you're getting banned my band, my band oh, you're banned.
Speaker 1I thought you're said that you're getting banned off of social media for something stupid.
Speaker 2You said I'm due to catch a ban for something I'm very now.
Speaker 1My social media is pretty tame yeah, I don't post much on social media anymore no, I don't either.
Speaker 2It's a shame. But then again I look at the old stuff that I post and I'm like is it really a shame? Yeah, like this is, this is probably for the best.
Speaker 1The stuff I used to post didn't benefit any of my friends or followers in any real way other than a little snort through the nose, maybe every once in a while. Like you know, as you're scrolling you see something funny and you're like hey, your social media posts are very similar to your podcast personality. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2I didn't change much. It doesn't start any real conversation, no, it gives you a little and then you move on throughout your day and you forget all about it.
Speaker 1You you would, yeah, just easy in easy out. I'm sorry, G I really shouldn't be this tough on you after all these years. Hey everyone, I'm brad from calgary.
Speaker 2This is sean from cambridge, ontario I'm terry from cornwall, ontario hey, this is larry from pit metals, british columbia, and you're listening to the towing life podcast. Hey, this is Larry from Pit Metals, british Columbia, and you're listening to the Towing Life Podcast.
Speaker 1Welcome to the Towing Life Podcast, where the ditches are deep, the trucks are loaded, but the drivers are not. I am your host, Toman G, and, as usual, I am joined by my co-host, friend and former co-worker, the man with very strong opinions, Mr Playing Guy.
Speaker 2What is going on? G. What is going on?
Speaker 1Oh, it's a early morning. I had a late night, so I'm running on like four hours of sleep, which is unusual for me now that I'm not in the towing industry.
Speaker 2Yeah, I know your body definitely isn't trained to actually work um and run on lack of sleep. How is your caffeine intake? Has it decreased significantly or increased this morning?
Speaker 1no, it's. Uh, I've cut down. When I used to tow, when we worked together, I used to drink like 11 to 13 extra large timmy's a day, like every time. You couldn't pass the timmy's without stopping and getting a coffee, so I've cut way back to one coffee a day max, max, wow, wow.
Speaker 2It is definitely taking a toll on you, um, because sleeping four hours a day is something that used to be quite achievable and quite easy to do, and quite regularly done. Um, what were you up so late? Were you drinking some wobbly pops or you just?
Speaker 1you know we're out chasing it have a wobbly pop, a singular wobbly pop. Yes, I wanted, since we live in the great province of ontario the lick bow the um our alcohol control board of ontario yeah that um is on strike until tuesday, so when this episode comes out, um couldn't get too many extra wobbly pops, so I was just drinking my chocolate liqueur and coke that I had in the cupboard, so I had a chocolate oh my god, that's such a terrible combination it doesn't taste too bad.
Speaker 1You know what a vanilla coke tastes like.
Speaker 2It's just a chocolate version with elka mahal and I do about a 50 50 mixture so that that is very interesting because, you know, obviously the towing industry limits us quite often in our availability to have a drink right, especially to have multiple drinks, if you, if you do want to go on, you know, and have a good day. Um, I guess my question would be like, I wonder how much of the like? What's the worst? Oh, better question what is there any like towing related drinks, like alcohol drinks we're talking about right like. Is there, like you know, a drink called the like? You know the ugly repo man, um or the? You know what a drink called the like you know the ugly repo man, um or the? You know what I mean Like.
Speaker 2And, that being said, what is the go-to drink for operators whenever they do have a chance that they're off the clock, they can unwind a little bit. What is the go-to drink? I think that is going to change regionally, um, but I would be curious to it. Um, so, before we get into everything else, and if you want to submit what your favorite drink is when you, when you have no towing commitments that allow you to have a little bit of fun, you can find us at wwwtowinglifeca. You can email us directly at the T-H-E, so the towinglife at gmailcom or you can find us over on Facebook at the towing life podcast.
