If your car’s brake is set, wouldn’t that lock the wheels? Not lock them completely, of course (since you can still drive with the brake set), but lock them enough to where it would severely hinder the tow truck from driving at normal speeds. Or does the tow truck just drive anyway while your car’s brake shoes just wear off?
Use a rollback towtruck which hoists the entire car onto the bed of the truck or a wheeled dolly cradle under the wheels of the parked car.
I saw a cop have a car towed that was parked in a handicapped space. The brakes were set, but the tow boy dragged it off. The tires scuffed the ground a bit, but thats about it. I bet that guy came out and thought his car had been stolen! Jerk!
As a former towing company owner, I can certify that astro is correct. Also, if’t a rear-wheel drive car, you can just pick it up at the rear. The front wheels will come along quietly. But we preferred roll-backs for any car if possible.
Another question, is how can they tow a car with an automatic transmission if the car is in park, (this happened to me once). They lift the car with the truck and then get under it to disconnect the transmission lever from the tranny and move the tranny into neutral, then they reconnect the tranny at the impound lot. After they re-connected mine, the indicator would point to D for drive when I was really in Low gear.
In answer to the OP, I suspect that if they had to tow a big dualie pick-up from the front that had the rear wheels braked they could disconnect the parking brake lever to release it.
I’ve also seen tow truck operators use locksmith tools to open the door and release the brake and/or transmission.
What kind of liability do towing companies have for car damage? It would be kind of satisfying to slap them with a damage bill for even minor things. Fuck them.
occ:
Yes. With a lit stick of dynamite. Low life pieces of crap that feed themselves on inconviencing and robbing people. I hope they all fucking choke on the food they buy with the money they exort from people. I usually abhor violence, but when I hear about one of those hateful, sociopathic, vileness incarnate sack of shit retards getting assualted, I giggle like a silly little bitch. If I ever see one of those sons-of-bitches hassling someone again, I sincerely I hope that I will have my skull-stomping boots on.
I do not like any troglodytic son-of-a-crackwhore scumbag associated with the towing business.
As opposed to the fine, upstanding citizens that park in handicapped spots, in front of fire hydrants, in fire lanes, blocking driveways or double park on busy streets, they’re cool right?
jayron:
I knew that I left that point of easy attack open, but I didn’t think it would be jumped on so quickly.
Did you go to college? Did you, jayron, ever see a car get towed from a in front of a fire hydrant, or towed from a handicapped parking spot, or from a fire lane? Usually, business owners don’t bother calling a towing company about the things that you listed (nor do the towing companies respond, usually, since it winds up being a waste of time and resources), because they know that by the time the towing company gets there, the car will be gone. I have spent a lot of time in a lot of big cities, and I think that I can safely say that your argument is based on ignorance, since I have yet to see one of these ‘beautiful creatures of benevolence’ (as you seem to imply) actually do one of these wonderful acts that you seem to think that they do.
Do you even understand business operation? Do you understand the towing business? What you imply sounds like using a tow truck’s gas and the salary of the driver to gamble on driving for who knows how many miles and/or minutes to possibly catch someone in the act of, i.e., parking in front of a fire hydrant. The majority of people who do the acts you state usually aren’t there long enough for a dispatched tow truck to get to the area, find the specific violator, and hook them up. Money for that gas is gone, driver’s salary money is gone, neither expense recouped. Great business strategy there, Mr. Forbes.
I don’t see them hardly at all during the week, when they would be most helpful in doing the acts you seem to think they do, jayron, but on Friday and Saturday nights, the grimy bastards are out in force, waiting to tow someone who parks at a one club, goes in, then walks to another club, or stays 9 1/2 minutes in a ‘10 minute’ parking space. These are your noble acts, jayron – catering to the beer and liquor pushers. Especially with these, er, ‘people’, the bottom line is what matters. In the towing business, you don’t make a lot of money gambling on clearing a space for grandma, but you do if you put your whole force out when parking becomes a real problem and you have the assistance of bar owners, for example, on Friday and Saturday nights. Those guys would probably tow grandma, and laugh their asses off about it latter. Yes, they are scum.
