here is the issue. You don’t get to skip expenses on employee benefits, administrative staff, property leases, on days that nothing happens. Same thing in my biz with onsite techs. It does not cost me $79/hr to have an onsite guy go to your home, but when that employee ends up only billing a couple hours in a day, there isn’t much left over.
IME a percentage of them are, but I have two tow companies and a repo outfit among my customers. All of them have very clean, nicely kept trucks. One of them has the local AAA contract. Part of that contract requires them to be able to provide transport for a powered wheelchair if needed 24/7, in the event that a handicapped AAA customer needs a tow.
There can be good money in towing, but just like any biz, it comes with hassles and expenses too. If you start a tow company, plan on being on call 24/7 for several years. Needing several acres of land for your impound collection and dealing with all the legal hassels that come with impounds/hold pending payment.
It’s a business just like everything else.
Agreed. A tow here in the metro area runs around $100. If your car is impounded, however, the ‘storage’ fee runs around $250.
Law enforcement also does a round robin thing with the towing companies; they have a list and for each accident they pick the next one on the list. Everyone charges about the same so it’s no biggie.
Or put in to other words. Sure, when they get a tow they might make more then 5%, but when they have two drivers sitting around the office doing nothing, they’re making 0%…or probably less since they may be paying out of their pocket at that point. You can’t look at what happens on a particular job, you have to take a bigger chunk of time (like, a year, for example) and get an average. A grocery store might have some products that cost $2, and they sell them for $5. Sure they are running a 60% margin on those items. But they also have items that cost $2, they sell for $3 and they have to throw some of them away because the rot before they can be sold. It all averages out.
Under which coverages? I pay, on average, about $20,000 per bodily injury claim (some very large cases, some very small cases). Personally, I pay about $700/year per car for liability insurance. Assuming my insurer has no overhead like salaries, power bills, etc. It’ll take them nearly 30 years to collect enough money to cover an average accident. “Oh sure, but they’re not just collecting from YOU. There’s hundreds of other people paying into the pot that aren’t having accidents.” Sure. But how many of them are gonna go 30 years without an accident? And my insurance company DOES have overhead. And while they do make some money in the stock market, it ain’t on the order of 10%+. I pay $6/year for towing insurance and there’s no restriction apart from, “nearest facility that can provide the necessary services to get the car going again.” How many years do I pay for that before I cover a $300 tow/storage bill? When it comes to payouts vs. premiums, “Big Money” is a relative term.
That only applies to liability insurance. Nobody’s forced to by towing or collision insurance, which is relevant in this thread.
See my above argument–if it takes 30 years to make up an AVERAGE payout, then a significant portion of the drivers out there have to go more than 30 years without an accident to just break even–again, we’re not even talking about overhead.
Nope, after office space, utility bills, advertising and salaries (the vast majority of which are “average” I assure you) the rest is invested, mostly in relatively safe stuff like bonds which aren’t big money producers.
Not even usually true. And NEVER true for me–I’ve been accident-free for so long my company has agreed they’ll only drop me if I lose my license or lapse my policy. 
So I guess I’m not understanding the car insurer’s angle in this scam. Any payout, big or small, represents a financial loss to the insurer and a gain to the shop, tow yard and manufacturer. Are insurance companies getting kickbacks then? Or are insurers using the perception of unreasonable repair costs as an excuse to gouge customers and hope they won’t notice the premiums are disproportionate to the losses? Last time I checked, car insurance is a fiercely competetive business. A practice like that would eliminate someone pretty quick.
For what it’s woth, I spent 7 years fighting with tow companies about storage costs and tow fees. I even found legislation that restricts how much they can charge thet even THEY didn’t know about. Still they’d be reluctant to comply because they knew I wasn’t going to spend a bunch of money suing them over a $500 over charge.
Listen, I like you and it looks like you could use a drink. Here, have som Flav-r-ade. Better?
Ok. Car manufacturers are under pressur to build safer cars. Doing so has resulted in materials and designs that often defy repair–the cars are made to basically self destruct in order to protect the occupants. Think the car repair shops like that? Normal repairs are expensive enough (salaries, materials, overhead, etc), but when cars are designed to total out on impact, they don’t get to do much repair work anymore. Tow companies LOVE it because as many cars aren’t being driven away from crash sites anymore–someone has to haul the junk off and they get to charge arbitrary fees for storage. $20-$40/day to have something keeping the gravel shaded from the blistering sun. Yeah, they’ve got their costs, too. But, speaking as an insider, I’d say the racket belongs to the manufacturers and the tow companies.
You do not know this for a fact. You are as wrong as wrong can be, and you’re spreading ignorance throughout this thread. Successful restaurants do not operate on profit margins that equal one half of 1% of revenue. That’s ridiculous.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Well, first of all, I personally have been in the food service/restaurant/catering/retail business for 18 years now, my father for 31 years, my grandfather for even longer. I have a pretty good grasp on the percentages that are used. Also, you’ll notice I said 50¢ UP TO $5.00 per $100 go into the owners pocket, I can 1000000% guarantee some restaurants operate at .05%, I know this for a FACT. You can say I don’t but I have seen the books. I’m not saying they all do, I’m saying some do.
From http://www.wirestaurant.org/press/statistics.php
“Restaurants generally have profit margins that are much lower than most other small businesses. Nationally, the average profit margin (net income before taxes) for restaurants is only 3-9%.”
So 3-9% BEFORE TAXES, I think that fits in nicely with my saying the owner typically takes home between .05% and 5%.
