Unlock the latest strategies for navigating the towing and recovery industry with our thought leaders DJ Harrington and Wes Wilburn. We've revamped our American Tow Recovery Institute podcast to include free monthly webinars, now conveniently packaged for our YouTube audience. This episode features a dynamic dissection of a chain documentary alongside seasoned professionals, providing both education and a dash of entertainment. Plus, towing industry advocates steps into the spotlight to address the pressing challenges posed by FTC regulations and advocate for a unified response through our coalition.
As the towing industry stands at a legal and regulatory crossroads, our guest experts Ron Myers and Quinn Piening dissect the complexities of industry regulations and the urgent actions our coalition is taking. Their insights illuminate the advocacy frontlines, where lobbying with Schumacher & Associates and strategic legal collaborations are reshaping our approach. This episode exposes flawed industry data and helps listeners understand the critical need for transparency and a collective voice in the fight for fair practices.
We wrap up with a candid discussion on the importance of cooperation in the towing industry, especially when contending with FTC challenges and misconceptions of predatory towing. Our coalition is actively seeking common ground with trucking associations, emphasizing the importance of fair compensation and improved communication. Together, we aim to foster industry health and dodge detrimental regulations, all while keeping the conversation open for ongoing collaboration. Tune in for a deep dive into the strategies that will shape the future of towing and recovery.
Unlock the latest strategies for navigating the towing and recovery industry with our thought leaders DJ Harrington and Wes Wilburn. We've revamped our American Tow Recovery Institute podcast to include free monthly webinars, now conveniently packaged for our YouTube audience. This episode features a dynamic dissection of a chain documentary alongside seasoned professionals, providing both education and a dash of entertainment. Plus, towing industry advocates steps into the spotlight to address the pressing challenges posed by FTC regulations and advocate for a unified response through our coalition.
As the towing industry stands at a legal and regulatory crossroads, our guest experts Ron Myers and Quinn Piening dissect the complexities of industry regulations and the urgent actions our coalition is taking. Their insights illuminate the advocacy frontlines, where lobbying with Schumacher & Associates and strategic legal collaborations are reshaping our approach. This episode exposes flawed industry data and helps listeners understand the critical need for transparency and a collective voice in the fight for fair practices.
We wrap up with a candid discussion on the importance of cooperation in the towing industry, especially when contending with FTC challenges and misconceptions of predatory towing. Our coalition is actively seeking common ground with trucking associations, emphasizing the importance of fair compensation and improved communication. Together, we aim to foster industry health and dodge detrimental regulations, all while keeping the conversation open for ongoing collaboration. Tune in for a deep dive into the strategies that will shape the future of towing and recovery.
Welcome one and all to the American Tone Recovery Institute podcast. Remember this is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded towing and recovery industry. I'm your co-host, dj Harrington, better known as the Toe Doctor, and my other host is Wes Wilbur, over 40-year towing industry veteran, the founder of American Tone Recovery Institute of Fayetteville, north Carolina. He has produced and conducted training and certification programs for leading towing companies, equipment distributors, towing associations, dot, fire departments, rescue, as well as military installations across the United States. Wes has been published over a hundred times in major towing publications.
Speaker 1:Wes has developed many courses, including the most recent awareness-level course for all responders that specialize in electric vehicles as well as hybrids, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles. Wes has provided insight as the main speaker for over 30 years at more than 900 training classes and has been recognized as one of America's greatest towing trainers. He is well known for his straightforward but down-to-ear teaching styles. Wes Wilbur, named as American Tone Recovery Staff, has developed an electric vehicle phone app, wwwev-clevercom, with over 700 passenger vehicles and over 100 heavy-duty vehicles, bringing you a new level of convenience for information at your fingertips for all responders and their groups Without further ado. Here's my dear friend and a great guide for our industry Wes Wilbur.
Speaker 3:Thank you, DJ. I appreciate the opening and, as always, the warm words.
Speaker 2:So we got a lot going on, it's kind of entering our busy season.
Speaker 3:If you're listening to this the first day of drafts make sure to bar night. Tune in with us for a webinar. First Wednesday of every month, we're doing a free webinar. We're going to try something different this time DJ, we're going to do converting all my information over to be on YouTube and try to convert it over to the format of the YouTube world. You know real quick short clips and stuff. So we're trying to get ourselves updated for the time so to speak.
