PORTLAND l   Towing is a uniquely stressful occupation, where professionals work alongside deadly traffic conditions and angry vehicles owners all year long. Usually when issues of road rage arise in towing, it is from the other side of the counter – a customer who turns irate or unmanageable.

Two recent incidents, however, have changed that dynamic a bit, painting towing professionals as the more unhinged party, and playing into the notion that the industry is clogged with angry and incompassionate types, ready to tow first and ask questions never.

In a time where just about everyone carries a cellphone equipped with a video camera, incidents where people lose their temper can go viral overnight, and forever taint reputations.

Shop owners can now find their entire enterprise being judged by the actions of one employee at just a single moment in time. That shortsightedness may be wildly unfair, but it is a new reality of the times we live in.

In Oregon this past week, an encounter between a towing operator and a business owner wound up being recorded, and in the aftermath a tow shop owner was left rebuilding his company’s name while his driver was left looking for another job.

The shop in question was 3 Boys Towing out of Portland, who’d dispatched a young driver to handle a vehicle stalled with mechanical difficulties. When the tow driver suddenly shouted and cussed at an elderly woman during the hook-up, a nearby business owner stepped up to handle the situation.

Instead of backing down, the driver turned his profanity-laced tirade at the business owner, all while being videotaped by someone standing nearby.

The escalating outbursts of anger displayed by the towing operator were, no doubt, what gave the story such traction in the first place. The incident was covered repeatedly in and around Oregon, and got picked up by several national news outlets.

3 Boys Towing owner Mike Heslen told KGW-News he was mortified by his employee’s behavior, something he does not condone and will not allow. The employee, who’d only been with the shop for about two months, was fired.

It’s worth noting that in many cases involving cell phone videos, the full narrative can be lost or skewed based on what happened before or after the actual videotaping. This can sometimes leave viewers with only the more dramatic elements of a fuller picture. 

The story of an unhinged towing operator surfaced again later in the week when a driver near Racine, Wisc. became angered that his tow truck was being repeatedly blocked in by the same neighbors. When he decided he’d had enough, the driver smashed his way out by colliding with the two cars parked in his way. He was subsequently arrested.

Fernando Hernandez, 32, could face up to 14 years in prison if convicted on all counts, which include damaging property and endangering public safety. While it is unlikely that he will receive that stiff of a sentence if convicted, the punishment and judgments made against tow companies involved in such incidents can be just as harsh.

Customers have long memories, and in an industry where our professionals are constantly second-guessed, towing companies who fairly or unfairly get a bad reputation can pay the price for years to come.

Shop owners might save themselves a headache by regularly reminding staffers that while tempers are temporary, cameras are now everywhere – and bad behavior can be easily recorded, shared and immortalized.

Keeping emotions in check should be standard operating procedure.

ST LOUIS – An annual gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts in St. Louis ensnared local police this week, resulting ultimately in two deaths, dozens of arrests and nearly ninety bikes towed. Several owners are now crying foul, claiming their property was wrongfully seized by overzealous police.

“Ride Of The Century” specifically attracts sports bikes, with their tight and versatile design and power-charged engines allowing for some amazing stunts. Those stunts have lead to trouble in the past for police, though mostly injuries and complaints.

By Saturday, more than 25 people had already been detained by police, often on misdemeanor charges related to dangerous driving. Some had performed stunts.

Many drivers who were ultimately towed later claim they drew the attention of police simply for being near places where stunts were performed. They claim police began waiting for an opportunity to seize their bikes, identifying them as troublemakers by association.

“Let me see proof that any single one of us did anything'” asks Joey Pellegrin, a rider from Minnesota whose bike was impounded. “Just because there’s a group with five people in the front doing wheelies and what not, doesn’t make the fifty people behind them. That doesn’t mean they’re doing that.”

By Saturday afternoon at least thirty bikes had been hauled, some reportedly with the drivers only arrested under basic traffic violations.

“I’ve never heard of someone getting jail time for running a red light,” biker Kevin Brannon told Fox-2 News, referring to his night in lock-up.

Police say the measures were called for in each case because of the behavior of those individual drivers They point to a deadly weekend as proof of how dangerous the situation could be.

Early on Saturday morning, a young man driving a sports bike was killed when he reportedly ran a red light, being struck by another vehicle. Justin Rohe of St. Charles, Missouri, was 25.

Later that afternoon, a biker clipped the side of a police vehicle before veering off the road and striking a light pole. The driver, 32-year-old Michael Evans of St. Louis died a short time later.