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- Well, we should remember that a lot of people whose cars get towed actually called the tow truck themselves. And I haven’t ever seen anyone get towed from a handicapped space, but I have seen people get towed from a fire lane. Right in front of an old address I lived at, after there was a fire at one apartment building and due to the number of illegally parked cars, there was only enough room for one fire truck to approach the building from the (cul-de-sac) street. The cops cracked down pretty hard on illegal parking after that, for a long time. They’d roll up in the middle of the street at 2 AM and announce over their loudspeaker that any car parked (illegally) on the street would be towed in 10 minutes. Worked like a charm.
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- By the by, I was told by a local police officer that tow truck operators cannot tow any vehicle what has a preson in it; they can raise it up on the tow vehicle and take steps to secure the vehicle but they cannot move it. They have to call the police to come and remove the offender, because the tow truck driver can’t do it themselves. Is this true everywhere? - MC
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MC:
** - - - Well, we should remember that a lot of people whose cars get towed actually called the tow truck themselves. **
I’ll concede that.
I think the fire lane situation was just reactionary, and probably didn’t last toooo long.
Those guys are still the Fri/Sat night predators. :mad:
Here’s a few points and illustrative stories for you…
First off, there is a difference between city tow trucks and private tow trucks. The city are the people who tow for fire hydrant violations and handicap parking and what not. Private companies tow on behalf of property owners. For businesses in Chicago it works like this. The business can call to have a car towed but usaically they contract with a towing company and the tow truck drivers cruise around like taxis checking their turf. As soon as they see a car that shouldn’t be there they tow it. No need for a call from the business.
With that in mind…
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I was in my parent’s apartment in downtown Chicago and looked out the window to see 5 city tow trucks lined up on the street. At 3p.m. on the nose (maybe it was 4…doesn’t matter) the tow trucks backed up, chained up 5 different cars and drove away. It was like watching synchronized towing. Took them all of 3 minutes to achieve. You see, from 3-6 p.m. there was no parking on that side of the street. I’ve NEVER seen the city tow somebody from a fire hydrant or handicap zone (although I’ve seen some tickets on cars for that offense).
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I was walking down the street (again in Chicago…hell…all of these stories take place in Chicago) and saw a tow truck pull up. I stopped to watch what the guy would do as all of the cars were parked bumper to bumper. I figured the guy was screwed cuz there was no way he could back his truck to the front or rear of the car for a proper hook-up. So, he angles in close to the front of the car, hooks chains to the car, and then DRAGGED the front end of the car out into the street. He then proceeded to hook-up the car properly and drive away.
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I had just driven up to my first apartment out of college with my moving van. There are a bunch of guys standing in the street who warn me off. The parking lot I chose to park my van in while I moved in was the same place those guys had chosen. A tow truck driver wited for them to disappear upstairs and towed their somewhat sizeable moving van with ALL OF THEIR CRAP IN IT! Boy were they PISSED!
Later that same night my roommate’s brother comes down to visit. He parked in the same parking lot I just described which was directly across the street from our place. We tell him before he ever sets foot in our place to move his car as he might get towed. We walk back down with him and a tow truck was pulling in as we got there. He didn’t get towed but time elapsed from parking to moving his car was maybe 2 minutes.
- Worst one (for me) was when I parked my car to go to a restaurant with some friends. I come out to find my car was towed. Looking around I see the private no parking sign posted up on a wall across the parking lot around the THIRD story of the building (real conspicuous…NOT). All my friends and I had to pile into a cab for a trip at midnight out to the pound (I was the one who ahd driven everyone). $150 later I get my car back with my right side rearview mirror torn off and a ton of long scrapes across my roof (they put a magnetic flasher on the roof and then DRAGGED it across the roof when they removed it). Was someone here wondering if you can recover money from them for damages? Guess what…You can’t. I point this out to the towing company and they say it was like that. I say no it wasn’t. The driver comes out and says he saw a van back in REAL close to my car and was scoping it out…presumably to steal it. When he showed up the guys in the van bolted and hit my mirror tearing it off. The tow truck driver actually did me a FAVOR (as he would have it). This is absolute bullshit as this was my first car post college and it was a piece of shit. NO ONE would go to the trouble of stealing it. The scrapes, according to him, were already there. How can I prove different?
TOW TRUCK DRIVERS SUCK! They’re ALL bastards! Even when they’re ‘helping’ you out of some situation where you called them they screw you by charging a fortune. $150 for 10 minutes of work? Sign me up!