Speaker 2:So we're going to try some kind of crazy DJ, they got these things on YouTube called a reaction video.
Speaker 3:Have you ever seen one on DJ? No really.
Speaker 1:How does it work?
Speaker 3:A reaction video is where someone that has some whatever presence online anyway, might be the other podcast, etc. These are small operations. Some are pretty big operations. That person will. Let's say what they talk about on their podcast is politics. So what they'll do is they'll get a video of a politician making a speech. Sometimes they're for the politician, sometimes they're against the politician, sometimes they're just fact-finding about the politician, but they'll run their speech and they'll react to it.
Speaker 3:They'll stop it and make comments. We wanted to. They really say that. What do you think they mean? Sometimes it's one person, Sometimes it's a group of people doing this.
Speaker 2:So it's a little bit of information.
Speaker 3:A little bit of a chemical, depending on who's doing it. So we've been working on a chain documentary. I think we're about 40 minutes of information. Now We've trimmed it down, we've added to it. We'll probably do more before we pair it next week, but I'm going to air it with a group of associate instructors of mine. They're going to be signed in on a Zoom format and there's going to be seven or eight people in front of the room and seven or eight or five or six.
Speaker 3:We're still working on those details, but there's a whole group of talented operators that help me around the country, so I'm trying to get them involved.
Speaker 2:And they're going to. It's going to be like we're all living in the same neighborhood as the house party.
Speaker 3:They're over at my house their house someone's house Able says it sounds more like a driver's lounge than a telecom, as you worked that before.
Speaker 1:So maybe that'd be the kind of everywhere I'll sit around the driver I'm going to watch this chain documentary and react to it.
Speaker 3:So I hope it's really my thought process is. I believe the group will ask some good questions. There'll be really intelligent conversation coming out of it all with some entertainment, whether we'd manage to be entertaining or not you know that does sometimes.
Speaker 1:I think it sounds great.
Speaker 3:But we're going to record it in the webinar format. Our format is we started seven o'clock. Each time we try to run for 40 minutes. Of course we will answer questions during, but we leave it 10 minutes here. At the end of the 40 minutes, four specifically four questions and then we need about a 10 minute break and we do it all again. We try to do two of them at a time 10 minute break allows.
Speaker 3:A the speaker to get a drink of water. Whatever they need to do with the audio, the IT department and organization allows them time to finish the recording, capture it, start recording the second one, and what we're going to do with these recordings is break them up into smaller bites and vision, you know, the 40 minutes being broken up into at least two 20 minute segments, depending on how the?
Speaker 3:information flows, etc. But this will all become content for a YouTube channel, broken up into the smite and that broke, and, let me repeat, I'm sorry, broken up into bite-sized, more digestible pieces for the world that's actually looking at this stuff nowadays. So that's what we're working on. I'm really excited about it. I think it's going to be a great thing. If you listen to this, the first day comes out. It'll be the day after this thing comes out, so we're live the 1st of February of every month.
Speaker 3:You can go to our website, get it in the right Zoom meeting if you're in front of it. If not put the next Wednesday on your calendar.
Speaker 2:Next Wednesday, we haven't decided what we're doing A we may not be all the way through the documentary.
Speaker 3:But B if we are, we're going to probably focus on just a more traditional lesson, trying different formats to see what works for us as we expand ourselves into the YouTube world.
Speaker 1:Now Wes what time on Wednesday should people tune in 7pm Eastern.
Speaker 3:They need to get our website. There's a link to click that gets you an invite. You can do it all ahead of time you have that Zoom meeting in right. You're ready to go?
Speaker 1:So we have.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, DJ so 7pm Eastern time.
Speaker 1:Yes, first Wednesday of every month.
Speaker 3:Right, we'll be doing something.
Speaker 1:So we got a school coming up in Charlotte in a couple weeks.
Speaker 3:It's about three quarters of the way full out.
Speaker 1:We filled up.
Speaker 3:I'm really blessed this year. I hope I met James and myself as I talk about it. There's a renewed interest in training. We are filling up classes. Very humbling that is happening. We went back to a location we haven't been to in years.