This is the 11th year of the event, which is sponsored each year by the St. Louis stunt bike group Streetfighterz. The annual weekend has proved troublesome for police in the past, with about twenty arrests last year and over 100 citations.

By Tuesday, many bike owners were still struggling to get their rides returned. There were complaints that they’d been forced to stay in town longer to make the appropriate arrangements, which required additonal money for a hotel.

“I was in the most dangerous city in the country and I got robbed by the cops,” Joe Challoner told The Riverfront Times.

Challoner’s bike was towed Saturday, he says without cause.

Chief of Police Sam Dotson is not making any apologies.

“Only those individuals who violated the law were arrested,” he told reporters after the weekend. “Only those who didn’t have bikes that were properly licensed had issues with the law enforcement.”

Around ten bikes were still impounded at the city lot as of Thursday. That doesn’t include the five which law enforcement says were later discovered to be stolen. 

WILKES-BARRE, Penn – The owner of a towing firm in Pennsylvania is suing his local police chief, claiming his company has been denied tow work from the department despite having secured an exclusive contract from the borough’s council members.

The council members are also named in the suit, all centered around the borough of Ashley, just outside Wilkes-Barre, Penn.

In August of 2010, the borough council awarded their towing contract to James Barberio’s company Ashley Automotive. Barberio is claiming that Ashley police chief John Bell began refusing him dispatches in November of last year after the owner reported a policeman he caught sleeping on duty.

According to the suit, the chief was friendly with the policeman in question, and overstepped his authority by retaliating against Ashley Automotive. Barberio points out that only the borough council has that power.

As a result of being denied the work, Barberio says he’s out thousands of dollars each month. Additionally, he says a good bit of other revenue is lost from an area perception that the police must be discriminating against the company for a good reason. 

Chief Bell’s position appears to be that the company was not fully licensed for the work, something Barberio insists he can prove is untrue. Bell also reportedly sent an email to council members explaining his actions in which he accused Barberio of a road rage incident.

“He makes all these accusations against me and they are all lies,” Barberio told The Citizens Voice newspaper. “He’s ruining me.”

Despite being aware of the matter, the Ashley council has not directed the police department to again start dispatching through Ashley Automotive. Instead, Barberio says they offered to begin rotating him back in with other companies if he agrees to drop the lawsuit.

“This is not about money at this point,” Barberio said. “This is about my reputation.”

A letter recently sent by the borough’s solicitor to Ashley Automotive indicated that their contract was never exclusive, something Barberio also disputes.

Barberio’s suit was filed Wednesday in Luzerne County Court in Wilkes-Barre.

COLUMBUS, OH – The way in which cities and small town across Ohio regulate their local towing industry could be impacted by the State Attorney’s challenge against Cleveland’s effort to put some consumer fail-safes in place.

Th action was filed after a judge determined that Cleveland did, in fact, have the right to oversee how towing professionals conduct their business. The final decision is an important one, as it threatens to set an important precedent statewide.

The battle has made its way all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, where this week justices heard impassioned arguments for both sides, including towing reps who are fighting against the proposed changes.

The Attorney General’s office in Ohio is also against the proposed measure, saying it would cause unnecessary chaos for tow drivers as they struggle to meet both local and state code. Asst. Attorney General Pearl Chin argued that consumer protection and clear guidelines were already in place at the state level, and that this would only bring an unneeded layer of bureaucracy to the process.

An earlier appellate decision granted Cleveland’s request to self-regulate, finding that the existing state law infringes on a municipality’s right to govern as they chose, so long as their code doesn’t flatly contradict existing state law.

“Why can’t the city of Cleveland regulate tow-truck drivers to have telephone numbers on the side of their trucks?” Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor asked.

Lawyers for the state again argued that such protective measures exist in the state’s towing code, and any deficiencies in that language should be addressed at the state level.

“The (state) law is comprehensive in scope,” Chin argued. “Any attempt on Cleveland’s part (to regulate towing) would just add confusion… It makes sense because tow trucks (work across multiples municipal boundaries,) “and there could be conflicting licensing regulations.”

Arguing for the other side was Gary Singletary, Assistant Director of Cleveland Law. He explained to the justices that a city should be allowed to enact regulations so long as there is no conflict. He cited the city’s en masse rule, which prohibits multiple trucks from circling an accident scene like vultures.

No such language exists in the state code, Singletary argued.

A decision is expected later this year, and could quickly spur some local legislators to step in and begin establishing new local standards.

WASHINGTON, DC  l  For the second time in a year, the motorcade of the President of the United States has had to call for a tow truck.