FWIW, my business paid out 3% of our gross income to the government in the form of various taxes in 2009.
Unless you can show me that no restaurants run at .05%, you’re the one spreading ignorance, I CAN find counter-examples.
Also, you put a word into my mouth…I never said “successful.” Not every restaurant is successful, in fact many restaurants manage to be unsuccessful for many many years before they bounce back. During those times the owners often bite into their own take home pay or even pump money back into the business.
Again, I challenge you to prove to me that no restaurant owners only take home .05% before you tell me I’m spreading ignorance.
Also, it might be important for me to mention that I’m referring to family restaurants (as opposed to chains or franchises ).
I just realized that in my editing of this post, I missed something. Where I said .05%, I meant .5%.
Give me a fucking break. So your point now is that failing businesses operate at .5%? What a meaningless statement. In fact, let’s alter it so that it really encompasses all restaurants, shall we?:
"For every $100 in revenue, owners will put between -$100 to $5 in their pocket.
There we go. That’s really fighting Snarky Kong’s ingnorance with a shit ton of stupidity now, isn’t it?
Besides that, your own cite shows you to be wrong, since you set the upper limit at 5%, when the average is higher than that after taxes. I personally know people making more than 10%.
:rolleyes:
::Joey reminds himself to pick his battles and bows out of this one. ::
You win. I don’t feel that any amount of logic I throw at you will change your mind that there does not exist a restaurant where the owner takes home .5% of the net income. Apparently even telling you I’ve seen the books of said restaurants doesn’t convince you.
Again, you win. I’m happy to keep participating in this thread, but I won’t be part of this specific side discussion any more. I refuse to get worked up about something when you’re not really arguing, you’re just name calling.
From what I’ve seen the basic requirement for the job is a driver’s license and the ability to make warm pee. Bathing optional. They are pretty much permanent members of the 1040EZ club.
Didnt even read his post did you? :rolleyes:
Tao, please do not alter any text inside of a quote box, including the user’s name.
No warning issued.
[/Moderating]
Noted
Why do think so?
Nonsense. I’m not namecslling, I’m calling your argument stupid. You don’t get to cite failed businesses when setting the bar for typical industry profit margins.
Most of the drivers I know work for the garage, with towing being just one of their duties. If it’s their turn to be on 24-hour call, they’re usually paid double-time for any work they have to do after hours.
Wrong. Frist, unless there’s injuries, or drunk driving or lack of insurance- most Police forces do not want to be involved- after all it’s a Civil matter.
Next, when the officer arrives- it is "your word against his over who ran the stop sign ", the Police do not have any way to determine what happened unless they were there.
Waste of everyones time, and taxpayers money.
Condescending Robot is correct"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."
Get off the damn highway, then exchange info! Signal the other dirver to get off at the next exit, then pull over.
Every accident I’ve been involved in (without any injuries) including some even on private property have had the police involved. This has been in at least three different cities (and two different counties). Not once has the dispatcher or officer expressed any kind of disinterest in being there. I’ve also called police for many accidents that I’ve seen, again, even after telling the dispatcher that I don’t see any injuries, it’s always been “Okay, we’ve got someone on the way”, one time I even called back to tell them that there was coolant all over the road and I was told they’d send a fire truck out to hose it off…seconds later I could hear the fire trucks sirens (it was fairly close to the fire station).
Well, not always. if one car is facing the wrong way on a one way street or the accident is in the middle of a non-4-way stop (as in stop signs on two sides, but not the other two), it tends to be pretty clear.
Even in situations where they can’t fully determine, by looking, who’s fault it was, they can and will still take an accident report. It’ll show where the damage to the cars are, if they are still in the same place, the officer will draw a small diagram showing where the cars are, where the stop signs are, where they impacted each other etc etc etc. They’ll note weather and road conditions. I think it’s safe to assume that when it comes time to deal with the insurance companies, they’ll be more likely to believe a police report then the two drivers.
I get the feeling this isn’t always true in different areas. I’m in South Eastern Wisconsin. I will also mention that in smaller towns the reaction tends to be different. For example, in Racine County, it took about a half hour for officers to arrive (by that time the other person had left…and was ticketed for leaving the scene of an accident), while in St Francis, a smaller suburb of Milwaukee, calling in an accident will result in at least two officers showing up within a few minutes.
One other thing. The first accident I got in, I ran a stop sign and T-boned another driver. There was no officer in sight and I still received a ticket for running the stop sign.
And as an anecdote, I had a friend get hit by someone who ran a stop sign. They shook hands and decided to deal with it on their own. A few days later, she got a hit and run ticket. She later found herself in court as the other guy lied about their direction of travel and said it was her who ran the stop sign and hit him.
A simple call to the cops would have cleared up who ran that sign and at the very least would have meant she wouldn’t have had a hit and run ticket. Even if the cops said that they don’t respond to accidents, at least she could say she called.
Now, I’m not saying other people are wrong, it may be the case where you live, but in my area, they police always seem perfectly happy to show up and take an accident report (even on private property).
Well, I work with them.
But yes, they do want you to report other accidents, in case there’s any dangers or road hazards.
A Photo will resolve this just as well.
No, in fact the call wouldn’t have cleared anything up. How could the police have determined who ran the sign? And the fact that she SHOULD have had the other drivers Lic and insurance info when they exchanged it, would have proven there was no hit and run. Of course you need to exchange info, and if the other driver refuses or has no info, then of course you call the Police.