Speaker 1:in Chicago we got a class coming up.
Speaker 3:The first, chicago, 4th and 5th we went back and forth with the host and the sponsor doing it at a Miller dealers location in Chicago. We're doing it at their location and we worked with Lynch before. It's been many years but we worked with him before. So we're going back and forth. Just smooth out the details. You know where the class is going to be, those kind of stuff. Right, we did it all done. Before we even get it done, completely finished, we had somebody call and register two people in the first day. The first day registration was open. We registered 15 people.
Speaker 3:Holy holy, it doesn't sound like a lot, but because it's a towing industry school a couple months away, two and a half months away.
Speaker 2:Whatever the math is.
Speaker 3:That's not usual, so we're excited about coming back. Jerry and his family there at a auto truck that's helping put it all together. He's really the one who deserves the credit he brought me lunch back together to do this and he's handed out all the details. Anybody can host a class. Now we worry about a lot of the details.
Speaker 3:We demand four, so I'm not sure what the right term and out here is, but we've been very blessed to pick people to work with that have the best interest of the students taking the class. They're hard and that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 2:We want to.
Speaker 3:We're realistic A lot of times telling operators to only get one or two shots of formal education. So we want to do everything we can to make it the best we can for them. So we're excited, we're going to be March 23, 24th at Charlotte for today have you ever seen, like I said, things that were half built up.
Speaker 3:That are free webinar April 3rd. May 1st be the free webinar once. These are all Wednesday nights at 7pm. We'll be May 3rd at Lynch Truck in Chicago 3 hour free electric vehicle class 4th and 5th. Today Everybody is going to tell me better get some seats together because they are going fast. I haven't even put it out yet I guess by the time this thing airs, we'll just be putting out that we'll be in Indianapolis in May.
Speaker 3:Friday nights at 17th. Going to do that electric vehicle course the Saturday May 18th to one day heavy duty May 19th to one day light.
Speaker 2:And then we'll be at the Esther show.
Speaker 3:We're going to be doing a bunch of stuff there, including sponsoring a live auction to help benefit Esther as an organization itself. We're going to be bringing a bunch of rare telling memorabilia pieces. Actually some physical items used in the telling industry, etc. That's going to be a great event. We're going to be doing some light Georgia, new York, june 6th to the 9th Get your hotel rooms early.
Speaker 3:We plan on going and staying right there at the show. Red Cross Street from the park. It's also Red Cross Street from the night spot I can't think of the name, but there's a little club there that's quite the night spot at the late George show. So if you haven't been, that's something part of the whole experience of the show. And then also in the June we'll be in St Louis working with Cardinal Slash Bowlin.
Speaker 3:Friday the 21st the three hour electric vehicle class. Saturday June 22nd, one day heavy, june 23rd on the Sunday, at one day light. So that's what we got going on for us right now, dj, we got some great guests hot topic to talk about, so let's take a quick break and we'll be right after the break while we introduce our guests.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. You have been listening to the American Tone Recoverings 2 podcast with Wes Wilburn, dj Harrington and our special guests, but I want to remind all of you that we're available on Spotify, itunes, pandora, stitcher, iheart Media, amazon or wherever you get your podcast, and I can't thank you for making this the number one listen to podcast in the towing and recovery industry and I thank you very much for sharing. So let me go without further ado. Let me go right to Wes, and Wes introduce our guest for today.
Speaker 3:As we talked about, last week's podcast and the first session, is a big issue in the towing industry and there's I don't know it's two different sides or maybe just slightly different perspectives. So the last episode we had Bill Johnson from the TRA, this episode we have two officers I guess I'm not sure. National open commerce and safer highways coalition. We have Brandon Ron. I don't know who wants to go first. Introduce yourself to the group.
Speaker 4:I'm Ron Myers and I have pine tree towing and recovery In southeast Ohio and I set on the board of the Association of Professional Towers of Ohio and currently I'm involved with the coalition and trying to respond to what happened from Sue Wallace Okay, great, happy to have you.
Speaker 3:Quinn, would you mind introducing yourself?
Speaker 5:Sure Wes. Thank you, quinn Pining. I am the chairman of the National Open Commerce and Safer Highways Coalition.