Speaker 2If you're watching over on the YouTube side, do not forget to hit the like and subscribe. Down below, up top or wherever it is. I don't watch on YouTube so I can't tell you. Um, and be sure, if you have any questions, you can go ahead and leave the comment right down below in the YouTube video. Um, we always do appreciate the comments we can week and we address them every once in a while to get to the bottom of the mean, the good, the funny and the completely irrelevant that we see.
Speaker 2I learned something this past week. Wait, no, I'm getting to my drink thing. I didn't even get a chance to say mine, I'm a big. I don't think it's hidden. We've seen it a lot on this show. If you do watch on the YouTube side. I'm a big beer guy. I'm very rarely a mixed drink kind of person, like I don't do shots, I'm not a fan of hard liquor. Call me a puss, I don't care. I'll drink like 9.5% beer, but I am not one to just say, you know some whiskey or or something like that. So I am much the beer indulgence. After a hot day, a hard-working hot day, a nice cold beer, oh man, does it ever hit the spot for me?
Speaker 1yeah, you learned something today yes, I learned something this week and you could say I learned at a fourth grade level, so I'm gonna take you on my adventure. The first thing I learned is that local law enforcement drops the ball all the time. But if you get that reference from, you know the shooting. Anyways, oh my.
Speaker 2God, did it go over? Just continue.
Speaker 1And I also learned that you know how we have zero tolerance for driving commercial vehicles, right?
Speaker 2I'm sure everyone should know that in Ontario. I don't know what each other's state has, but I feel like Tennessee. It's like eh, under a .08, you're good still.
Speaker 1Yeah, so here, if you're driving a commercial vehicle, you're not allowed to have any blood in your alcohol system Alcohol in your blood system anyways. But I learned that it's not just commercial vehicles. If you hold a cdl, so uh, e, f, g, whatever license other than a g license, you cannot have any alcohol in your blood system because it follows your license, not the vehicle you're driving bullshit.
Speaker 1I have verified this with police officers before really yes, because I had a driving instructor tell me that it's the license holder I had a guy who writes these tickets and enforces the laws.
Speaker 2Tell me that it is the vehicle in which you were driving at the time. Because I had that exact question. You know, company truck, I'm registered under the gross required for my CVR, like for as much as my commercial vehicle on my pickup truck, right Like it's still just considered a 1500. And I said so. If I were to go out to dinner or a show or something and I were to have a beer, would I be breaking the zero tolerance law? No, I would not, because that that wouldn't make sense. Because then if you're saying it's following the license, well that only applies to, like, said, your cdl, which is the equivalence in ontario, like dz, az, so a g-class driver would be allowed yeah but a a dz driver would not be allowed in his personal vehicle.
Speaker 2It doesn't make sense. Vehicle it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1I know it doesn't make sense, but it kind of does as well, because you'd think a lot of these things follow your license along.
Speaker 2There is things like that that do follow your license. We've talked about it before when it comes to crossing into the States. If you have a CDL and you're driving a commercial vehicle in the States, regardless if that vehicle is above the the gross weight that you require your CDL for.
Speaker 2So example, a DZ driver, a CDL driver driving a Dodge 5,500 Ram um into the States still requires to pass the FM SCA's uh drug testing and be in the the U S dot pool pool. For for a canadian company, you need to go for random drug and alcohol tests if that same truck is being driven by an operator who doesn't have a cdl because we, you know, because of the weight class on it he does not so like that is one that yeah, 100 follows your license. But that is the argument I made with zero tolerance. I have checked with a um officer once I had a personal pickup truck, um, just out of curiosity on that. You know, if it's out and I have a beer, am I legal?
Speaker 2Um, now, we don't encourage this in any way, shape or form and you should never drive any vehicle with any you know, any company vehicle with any alcohol in your system. I'm a big believer in that and again, this has never happened. This isn't something that happens. But the question had to be asked Right, because, yeah, 100%, you do not want one of your trucks getting impounded. You know a non-CVO-ard vehicle or a non-tow truck because of you know something silly like that that you just misunderstood.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I get that. I mean this driving instructor that I was speaking to. She obviously didn't know everything, I guess, if you're right, I don't know, should I take your thoughts and opinions over a driving instructor that's been driving? Hey said hello.
