Not a great analogy.
Most Americans have money for plenty of food; it’s 2012 and food is plentiful.
When you run a business, you’re frequently running a stupid 3% net margin and letting ANY cost run over will put you out on the street.
The analogy is probably more like throwing 18 years worth of food away in one night…
As others have already stated, AAA contracts with local towing companies, and I believe the statement of the pre-negotiated rate is correct. As such, the two companies make it their lowest priority and may even try to make extra money on the side.
For example, I had my car break down once at work in San Diego, which naturally occurred on one of the very few days we had pouring down rain. Luckily, this happened at work, so I could watch from the window for him to come, which took 45 minutes. I got the designated bitter Persian guy driving the truck. I had an Infiniti and knew where the dealer was, which was just barely within the limit of what you are allowed for free towing within the parameters of the standard AAA agreement. I knew exactly how to get there, and when the driver took off with me in his truck, I directed him where to turn. He (in my opinion purposely) missed a turn that required nearly two miles of extra driving to get him back to where he need to go, then claimed that because the trip was two miles over the limit, he would have to charge me for those two miles. I refused to pay him because it was his own fault for not listening to me and not turning where I told him to. Then he suggested I tip after that, you know for “letting that two mile thing slide”. I couldn’t believe it. I closed the door and left him there in disbelief pissed off.
I’m curious why AAA doesn’t do quality control so they can remove the seedier operators from their rosters since it reflects badly on them.
There may be 20 tow truck companies in the area but AAA only works with one of them. That guy might be busy or in bed or all the way across the county on another call.
My wife had AAA when we got married 27 years ago, and we’ve had it ever since. We live in a rural area in snow country, and it has paid for itself most years - enough so we keep renewing it year after year. We’ve used it for flat tires, dead batteries, starting problems (in cold weather) and the occasional slide into the ditch (our driveway is somewhat rugged).
Service response is typically 45 minutes to an hour, unless it is during a major snowstorm, when it can be several hours - but that is entirely understandable.
I don’t have AAA service, as I don’t travel very far by car and cars are extremely reliable today. So I made a point of looking up the phone numbers for a couple of the larger local tow companies and added their direct numbers to my cell phone address book. Plus I have a Visa Signature card and one of the free services is roadside dispatch. So I also have that phone number in my address book.
For what it’s worth I work with the son of a tow driver. I once asked him about AAA towing, and he said that his dad refused to answer AAA calls–they don’t pay well and they are slow to pay the drivers. Given that the father is one of two tow drivers in a West Texas county, I assume that he has a fair amount of spare time on his hands. Apparently, taking an AAA call may be a worse option than nothing.
It’s worth it to note that roadside dispatch often isn’t road side service. What they do for free is call the roadside service provider. They don’t provide the service for free.
(least that’s how my CC did it. I was kind of pissed.)
I boned up on the tow truck industry prior to interviewing for an office job with a company in that industry.
It appeared their preference was:
- towing illegally parked vehicles/etc (no negotiating power for client)
- towing vehicles at request of owner (medium negotiating power for client)
- towing AAA/insurance membership/etc vehicles (least negotiating power)
Some good reading on the tow411 forums at yuku if you’re inclined to trawl through it.
I depends on the area and what else is going on.
Most tow services also have contracts with the cities and states. A car blocking a highway, or major city street has priority. Their contract requires them to respond when called, if they miss to many calls the contract is canceled.
In San Jose CAlif I started call the service 3A non emergency road service. And after any non emergency service I called AAA to ask how do get the emergency service promiced? And when they told me just call the number on the card, I would explain that no that is the non emergency number. When they claimed they did not have a non emergency service I would ask if a 60 to 120 minute or more wait was emergency service? The next day I would call my agent and ask to be signed up for the emergency service. And go through it again. Plus I would ask to talk to a supervisor. I would guess that I was not the only one callling. The last few times I call I was given a time and the driver beat the time. And it was under 30 minute.
So to make a long story lshort. Call everyone and complain.