Speaker 3:Okay, which one do you want to talk first about what's going on and then talk about what your folks views on things are?
Speaker 4:Ron Sure. So when this, when Sue Wallace, we all have seen the ATRI report and that basically was telling truckers how to deal with credit or telling things they can do. And obviously when that report come out, it was very, very biased. They had a little confusion and crossed some numbers over between consensual and non-consensual and there was a group that was not necessarily formed or had done anything that was trying to address that. There's a couple states that are in the process of rate regulation and we absolutely know where the flaws are in that ATRI report and we also wasn't sure what the plan was Like. They put this out there. We knew there had to be a purpose for it, but there we were.
Speaker 4:And then Sue Wallace came out, and then Boudajeg at the same time, and basically said that predatory telling is a problem and that you have to address this to the FTC. And if you go back a little bit further, in July of 23, there was an oversight hearing in Morse and DC and in that oversight hearing basically it was calling out the FTC for what they felt was politicized rulemaking. But in their testimony, their written testimony, there's a link. We're going to be sharing that information directly. We, just, like I said we've been moving at warp speed. It says in there all the things about junk fees and different terms and terminologies, and it was crafted as that being their goal as chairman of the FTC, american trade, or what am I trying to say here? The FTC?
Speaker 3:Federal Trade Commission. I correct so. It's a real quick run. A lot of acronyms. I give you a lot of credit for keeping up with them so far and, if you don't mind, as you're giving acronyms, if we could just share what they are to all the listeners now. Okay, I'm sorry to interrupt you with that, you're doing great.
Speaker 4:So, as we know the report they put out it's been widely circulated. We have been full steam ahead and trying to figure out what our response is going to be and it becomes obvious that the comment period is closed. It was extended and at the very last minute, that's when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration forwarded their comments that says, hey, we have a problem with predatory towing and we think you're the right guy to fix this, and so it's very open ended. I don't think anyone can honestly say for sure exactly how it impacts us or it's going to impact us, because we're in the rule process, we're halfway through the process. We in essence have just entered the game at half-time.
Speaker 1:We have.
Speaker 4:I'll let Quinn go into that. But we actually reached out and tried to figure out what was going on, what the plan was, and we didn't get any response.
Speaker 3:We have to do.
Speaker 4:We reached out to TRA and we asked them Apo did. And we just asked them hey, are you aware of this when it first happened? And we were told they were, and we were told that they were having a meeting last Wednesday to discuss it. And then, after that meeting Wednesday, we reached back out on Thursday morning and said hope, meeting went well. Can you give us any insight? Are you willing to get on the call with the Ohio Towers and explain to us what exactly is happening? And we got no response. Then we started forming the coalition immediately, just because we just didn't feel we could stand flat-footed. And then we talked to on Hang on a second.
Speaker 3:Hang on a second. This is a programming note. We have reached out to our Secretary of Transportation, Pete. Somebody help me with the last name.
Speaker 1:Rudy J.
Speaker 3:Thank you, am I good? We've also reached out to the author of the letter from Federal Trade Commission and also reached out to APRI for comment. As of the point of recording this, we have not heard any response.
Speaker 4:So we are would be a concerned effort. Obviously there's. We have people from Texas, we have people from Uh, the original call involved people from Wisconsin, oklahoma, arkansas and Georgia, uh, of course, ohio, and now we have Pennsylvania. So we decided that we needed a car to drive, because we didn't have any car to drive and our core is to be open. We want we.
Speaker 4:When we asked for a, we had our call Thursday. I don't know if you made that call or not. We had 70, some people on the call and we didn't. Um, we just said we, something's got to happen Thursday. Well, friday morning, we, we launched with our open commerce safer highways coalition and started building that out right away Bank account feed money, um, the TRA, um, but out their press release on Thursday night.
Speaker 4:We contacted them again Friday morning and we actually were reaching out to the first vice president because he's from Ohio, and we asked him hey, we're seeing the press release, said you're making comments or you made comments, can you share that with us? What is taking place? And, as of this point in time of the show, we've not heard back. So, um, the other people on the call, texas is involved. We just felt that we don't have time to wait days, weeks, months to figure out what the response could potentially be or is going to be. And so if you went ahead and formed Quinn has engaged uh, and you can tell him Quinn, who we've engaged, we've already signed contracts with major firms in Washington DC. Uh, to represent the coalition. Coalition was created to bring people together in a concerted effort in order to um, to combat potentially what's going to happen. And first order business was the legal review.