Speaker 2I think we lost Tomangie's internet. There you go. Should you take my thoughts and opinions? Is that what you're saying? I lost you.
Speaker 1Yeah, should I take your thoughts and opinions over a driving instructor who's been driving for 40 years?
Speaker 2And has anything I've ever taught you in our career together is, you always should take my opinion. It'll make your life easier in the long run, I promise you. Just play dumb. No, just play. The man with very strong opinions tends to be right A lot. Not always, god knows. I've made my fair share of mistakes, but if I was was hard it's harder when you're stupid.
Speaker 2If I wasn't worried about the way that, um, the people, the officers that I know speak on the phone when they're private, I would call one right now, uh, anonymously. But, um, yeah, I know, I've. I'll confirm it again. I'll confirm it with a separate officer that I know. Um, but I can assure you it, it doesn't make sense. Um, what your instructor is saying, um, I get what he's getting at, but no, it doesn't follow your license.
Speaker 1Uh, in in your personal car yeah so yeah, I was a little dumbfounded when she said that, anyways, but I was like hey, what do I know? Yeah.
Speaker 2I've only been driving for 10. She's been driving for 40.
Speaker 2She's old as shit. He she, it was a she. Um, I want to go back to a little update. We had, Uh, we talked last week about fragile fords and those active air dams and ways on on which to load them, so we did a, uh, we did some testing in our yard. I was lucky enough, my dad actually has a 2021 with the active air dam on it, so he was nice enough to lend it to us for a day and we went ahead and we did some testing and we found different ways that we could load this truck.
Speaker 2Um, you know, it was pretty simple. You go to your regular transmission mounts the way you do, except you put a block of wood on the front cross member. A four by four block of wood while you're winching it on. It keeps the winch line off of that front valance, right, and I want to do this with each one of my employees. Um, just to ensure everyone, and it's not even that like, we showed them different ways to load it, but it's just be be aware of this, like you need to.
Here's the system. See it, there's where it is, you don't? You know? Just so, every time your brain thinks, when I get onto an F-150, I better go just check and be aware of if this system is active or installed on this vehicle. The other option that we went is we took a J hook chain bridle instead of the straps hook chain bridle instead of the straps we normally use the strap bridles uh and shortened it up, kept a decent veer angle on it and was able to load them right off the tow hooks and still on our 21 foot 10 tb uh flatbeds we're still able to have it into a nice like spot on the bed.
Speaker 2Um, our dodge ram 5500. Not a chance you're going to transmission, transmission, crossmember because you'll run out of winch. He knows they allowed enough with the shortened up bridle. The smaller 5500 trucks will not allow the space.
Speaker 1What's that? 19.5 or 19?
Speaker 2Yeah, it's like a 19.5. Yeah.
Speaker 2So they barely have enough space for a half ton to start with. Yeah, so yeah, no, but I really enjoyed it. It was fun to kind of go over. Barely have enough space for a half ton to start with. Yeah, um, so uh, yeah, I know, but I, uh, I really enjoyed it, it was fun to kind of go over it. Also, we pointed out the importance of um tie down slots on the truck and going forward, possibly pulling forward and going into that balance as well. Right, that is something we had never really kind of. You know, the idea crossed my mind when we started talking about it or when I heard about these, um, these active air dams, um things to avoid. But looking at the fords, they actually give uh, t-hook slots, proper doubled transport slots on the front of the, the dry or the front wheels, as well as the rear, um, so I would obviously start looking. If you're doing the chain tie down, you'd be looking at chaining inwards, if you know what I mean, from the front tires backwards.
Speaker 1Yep.
