch anything else and every scratch means a thousand dollars!”); it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the towing companies are in on it, too.
Unless the cops in your jurisdiction realize that they don’t get anything out of responding to accidents and announce that it’s their “policy” not to respond when the accident was on private property, or there were no injuries, or whatever. In that case, get on record with your insurance company, take copious pictures, and don’t waste your time standing on the highway waiting to get clipped by the next idiot when the police aren’t even going to come.
That’s assuming the police officer knows how to do his fucking job.
A couple of years ago, my wife was crossing the street in Philadelphia. She was crossing with the Walk sign, so definitely had right of way. There was a car waiting to turn, and it got rear-ended by another car, pushing it into my wife and hitting her in the knee and knocking her down. She wasn’t badly hurt but had a mild knee sprain and was taken by ambulance to the ER as a precaution.
A police officer responded, interviewed my wife and the drivers of both cars, and some of the many bystanders (it was about 5.00 p.m. in downtown Philly) and issued a citation to the driver who rear-ended the first car. He took my wife’s information down, and he knew at the time that she was being attended by paramedics and was going to be taken to hospital.
Fast-forward a bit, and we get the bill for the ambulance and ER visit. Health insurance takes care of most of it, but there’s a $500 deductible. We had no intention of paying for an injury that was caused directly by someone else’s negligence, so we sought to get the money from the at-fault driver’s insurance company.
They wanted paperwork showing that my wife was indeed the victim in the accident, so we applied for the Philly PD police report. When we got it, it was extremely poorly written, in almost illegible handwriting, and my wife’s name appeared nowhere on the report, despite the fact that she was the one and only injured party in the incident. Extremely fucking useful.
We were forced to send a letter to the other insurance company expressing a willingness to sue, and promising that we had witnesses to the event (we did) and an ambulance report showing that my wife was collected from that corner at the time and date of the accident. They paid up.
Tow truck companies are bastards for how much they charge to do a simple tow. And they all charge about the same prices. The people who drive the trucks and work the desk for two truck companies are mainly slimeballs too, people who couldn’t get real jobs.
I think those nasty towing companies should have charged you a nominal fee for being allowed to lift your car, I mean, what the fuck do they think they are, a business or something?
The same is true of Fairfax County Virginia. Whoever agreed to that contract with the towing company should be fired. Our citizens are the victims of predatory towing at their most vulnerable moments, and it’s right up there with taking money from a corpse in my books.
The key is this: Always have them tow it to your house, or to your mechanic. Never let them take it to their lot.
I realize that doesn’t help you much right now, but for the future, and the others reading this, never let them take it to their lot!
Would you say then that they charge the…:eek: “market price”?
Its always the same when it comes to the motor industry. A car breaks down/crashes. All costs involved are costs that the customer is unhappy about having to pay at all, regardless of the price. And so all these prices become “extortionate”, " rip-off", “price-gouging”, “it could have been done cheaper”.
Maybe it could have been done cheaper. Doctors could also charge less. Tesco could also charge less for milk. Airlines could charge less for baggage. Fuel could be a lot cheaper.
So, what should they charge? Keeping in mind…
1)Cost of the truck itself
2)Maintenance on the truck
3)Insurance on the truck
4)Insurance on cars they damage while picking up or while in their lot
5)Property Tax
6)Electric Bill
7)Building Maintenance
8)Employee Salary
9)Employee Heath Insurance
10)Workers Compensation
11)Gas for the trucks
12)Interest on various loans
13)Credit Card Processing Fees
14)Banking Fees
15)Profit for the owner
I can go on and on and on and on
It takes a lot of money to run a business and every fee, every charge, every single thing that the business has to pay for gets charged to the customer in one way or another. There’s just no two ways about it. If they don’t pass it on to the customer then the owner has to pay it out of his pocket. If he stops making as much money as he’d like to or if the business can no longer stay in the black it has to close.
Also, I have no idea whatsoever what the profit margin is for a tow company. But I’d be willing to bet that for every $100, they bring in, the owner is putting less then $5 in his pocket.
The one accident I was in where my car wasn’t driveable, the tower charged $40 (which seems to be the going rate around here—but then, the distance was under 2 miles) to tow my car to my house (where, of course, I didn’t have to pay anything to store it).
I seem to recall the police saying they were forbidden from recommending a specific towing company.
Funny, I thought that right there was the reason we need so much health care reform in this country.
Face it, there is a fair price for everything, and your beloved market does absolutely nothing about it. It may mess with your mind, but if 90% of the people say it should cost less, and the only people that say it should cost more are the people that have the ability to change it. That tyrany, and as history shows, it will only last so long until people get fed up. Let’s hope there’s a good way to handle it.
And, anyways, think about it. The cars were drivable. The police officer is the one who told him he had to use the wrecker. It wasn’t a free choice at all. In fact, it never is, which is where the fucking free market fails.
Finally, everyone I know that has ever told someone else to suck it up has wound up being told the same thing in a different situation that is important to them. So I hope nothing bad ever happens to you and you need help.
What? He qualified his random speculation with the “I have no idea whatsoever” statement. Perfectly reasonable. Plus they weren’t in the same sentence. Two.
That was JoeyP, by the way, not Captain Midnight. Captain Midnight would never wildly speculate about anything!
Last year I needed a tow and the hook-up fee was $75, that included a tow anywhere within 10 miles. How they get up to the prices in the OP is beyond me.
This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. You are officially an idiot. Of course 90% of people say it should cost less, it is accident recovery, they wish they didnt have to pay anything at all. And the only people saying it should cost more are the people looking at the accounts of the Towing companies trying to make their business successful. So a fair price? Who sets that exactly? What is fair? (If only there were some sort of market force that could drive the price…)
Tyrany? Only last so long? What, are the masses going to revolt?, Perhaps stage a very specfic coup-detat on the towing industry? What the hell are you talking about you cretin?
Firstly, I am not from your country, which is why I ignored your equally retarded comment about health reform. Secondly, are you saying the cops can dictate which company you have to use to tow a vehicle? Unlike the civilised world, where they will tell you that the vehicle needs to be moved from the roadside, but leave the details to the owner? (Not even getting into the fact that a car can be driveable but not road worthy)