Speaker 3:Okay, Uh, what's the point when you take a quick break? After the break we'll come back and hear from Quinn about the organization. Thanks for listening. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. You're listening to a special edition of American Tone Recovering and Spoofed Podcast with West Wilbur, dj Harrington. Remember to like and review and share everywhere. We can't thank you enough. There is a hotline at the podcast center, so if you want to add to this conversation and you want to be part of this dialogue, just dial 706-409-5603 and we'll do our best to have you as your representative with your views and your thoughts beyond this podcast. So, west, what I further to do? Right before the break we talked about Quinn, so I'll pass it on over to you.
Speaker 3:So, Quinn, tell us about the organization.
Speaker 5:Well, back to what Ron was saying, there's a number of comments that were made to the Federal Trade Commission during that open period, comment period, and that comments was 12,000 or more and nobody from our industry, from the towing industry, made any comments on that, Other than the Federal Motor Care Safety Administration's letter and the report that they submitted at the 12th hour. With all that being said and done and our coalition forming and getting a grassroots effort to go forward, the first thing we realized is we need to understand what the Federal Trade Commission can do, will do and how they could do it, Because this is uncharted territory for us.
Speaker 5:My background, coming from California and being very politically involved. When you're dealing with the legislature, it's pretty complex system that you have to weed through and if you understand politics and how the world works in politics, you can achieve things and get things done. With the Federal Trade Commission it's very uncharted. Nobody in our industry has ever had to deal with them or understand. But the more that we have dove into it, we understand the severity of how bad this could be for our industry, of a rule or regulation that we may have to comply with. So we formed a group that is going to be very fast, fast acting and be able to get boots on the ground.
Speaker 5:We have retained a shoe marker and associates as our federal lobbyists.
Speaker 5:They are in Washington DC.
Speaker 5:We actually have had several meetings with them and they are already in the motions of doing things we have under retainer with a law firm I don't want to release the name as yet, but we have talked to a law firm and the first order of business, and probably the biggest thing, is a legal review on what can be done, what has been done and how it would go around, how they would go about this rule.
Speaker 5:And then the second phase will be. How can we get involved? Because everybody could say they can make comments and you can do this and you can do that, but in reality nobody knows, because we've never been there before and what we are being told by attorneys today, by our attorneys is it may be a very difficult process to be able to get any kind of comments or something into it. Then the third bullet point that I wanted to point out that our coalition is doing is informing industry. We are gonna be very transparent. We don't have members. We're not a membership-based organization. This is a coalition of towers for towers for the industry and betterment of the industry.
Speaker 3:Who owns?
Speaker 5:the coalition. Nobody owns the coalition. The coalition is a five-person board that is concerned towers throughout the United States. Awesome who?
Speaker 3:are the five towers.
Speaker 5:Myself as chairman, james Beard, from Beards, towing Out of Texas. Bennett, james, bennett, james Bennett. I'm sorry did I said it wrong? I apologize, james. And then Jeff Poquette with Southside Rekker out of Georgia. He's the other co-chair with James Jordan Davis Davis out of Ohio, am I correct? Yes, and then Ryan McGann from McGann and Chester out of PA.
Speaker 3:Okay, and it's a five-person. What type of board is it?
Speaker 5:It's a coalition, and that is the executive board.
Speaker 3:The executive board is a coalition Right.
Speaker 5:and then we are going to increase the number of people that will be active as we need it. We will reach out to individuals and bring them on to assist in whatever task needs to be done. I could tell you right now that we are on the search for some towers in specific states to be able to be available to our lobbyists to answer questions. Some of those states just off top of my head are Texas, Tennessee, DC. There were several states that we are gonna be looking out to get people to get involved.
Speaker 4:Colorado, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Illinois, Arkansas, DC, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Missouri.
Speaker 3:What's significant about these states that you're looking?