Hi, I am one of two dispatchers we have at our towing company. I just felt the need to chime in a speak my two cents. First of all, as far as our towing company, we do not push a cash paying customer ahead of any calls we receive. The only time someone gets bumped up in line ahead of someone is if the logistical part of it makes more sense. If I have a driver with 3 calls pending for him (which is often the case, its almost always 2, but often more) and of those 3 calls, one of them is going to take them 2 miles down the road, one to another city, and one across town, the order they came in to us as can and will be changed around. I am not going to make my customer that is only going one mile wait for my driver to go and tow a car 10+ miles that leaves him 10+ miles away from them when done. It makes more sense to tow the car going one mile that is near the customer going the 10+ miles to another town (or state usually in our location) So, the customer that has the one mile tow, which is close to or on the way to the longer distance tow is always going to go first. It just doesn’t make sense to do it the other way around. And that is not always what “takes so long”. Our drivers work on commission and don’t get paid unless they are taking and completing calls, the more they do, the more they make. So you won’t ever find them sitting around doing nothing. And 99.9% of the time, the driver is out doing a call already for someone else before he heads your way. They are very very rarely without a call, waiting for someone who needs a tow. And as far as prioritizing AAA or any other call type, AAA is actually on our list of top priorities. No, they don’t pay as well. In fact, they pay the least out of all the motorclubs, with the exception of Allstate, but they provide the most volume. And performance is very highly noticed in our region and probably most. If we don’t meet or exceed AAA’s expectations on arrival times, we don’t get to keep our contracts with them. So keeping AAA a top priority is the only way you will keep the contract they give you. Think about this for a minute…You call AAA, they get all your info, then they send out a dispatch to the nearest truck to assist you. One thing their AVL (automated vehicle locator) system they implement to dispatch calls doesn’t consider is things like this. They send out the call to the AVL, the AVL picks the closest truck (and its not closest truck at xyz tow company, its the closest truck between all of the tow companies that have a contract with AAA in that area). So they pick the closest truck. So Joe is closest at that particular time, but I guarantee you, Joe is heading to or already working on a call that was ahead of yours at that time. That could mean he is on his way to that other call and happens to pass by close to you and got picked for the call, he could be about ready to drop the vehicle off, or he could be on location with that customer still loading the vehicle. 2 out of those 3 possibilities most likely means he will finish the current call somewhere that is no longer the closest to where you are sitting and waiting. So now Joe is on the west side of town dropping his car off because the AVL chose him for your call when he was on the Southeast end of town and headed to the customer who pinged him before you. The AVL system is flawed in so many ways but AAA insists that we do not change the driver responding to your call unless its an emergency situation such as Joe got into a car accident or Joe’s truck broke down. That type of thing. So our inability to do our job as a dispatcher is basically taken away when AAA calls come across. Dispatchers know where our drivers are going, where their call is going to leave them, what kind of car you drive and what kind of truck you need to tow that kind of car. We are the ones that are seeing the whole picture and would be best able to make those choices on who responds to which calls, but AAA won’t allow that to happen. So if anyone wants to place blame, please don’t place it with us. Our hands are tied. Next time you are waiting for a tow truck, regardless of how you are paying for the tow, also consider these things. Tow truck drivers risk their lives every single time they get a call to help you. Most people break down on the road or freeway. Not at home. Tow truck drivers are considered first responders and it is a very dangerous job. Sometimes its dangerous enough that they have to wait for a 2nd truck just to help with traffic or making drivers on those roads aware that they are on the side of the road helping the person who broke down. Because people don’t pay attention and are distracted. How many times have you gotten close to or went over the line of the lane you are traveling in because you are reaching for or on your phone? It happens all the time. And if that tow truck driver and the customer waiting for him or with him is on the other side of that line you just crossed not paying attention, that’s all it takes and suddenly your life and at least one or two other peoples lives have instantly changed forever. So think about how that driver that is later than you were told or later than u expected is risking their life to help you, a complete stranger, every time they go to a call. And most likely doing it as a way to support their family that wants them home as badly as you want to get home. Give them a break. They are some of the hardest workers and most selfless people I have ever known. They are only trying to help you and support themselves or a family while doing it.
What you’re saying is really interesting and useful since its coming from someone on the inside, but can you please re-send with some paragraphs or structuring because, as it currently looks on the screen its pretty bloody hard to read.
thanks.
The problem seems to be pretty universal. We have two major services in the UK - AA and RAC, and they both have exactly the same problem. They both have their own vans and for a simple breakdown like a flat battery or a tyre change, you will likely get one of those; if you need recovery, they use contractors, but I am sure that they don’t choose the driver.