Speaker 2Yeah, cross-chaining it through the center of the truck. Yeah, yeah, so. But anyways, I had a listener reach out and he goes hey, talking about those Fords. I had a great trick to loading them that you wanted to share with me and I figured I would share it right on the show because by god, it's pretty great. Um, when he backs up to them watching to make sure he's not an interlocked driveway, anything like that. Obviously there's different things. On an f-150 and you've spoken about it the front wheels will roll the. The back wheels are locked right. If we leave a vehicle in park, unless the four-wheel drive's fully active, whatever, he loads them like a sea can to start, and this makes sense.
Speaker 3So he pulls himself down to the front wheels, doesn't pull himself underneath, just backs under.
Speaker 2You can load a sea can without a winch. Fun fact Now you're learning at a sixth grade level today. G? Um, if you ever loaded a c-can, you can get a tip of your bed under the edge of the c-can. Uh, if you use c-can skates, whatever, and you can actually back your truck up and the c-can will slide up your truck.
Speaker 2So he does the same idea. He backs his truck up so that the front tires come up onto the bed. Let's say, three, four feet chocks the wheels, hooks it up. Now the winch line's not not in the way, because once that truck is like you know what I mean up the bed a little bit, the clearance issue goes away. The clearance issue is only as the front end is coming up onto the bed. So as long as you were to do it and I got to watch an interlock driveway you don't chunk somebody's driveway or something but it was a different approach that as I sat there training that day in the yard and I remember just like looking at it, just thinking of different ways, that one never crossed my mind. But I like it.
Speaker 2You can put your bed, you can get your bed tucked under the wheels. You can even lift it up a little bit, maybe a tow hook as a safety, just to you know, precaution. And then you back up the front tires will roll up the bed. The back tires will stay in place. Once you get the vehicle up to a point, the winch won't be an infraction like an issue. You can wheel chalk the tires. To add a second level of precaution hook up your vehicle, neutral your vehicle and you're not all the way up on your bed that you're hopping up on your bed.
Speaker 1Neutral the vehicle, continue up the bed coming from the guy who is dead against driving vehicles onto the deck, I'm surprised that you like that method. Why? Because so you're out of the truck, you get your bed, you shove the bed underneath the front tire and then you go back into the cab after you raise the bed up a little bit and you put the truck into reverse and you start backing up. Well, one of the reasons. One or two straight yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, make sure that it's straight. If for some reason, that wheel starts to turn on the truck as you're backing up and you can't see the front end of the truck, you don't catch the front end of the truck walking off the side of the bed quickly enough, right like there's just a lot more things that could go wrong. That's one of the reasons why when you winch a vehicle up, you're right there, you can see everything, but when you're in the cab of the truck you can't see as much, especially when the deck's up. You might not be able to see the casualty coming up the deck the same right because it's tilted up it's an f-150 I know a lot bad.
Speaker 2What kind of decks are you driving?
Speaker 1but I'm saying like you're not there dealing with it, you have less sight lines once it's up on the bed. Then you got to climb up into a higher truck well, you don't put it.
Speaker 2Yeah, you still do have to climb up a little higher, but you don't put the whole truck on the deck I know you don't put the whole truck you just put like like you rolled it up, maybe three, four feet yeah, but still like why?
Speaker 1why are you doing all this? I feel like the risk factor has gone up because you are pushing back on the truck to load it with that parking pin and, yes, you could put a safety chain on there, but what's okay? So when you come to unload it, are you doing the same thing in reverse?
Speaker 2Have you ever unloaded a vehicle with locked up rear tires? Yes, I know, thing in reverse, or you just never have.
Speaker 1You have never unloaded a vehicle with locked up rear tires. Yes, I know you pull the bed out from underneath what you drive ahead. Once the one tire is down on the ground, that's locked up.
Speaker 2That's, that's what you're doing that's what you do to offload it. You get. You can bring it down to a spot, chalk the wheel.
Speaker 1What I'm what I'm trying to wrap my head around is you're doing all this and you're still hooking a winch cable up to it. So it's just like why are you going through all these extra steps? You're chalking it once it's on there, why wouldn't you just hook your chains up to it and put that four by four there to get it down from the valence and then just be done with?