Speaker 4:for interaction. They have federal representation. That's important to our movement.
Speaker 3:Okay, fair enough. You made the commitment. It's very integral process with lobbying on a state level, Isn't it gonna be a whole different learning curve on a federal level?
Speaker 5:It's a huge different level. That's why we've engaged the Schumacher firm. They are very involved in towing. They've been working with the Ohio arm. They have an arm in Ohio, so they have knowledgeable people on staff in DC of the towing industry. So we don't have to reeducate them over again. The plus is just that we don't have to spend a lot of time educating our lobbyist on what we do and how we do it. They are very engaged and already have that knowledge.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:And it's a team of lobbyists in the firm Our lead lobbyists and we need to let them speak for us, but our lead lobbyists had about 15 years experience with the NRA. The other ones had experience with Halliburton. They left them a little bit ago and joined our lobbyist firm that we have, but we have, I think it's four lobbyists that are DC based. That's where they're at and we feel that, from a legal standpoint and a lobbying firm that we've put the 18 together, they're very diverse and we're leaning on them, obviously heavily, to guide us the right direction and make an impact on what we think is gonna happen.
Speaker 3:Okay, where will this coalition be based out of?
Speaker 4:Our office currently is in Ohio at the Shoemaker firm. So we're not at this point, we're not using money or funds. We don't wanna spend money on bricks and mortars. Our treasurer is based out of Ohio, our secretary is based out of Pennsylvania, our first vice chair is based out of Texas, our second vice chair is based out of Georgia and the equivalent is based out of California.
Speaker 3:And are these different individuals than the executive board, or is that the executive?
Speaker 5:board. No, that is where the executive board is, Wes.
Speaker 3:Okay, so what else would you like to say about your organization and what's going on?
Speaker 5:Well, I think that the biggest thing is and one of the things that I wanna point out is transparency. We are gonna be very transparent with the industry. Like I said, we're gonna be reaching out and asking for help in finding tellers that can work with our lobbyists. More than that, this effort is gonna be quite expensive. Ron, am I okay mentioning the figure?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's real. I mean, it's a real number and we potentially could be conservative, but we have faith in the industry that it's now's the time to stand up. But yes, sir.
Speaker 5:We are looking at a cost factor of right around $200 to $300,000 in the first year, and that money's gonna have to be raised by industry. The nice thing about that is with the legal firm that we have retained and our lobbyists. We hope to get some bang for our dollar that will be utilized, knowing and defending the industry in this effort, but starting to become proactive in the future, hopefully $200 to $300,000, that's a 33% difference.
Speaker 3:What's the thought process? What would be the difference of 33% of the total budget?
Speaker 4:It depends on how quickly this ends. So we're expecting a ruling, most likely in the fall. So we're trying to navigate through that. We believe that there's a possibility that they're going to want to do this before an administration change, if that potentially would happen. That's not to say that Biden won't get reelected, but if we had a change of administration, this would all go away. But if it doesn't, or if the rule gets implemented before the change of administration, then it's a whole different process to try to navigate it.
Speaker 4:After the fact and again we missed the comment period this is obvious. This is a very well coordinated effort to come after our industry unfairly. And back to what you said, the study the ATRI, which is the American Trucking Research Institute, I believe. On the surface that looks to be. The report appears to honestly appears to be done by an independent author. However, if you look at the board of the ATRI, which is the organization that paid for that report, obviously they haven't shared with us, but we think that kind of report was probably cost them 200,000, plus something that in depth to what they put together. Now what we've done is, as we reached into that we've already had people look at that. We have our own opinions on that. A lot of the stuff in there is flawed. There's a mix of consent, non-consensual rates. There's a misunderstanding within that report. We've had people actually talk to the author of that report and he kind of acknowledges that he sees where some of them numbers potentially could be flawed. Whether or not we get them to admit that would be another whole story, but we have some ammunition to deal with that. So that's something else the industry has to do. If anyone has a report similar to that, share it, because it's going to cost a lot of money to generate it.
Speaker 4:One of the things our industry lacks and we're disappointed about it, we've known it for 10 years is we don't have our own data. People outside the actual towers have the key to the data and they're not about to give us the data. One of the things we talk about when we're talking about people and I'm going to mention some of the salvage people that pick up at your yard they will come in and give you a pickup order. Generally they'll call you ahead of time and they've asked you for your charges. You'll give them a list of charges. Let's say it's a Christmas list.