The bulk of the complaints I see on the web are that a driver is stuck somewhere and the operator promises a mechanic in 45 minutes (or whatever) the driver waits for some time more than that and then phones to find out what has gone wrong and that’s where it all falls apart, because the operator will now (it seems) make stuff up, like “he has been delayed and is on his way” when that is not the case, or they will say that they have no record of the original call or any other excuse they can dream up.
Most people understand that some problems take a lot longer to deal with than others and they have no way of knowing before they arrive, so scheduling is hard, to say the least. What aggrieves most people is the lack of information and especially the promised call-backs that never happen.
These services are really insurance like any other; a bet against the likelihood of breaking down and needing assistance. In fact, both the AA and the RAC are owned by insurance companies, so a driver needs to weigh up the cost/benefit of the premium; someone who rarely leaves their home town probably doesn’t need it, but someone who drives all over the country would probably like the peace of mind.
Their office location has little to do with where their driver’s are at any given moment. It’s not like a fire department where a bunch of driver’s are waiting around for an alarm to go off. They try to keep their trucks working pretty much constantly. The nearest one may be 30 miles away with heavy traffic between you and him.
That being said, there is also the problem of the tow companies promising over optimistic ETA’s when companies like AAA call them.
brandyj, thanks so much for this information, it’s an insider look at the industry that is very informative.
Hope you don’t mind, I added a few line feeds to your text…
I had to have my vehicle towed recently. I called my auto insurance company and they connected me to a dispatcher (who seemed to have no info on locfal addresses at all). They told me it would be 4-5 hours before they could get a tow there (at a slow time of the day) – I told them that was too long and cancelled it.
Then I called a tow company recommended by my mechanic. Their local dispatcher knew the area, but apologized because it would take 15-20 minutes before a driver could get there. That was OK with me. But about 5 minutes later the dispatcher called back, and said the police had called them to a major accident, and it would now be 45 minutes to an hour before they could get to me.
About 15 minutes later the tow truck driver called me – he was just arriving at the accident scene, and, in his words, it was “a real mess” and he said it’d be at least an hour or two before he could be out of there. So we made arrangements to leave the keys there for him, and I headed for home.
A couple hours later, the tow driver called me again. He had arrived at the location, and was verifying that he had the correct vehicle, and where I wanted it located at home. Then he called again as he was arriving at my home, unloading, and left the keys with me.
Reviewing this, by the time my car finally arrived back at my home, it did take the 4-5 hours that the insurance company dispatcher had originally estimated. But the local tow company had kept me informed during the process, and had worked with me to free me from waiting around. I was quite pleased with this, and happy with their service. (And my insurance agent had me send them a copy of the tow bill, and they eventually paid most of it.)
I don’t know if it’s because I’m often alone and a woman, but I’ve had good experiences with the AAA operator keeping me informed on the status of the tow truck being on its way.
Also, the L.A. area freeways have Metro tow trucks who are always patrolling and have helped me more than once. And it’s free. Their primary objective is to keep the freeways moving. The times they helped me I was impressed with their efficiency and friendliness.
I had AAA, but I have Onstar now. Onstar is much better, when my wife had a flat tire on a rural road, they dispatched a truck immediately. The truck was there within 10 minutes, with the Onstar person giving us a very accurate ETA. As I understand it, Onstar pays to have a dedicated trucks, solely to service their customers. A friend that was in the business told me that AAA paid very little.
Yes, AAA pays $47 a call in our area, Urgent.ly (Mercedes, BMW, Volvo Roadside assistance provider) pays $75-100 per call depending on type of car. Our standard rate is $75 hook and $5 per mile if you call as a cash customer. So yes, you are absolutely right. It’s volume but less money.
I’ve had AAA for decades, and never had a problem with them. (Unless one considers a 30-45 minute wait for the tow truck a problem, which I don’t.) I still remember the time I got a tow from Vienna, VA all the way back to my house, about a mile from the Chesapeake Bay. When you sign up for that level of service where they’ll tow you up to 100 miles, they’ll really do it.
I was actually referring to their garage.
I had made the appointment literally 8 hours beforehand. Besides which, there is no way in hell that the tow truck was 30 miles away. Look at a map of NYC.