It gets worse. In Minneapolis a few years back–and I’m sure this is fairly common–people had been parking in the lot of a resteraunt that had close and was boarded up. The property owner conspired with the towing company to tow cars parked there for a cut of the profits. There was no sign warning people cuz they wouldn’t make any money that way.
In another incident, a nightclub was adjacent to a warehouse that was closed at nignt, so every night for years people parked in its lot. The warehouse owner apparently got fed up with all the emptly bottles left on his property, so one night he had everyone towed, dozens of cars, including mine. He could have warned his neighbor the nightclub owner, who could have posted a sign telling us not to park there anymore, but noooooooo…
With a YO! HEAVE! Tow them away! The Lincoln Park Pirates are we …
RIP, Steve.
I misremembered the chorus a bit, I see:
Oh, and I forgot to mention…
One of the complaints about the towing industry is that market forces have no opportunity to influence the rates charged by towing companies. By the time you find out how much they chage, you’re already doing business with them and you sure can’t take it elswhere (Lib, where are you when we neeed you).
One time I got a flat with no spare in the middle of the night. A tow truck showed up and they quoted me a price of $30 to tow my car to their service station. Just then the cops showed up an arrested me for DWI (I later got off). Released the next day, I walked 2 miles to the service station (which doubled as the impound lot) to tell them to go ahead and put a new tire on, but the tow was now gonna cost me $110 because that’s what they charge you when you don’t have a choice!
Did you go to college? Did you, jayron, ever see a car get towed from a in front of a fire hydrant, or towed from a handicapped parking spot, or from a fire lane?
Um, to answer in order: yes, yes, no, and yes.
I have personally witnessed, on several occasions, “surgical strike” tow trucks that could hook up a car and leave the scene in less than 15 seconds. The driver never even leaves the vehicle. They just drive in, lower the lift, back into the car, and lift it up in under 15 seconds. It is an AMAZING sight to see, something you have a hard time picturing and believing until you’ve seen it yourself. It is infriggingcredible. I have seen the move done in front of a fire hydrant, and in a fire lane in front of the super market.
I also have personally accounted for thousands of dollars of business getting people towed out of my parking spot. My local towing company LOVED me (and told me so on several occasions) I pay $300 a year for a dedicated parking spot behind my apartment building, and nothing pisses me off more than someone who parks IN FRONT OF A TOWING COMPANY SIGN that didn’t pay for the spot. It’s the exact equivalent of someone parking in your driveway. So I would call the towing company who my landlord contracted with. I would generally leave my car parked behind theirs until the tow truck showed up, which would take about 5-10 minutes, and then move out of the way when the driver would show up. Many drivers got to know me quite well, and never minded being called for a sure pick-up. I never gave a shit about the worthless fucks who were stealing my spot. I love towing companies, and anyone who parks illegally gets every thing that is coming to them. In literally DOZENS of cases, no one ever showed up when this was happening, but I would have LOVED to see them come out to see their car being towed away.
Vandal said: “you can still drive with the brake set”
You can? hmmm… I’ll have to try that… I wonder what the brake is for then…
I have no sympathy for people who park illegally and I would rather live in a city where illegally parked cars get towed in two minutes (like here) than in a place where people park illegally with impunity. Since I respect the rules, I have no problem with towing those who don’t.
I’d also like to remind everyone we are not in the pit so please watch your language.
Often, I park in lots that say ‘Parking for Customers Only! All Others Towed’. What I want to know is, who actually certifies you are NOT a customer for all but the smallest stores? Seems like a risky proposition for them to call in a towing company and potentially piss off their customers because you know that news will travel QUICK!
For example, across the street from our Sports Arena (parking $5.00) is a Target, Home Depot, and several restaurants (parking FREE). Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that most people park in their lot to save the $5.00 fee, but I have never heard of anyone being towed.
And I can certainly tell you that if I was shopping at Home Depot, and Target, and then went out to eat, that would last…say…as long as a hockey game. So how do these people know who is an honest-to-God customer? If they tow my car and I AM a customer, you can sure as hell bet that I’m going to boycott all those stores, and clearly I was a GREAT customer they wouldn’t want to lose if I was parked there for 2-3 hours shopping, right?