Speaker 4:You've got 10 charges for different 10 line items what they're doing, if you look at that, when they pick it up and I urge every tower in the country to start copying that and attaching a copier bill to it and put it in the filing cabinet because we may need this obviously in the future they literally will have the amount of the pickup order to match your bill, but they only have five categories. Their randomly merging are charges to fit categories that they're collecting data on. For example, if you're charging a generic admin fee on a light duty tow of $35, they may have it on their bill of 25, but they've added it somewhere else in your invoice so that you get the right amount. But they're generating a database. That is not criminal but it's corrupt. It's corrupted information, it's not accurate. They'll shift storage charges on you.
Speaker 4:If you look at that and start paying attention. They've been building a database based on skewed numbers. When they come out, they have this data and they're saying, look, we handled, you don't think about it we have 30,000 recs.
Speaker 4:Last year company did and then 30,000 recs. We never paid. We never paid more than $10 for cleanup, or we never paid the average cleanup with $75. Whatever the number is, the issue is they're going to present this data as paying the bill, but their data is corrupt like a virus because it's not accurate data, but we have nothing to counter it. We have nothing to counter it.
Speaker 3:I understand you point about the industry's done a horrible job about collecting data. I agree it's been really longer than 10 years. I think the industry's been talking about it and not trying to correct you. Are you saying that some of the information from the ACRI report came from some of the salad fools?
Speaker 4:I do not. I can't say that because I wasn't on the inside, but I can tell you. We dug into that report in depth and their information of some of the numbers they've used and averages from the standpoint. I'm not saying they didn't need a legal, it's like a virus. The data that they used was data that was provided to them and that data that was provided them was completely one-sided. Unfortunately, that's the only record that got submitted into the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal Safety Administration and our slide wasn't heard. Just simply it wasn't heard, and there was a strategy to do that.
Speaker 5:You know Wes the report on face value. Our industry can pick at a part pretty good, without a doubt, with factual data. The issue comes down to is and I think that we have to stop fooling ourselves a lot of this information in this report came from the insurance industry. We know that the insurance industry, along with the trucking associations, is behind this.
Speaker 5:In saying that, I think it's time that our industry find an avenue to sit down at the table with them and try to resolve some of these issues. They talk about the predatory towing Hang on a second.
Speaker 3:You do not believe the group that already has a relationship established with the federal government is the right group to do it. It has to be this new group. Is that what you're telling us?
Speaker 5:I'm thinking that, yeah, I'll say it. I'll say it. Yes, I think that it takes a new group. I think that you need to have somebody in there that is willing to spend the hours and time that it takes to do this, and I personally, myself, haven't seen anything from the other group.
Speaker 3:Well, like I said, they did a podcast just before this one, or air before this one, and I highly encourage you to listen to that. It's like we're going to highly encourage everybody to listen to this one. Sure, there's some differences of opinion and I'm not going to try to break them down because I'm not trying to be on one side of the other. This I'm trying to give everybody the opportunity to get their peace, their words, out.
Speaker 5:Well, what I will say to Wes, and I'll say it in very open form at some point, I hope to be able to sit down with TRA and have a conversation an open conversation about what they're doing and how they're doing it, because what they have put out to the public is not much. Telling us that they're on top of it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy as a businessman.
Speaker 3:Okay, again, I encourage everybody to listen both sides to the previous podcast and this podcast. What else would you, gentlemen, like to talk about with the? What's going on with your organization?
Speaker 4:There is a strategy currently in play that's being led by Quinn and other members within the group that will obviously be transparent. Like I said, we're moving pretty fast. We're still figuring out as far as where we need to be, but our goal objective which I'm sure we'll attain is to be flexible and inclusive of everybody and not exclude anyone's voice. In other words, we're going to have conversations with everyone. We're in the process of reaching out to everyone that had joined on the calls. At one point I think we have had 80-some people on it. It was just a generic call. We had an opportunity there to.