After the presidential limo conked out in Israel in March from mechanical difficulties, on Friday the ride-along ambulance that accompanies the commander-in-chief ran out of gas while departing from the White House.

A tow truck was dispatched, later determining that the vehicle had simply run out of gas, having never been fueled for the exceptionally short route. More disturbing was the fact that the fuel gauge in the ambulance was found to have been broken for “months,” according to WJLA-News.

This draws into serious question the competency of the DC Fire & EMS crew that accompanies the President on all district runs, most frequently between the White House and Andrews Air Force Base.

President Obama was actually celebrating his 52nd birthday on Friday, on his way to a nearby Indian restaurant with wife Michelle when the ambulance died. 

DC Fire & EMS confirmed that the ambulance was towed back to headquarters, with no backup ambulance ready that had been cleared for use by the U.S. Secret Service.

Officials confirmed that the vehicle is being repaired off-site, with an investigation underway to determine accountability. The agency indicated that the crew should have followed standard procedure and fueled the ambulance log before the scheduled departure.

When the presidential limo was towed this spring, early reports suggested it was also an issue of fuel, with a Secret Service agent blamed for inadvertently fueling ‘The Beast’ with unleaded gas.

That report was later dismissed by the agency, who blamed an unspecified mechanical issue as the culprit.

Obama’s limo was towed in March by a local Tel Aviv outfit, who were quite surprised by the unusual dispatch.

 CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT IT  
__________________________________________

Want to share your towing news?
Contact Us
or call 888-603-2599.

NEW YORK CITY  l  Having effectively angered everyone from smokers to soda drinkers, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration is now upsetting the nature of city-ordered towing around the Big Apple.

Suddenly and quietly, the administration has shifted policy away from removing violation vehicles and instead slapping a boot on them. On Monday, wheel-locking devices began being attached to vehicles city-wide, based on an earlier test of the policy in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island so far.

The policy would only apply to certain violation vehicles, specifically those not blocking traffic or parking. Drivers with outstanding fines of $350 or more will also be subject to booting. The aim is giving these drivers more of an incentive to correct their behavior beyond an invoice in the mail.

“Our goal is to collect money that is owed to the city of New York,”  said Finance Commissioner David Frankel, “and we will aggressively track down every dollar we can, but that does not mean we have to inconvenience people at the same time.”

“Booting is cheaper, faster and vastly more convenient than towing,” he adds. “You know where your car is, you have access to your possessions inside the car and you can pay your fines and be back on the road and going about your business in just minutes.”

Local law enforcement has been tasked with patrolling the city and identifying errant vehicles.

For drivers with outstanding fines, agents will be made available to remove the boot in person upon payment. Some of the devices also have a combination lock that can be used to disengage the boot.

On Monday, the city booted 185 vehicles from drivers with outstanding fines, nearly a third more than the typical amount towed on a Monday.

__________________________________________

Want to share your towing news?
Contact Us
or call 888-603-2599.

MINNEAPOLIS   l   In a labor of love that took just over a year, a Minnesota man has built a functioning tow truck based on a miniature and decades-old Tonka toy, The Mighty Wrecker.

While the rig is operational, technically, its hand crank from the original’s design will likely limit it to only the lightest of light duty. It will instead by featured in local parades and on display at the towing outfit where it was conceived.

Irvington Garage Towing in Menomonie, Wisconsin is located about an hour east of Minneapolis, where for 66 years the team has hauled just about everything. Brad Doane grew up around the shop, learning the family business from an early age.

A while back, Brad’s mom Lonna came across an unusual charity auction find, an over-sized Tonka tow truck that functioned as a display model for the much smaller toys. Brad, now 40, had grown up with a wide assortment of Tonka and Hotwheels, and she knew he’d love it.

What she didn’t expect was that he would turn it into a personal challenge, to replicate the toy on a functional scale.

“You can’t mistake what it is,” Brad tells KARE-News. “Dang, that looks like a Tonka truck.”

Starting with the drivetrain of a 1984 Chevy pickup, Brad turned to welding the new frame based on the specs pulled from the toy. His new design stretches 16-feet long, and stands at 10 feet. The resizing is 16-times larger than its predecessor.

“Everybody can recognize it,” Brad said, “and it brings them back to the day when they had a truck — a Tonka truck.”

This weekend Brad is set to drive the truck in a parade in Mound, Minnesota. It’s an appropriate debut, as Mound is where Tonka Toys began in 1946.

CLICK HERE to see KARE’s report  

__________________________________________

Want to share your towing news?
Contact Us
or call 888-603-2599.