One Tow Over The Line

Since I'm basically a Mon Valley yinzer at heart, it should surprise no one to hear that I once thought about becoming a tow-truck driver. It may be surprising, however, that I wasn't 6 years old when I entertained this thought; I was more like 22.

OK, so I didn't give it serious thought. I was working as the night police reporter and part-time photographer at the Observer-Reporter then, covering what seemed to be a endless parade of two-car accidents ("10-45's" in state police parlance, or what the medics called "MVAs") in Washington and Greene counties, and I got to meet a lot of tow truck drivers.

I found them to be, on the whole, a very funny (if sick) group of people, and most of them liked the fact that I bothered to get their names, and the names of their companies, when I shot photos of car wreck scenes. Once I arrived at a crash scene to find that the accident was already clear, and the tow truck driver was already winching the last car onto the flatbed truck. He offered to put it back down on the road so I could take a picture. I explained that I wasn't allowed to do that, but I appreciated the offer.

Some of these guys were talented, too. I once arrived at an accident scene on Route 136 between Eighty-Four and Mon City to find that a tri-axle coal truck had rolled several hundred feet down a steep embankment. The volunteer fire department and paramedics climbed down to find the wreck empty, and then scoured the woods: no one was around. The driver had fled the scene. (He turned up later, if I recall correctly, at a bar, and I can't say I blame him.)

A tri-axle coal truck, empty, weighs about 10 tons, and this one had wedged itself into a thick grove of trees fairly tightly. Two guys from (I think, this was almost 10 years ago) Interstate Wrecker Service in Washington showed up, sized up the situation quickly, and went to work.

They grabbed some power saws from their trucks, cut a path through the woods, and attached steel cables to each end of the coal truck. Then, working the winches on their wreckers in tandem, they wiggled the coal truck up the embankment, back onto the road, and tipped it onto its wheels.

Two PhDs in mechanical engineering from MIT and a team of NASA payload specialists couldn't have done it better. Even the firefighters and cops were impressed. I felt like applauding. When I arrived back at the office, people asked why I was smiling: "I think I missed my calling. I want to drive a tow truck."

Ho-Ho-Oh-No

Naturally, I thought for a time that all tow truck drivers were jolly, happy souls (with a corn-cob pipe and a button-nose and two eyes made out of coals ... sorry). That was until I started working full-time in that larger city somewhat to the north of Our Fair City (no, not Duquesne, Picksberg), where I was introduced to a whole new class of tow truck drivers --- predators.

That's not to say there aren't professional wrecker drivers in Picksberg. There are many. I'm not talking about the guys who tow for AAA or work for service stations. I'm talking about the guys with the clapped-out Chevy pickups, their names sloppily stenciled onto the doors, with a rusty hoist in the back. The industry and the cops call these guys "bandit tow trucks."

Some of these guys sit in vacant lots, listening to their police scanners, waiting to hear about wrecks. When a call goes out, they pounce. I speak from personal experience, having watched them in action as a reporter. I also know of a case involving a relative who was involved in a wreck on the Rankin Bridge. She called the cops, and then called the AAA.

No sooner had she got off the phone with the motor club than two of these fly-by-night tow truck operators showed up. They promptly got into a fight over who was going to tow the wrecks. As the cops tried to mediate, a third yokel with a tow truck (we'll call him "Hubert") showed up and hooked her car, asked her where she wanted it towed, then invited her along for the ride.

She was riding along in the truck and almost at her body shop when her cell phone rang: It was the motor club. Their tow truck driver couldn't find the wreck. She looked at Hubert. "Aren't you from the AAA?"

"Nope." And it gets better: Hubert wanted cash. Some gentle persuasion on the part of the body shop owner, backed up by a couple of ornery-looking mechanics holding blunt objects persuaded "Hubert" to send his bill to the AAA.

I was sitting at a red light not long ago when one of these dingbats pulled up behind me. Obviously he was trying to get to a wreck somewhere. First, he started blowing his horn at me --- even though the light was red --- and when I wouldn't move (a certain finger may or may not have been raised by me), he drove over the sidewalk and roared off through the intersection, against the light.

Park At Your Peril

The other thing these turkeys are involved with is "policing" private parking lots in the city. You've seen those signs, right? "Unauthorized Vehicles Will Be Towed"?

I didn't know, but I've learned, that if they have an agreement with the property owner to tow cars, they can tow 'em without a complaint, on sight. Apparently, our friends in Congress --- you remember the "Contract With America," right? --- deregulated the towing industry several years ago, voiding local and state laws governing tow truck operation.

Mark Evanier of News From Me did some investigation after he had a run-in with one of these fly-by-night clowns in California, and he's written about it at his website:

A lot of the companies that tow cars off private property are now operating under what they call "blanket authorizations," meaning that the property owner has authorized them to patrol the area and remove any vehicle they find parked in violation of the posted signs without a specific call. This is contrary to the Vehicle Code but several towing companies are still fighting in court, on matters ongoing, claiming that that provision has been voided by the federal deregulation and that blanket authorizations are now legal. In fact, the tow truck company for which our friend works is one of the main firms fighting for that interpretation.

Naturally, these shade-tree truck operators prowl around Oakland, South Side, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Downtown, the Strip District and other Picksberg neighborhoods, looking for any cars that might be illegally parked. Then they hook 'em and haul 'em to their private impound lots.

You say you were legally parked? It's your word against the truck driver's. Want your car back? Be prepared to pay their towing and "storage" fees, which are just this side of extortion. Don't like it? Sue 'em. The federal law limits your damages to four times their towing fee. As Evanier writes, "It sounds to me like the odds are wildly in the towing company's favor: Tow 100 cars @ $125 each. An average of one will drag you to court and you may have to pay $600. Total profit: $11,900."

The city of Picksberg went after these jaboneys a few years ago, but as far as I can tell, they got nowhere.

Ready, Fire, Aim!

Then, just last week, I left work one night and got behind a beat-up tow truck with its owner's name in tiny stick-on letters on the door. It had a battery-powered orange light on its roof, blinking anemically, and was towing a late-model Japanese sedan; the car was being towed backwards, with no lights on, at night, in light snow.

Worse yet, it was half-on, half-off the hook, meaning that every time this clown went around a curve, the car swung out into oncoming traffic, forcing other motorists to swerve.

Since I couldn't read the name on the door, and there wasn't any phone number visible, I tried to get the truck's license number, but I lost it on Second Avenue in Hazelwood.

The next morning, I got to work to find out that a colleague was going to be out of the office. It seems his car --- legally parked in a lot where he pays for a permit --- had been towed the night before. To a back-alley tow truck operation in Hazelwood. And it was a late-model Japanese sedan.

Oops. The driver "didn't see" the permit on the dashboard. Tow first, ask questions later. The owner of the lot pressured him into releasing the car without a charge.

Having owned a string of clunkers and junkers over the years, I've met several tow truck drivers in Our Fair City, and universally found them to be pros. (And funny with a warped sense of humor, like the guys I knew years ago in Washington County.) I wouldn't hesitate to call any of the major companies.

Heck, when I broke down in Coraopolis a couple of years ago and had to have my car towed to OFC, the motor club sent some poor guy down from Baden who had never been to McKeesport before (never been to McKeesport? An outrage!). But he was a trouper, too, accepted my hastily-sketched map, and drove the crippled car to my mechanic without a complaint.

But if I ever break down in Pittsburgh, I'm tempted to push the car home. Sore shoulders seem like a small price to pay compared with a sore something-else.