Speaker 4:We've been contacted by several people other state associations that want to be involved in the coalition Also by being a coalition and not a basic member based with textbooks of bylaws where you can exclude people because they don't fit the bylaw rule. We're going to allow people to sponsor the coalition, get involved in the coalition, convince them they're getting value. They're going to see the value of being in the coalition and can actually attract other people from outside the towing industry. When you look at the FTC and what Susan Law was submitted, they've also somewhat attacked the hazmat industry, the cleanup industry. They threw them into the bucket with us. This could have a huge impact on them. There's entities out there that can join our coalition to make a bigger, louder voice.
Speaker 4:Now I will tell you APTO had done it, other tellers, I believe TRA did too. We have some common ground with some of the other entities that are involved in this that potentially would be perceived as being on the other side. I think we took positions with people including OIDA at one point that we didn't want speed limiters on trucks. Now, when you look at their side, apa and OIDA are opposite of opinions. The APA last time they supported speed limiters. So even within the trucking industry they have differences of opinion, but when it comes to this predatory towing, this perception, as I call it, they're locked step together.
Speaker 4:That's what I keep telling people that we talk to on the phone Me Quinn, several other people have been on the phone 16, 18 hours a day working this. We hear everyone's concerns. What I remind everybody is that back in World War II, russia and the United States worked together to defeat Germany. That's where this industry is at right now. So we're willing to work with anyone that can work with us or will work with us to obtain the objective of making sure that we don't get harmful regulation and legislation out of DC. The other thing that the coalition is looking at is this is forefront, this is the front line, this potential FTC. But part of the reason we're here is because we have not addressed the lack of payment that we get from commercial motor carriers.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:A lot of great trucking companies out there. They pay their bill. Some of them are unhappy because they have to pay so much, but one of the analogies we give people and that when I've had conversations, is that half the people that walked into Walmart walked out without paying. The people that's paying their bill has to pay more. Is it fair to the trucking industry that they have to do that? I don't know if it's fair, but it's the only way our community stays healthy enough to open the highways. We clearly have not had a good dialogue with them to work jointly to correct it. The reason we're here is because my opinion and a lot of the people within the coalition have not been proactive in addressing the issues that impact us with the other players. We need to be paid. If we were paid, the bills would go down and they have to understand that. I mean, that's my belief.
Speaker 4:Do we have bad actors? Hell, yeah. Do we have bad police officers? Yeah. Do we have bad lawyers? Yeah. Do we have bad Congresspeople and senators? Yes, they're all out there. What they're trying to come at us with, basically an atom bomb or a nuke, is a very small, in my humble opinion, a very small portion of the industry. We've not done a good job in getting our message out there. We have this in every state I've talked to and I can mention Oklahoma. They literally had a bill pass out a committee. It's not law yet and we're you know, as apto has helped other state associations with issues that contact us. We've done everything we can to help the other states. We want the coalition to be that type of format.
Speaker 4:But again, first and foremost is to deal with the FDC, the Federal Trade Commission, and how that's going to impact us. But Arkansas was fighting a horrible bill about free cargo. We were painted as disrupting the supply chain some of the nonsense that's in the report. But what really holds up the supply chain is when a truck's laying across I-70 or I-95, that's what disrupts the supply chain. That's what's costing them hundreds of millions of dollars. It's not the guy that's uprided and charged them 50 K. That's not the problem. The problem's getting the road open and it's the fact that we lack the communication and standards and we have a gross number that's got worse, literally worse than the last five years of trucking companies that either way the Federal Motor Carrier Administration gives operating authority to that doesn't have the proper insurance. We've never. We're not conveying that message. I'd like to see it for a second. Spit it anywhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely I agree with that thought. Well, we definitely appreciate you guys being on. We're way over time. I don't mean to touch off. We'd love to have you back again, especially as things progress, but we're dead out of time at this point.
Speaker 4:I really appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 3:Yes thank you.
Speaker 5:Wes.
Speaker 3:Thank you all for being here and we appreciate your thoughts, and again, we'd like to have you back when things progress.
Speaker 5:Well, we'll be back in touch with you and we'll keep you in the loop.
Speaker 3:Okay, thank you for your time today, gentlemen you guys got it.
Speaker 5:I'll talk to you all later, bye-bye, bye.