Speaker 2it Cause sometimes so okay. So like we're spoiled in the sense that, um, a lot of our trucks come right, almost all of our trucks come equipped with remotes. So when you're trying to set this four by four up on the cross member, on the winch line to avoid the balance, it's very it's easy to do with a remote right. It's not so easy to do without one. Yeah.
Speaker 2Right, you're going to be sitting there, you're going to winch. Okay, you got to leave it snug, but just to say snugs, that you can then go and pull down, get that block of wood in there and confirm that it's, you know, off against the balance, this is another tool for the toolbox. What is their drivers in the towing industry that? I would, you know, never show this trick to a hundred percent, but it is definitely a tool to get you out of a spot, right it you? You know you're in that Dodge flatbed that we have, that doesn't have the accessibility to go to the tow hooks, doesn't have a remote to put the 4x4 on the crossmember or make it easy to put the 4x4 on the crossmember. Hey, back up, get this thing a foot or two on your bed. You know, chalk the wheels a prior. You know safety. You don't want something to happen to the pin. The thing rolls away right now. You're getting in, you're hooking up, everything's all secured on it. You're transferring it into neutral. You're leaving it in neutral.
Then you're two, three feet up on the bed yeah you know you're not all the way up at the top of the bed where you've got to. You know, like you're limiting the risk now I get what you're saying at that point you limiting the risk Now I get what you're saying. At that point you feel the risk is higher there than it would be for the damage claim. The problem is with the risk on these damage claims is that my father's had this truck since 2021. He had no idea that system was even there until I told him not a clue in the world. I showed him a video of it, explained to him how it worked. He had no goddamn idea. It is the easiest thing that someone is going to throw us under the bus to, if they get the opportunity yeah, right, they don't know it, they don't understand it.
Speaker 2I had it towed. Now it's broken and I seen the winch line. Touch that, educate your customer and a lot of that comes down to it, right, 100 comes down to educating your customer, right? Remember, towing on dollies. Okay, towing on dollies with a flat tire. What would you always do? You have?
Speaker 2to double pick it no, no, I'm not even up on top of the bar not even that okay, double picking doesn't matter if you're loading it frontwards, backwards, the flat tire with tire pressure sensors oh yeah, make sure the valve stems up and it's not touching.
Speaker 2It's not where this, the spoon is crushing and you would educate the customer on that. Okay, fun trick for those listening that never knew about this trick because I don't think we've ever talked about it. An easy damage claim to avoid is a lot of vehicles come with tpms is now tire pressure monitoring systems. If you are in a wrecker specifically because a flatbed doesn't really apply If you're in a wrecker and you are loading a vehicle with a flat tire, be aware when you are putting your L arms on or your spoons on or even your dollies, where that tire is sitting up against the bar. You do not want it to be rate. Most TPMS is not all all but are at the valve stem. So if you have that valve stem lined right up where that spoon is crushing into that flat tire and you hit a bump going down the road pretty good, which we know they bounce on the wheel lift you can crush that tpms. Make it a habit of getting the tpms to the top or the the valve stem to the top of the wheel before loading them will be an easy easy. You know the guy's already got a flat tire. Yes, there's some liability on him that the flat tire might have caused the tpms to get crushed depending on how he drove it. But if you educate your customer and you go, hey, just so you're aware, you'll notice that we put the valve stem facing you know 12, 12 o'clock because we wanted to make sure that if there wasn't any damage already, that we wouldn't go ahead and cause some. When that guy gets to the tire shop and the tire shop tells them that his TPMS got crushed, he's not the first guy, he's not going to think of you now, but if he goes, your tpms got crushed.
Speaker 2Well, should that happen in a flat tire? Not really. Could it happen getting towed? Yeah, right, and it could, and it could, it definitely could. Um, so it's the same thing with these f-150s, and that too you want to avoid damage claims. It's not just you know, obviously, document what you can, but have the conversation with the customer. Customers are like gee, they love to learn stuff right, and if you give them a fun piece of information that day, normally they're like hey, did you know? You know, did you know that my dodge has this little pull cord that you can pull that puts it into neutral, and like that kind of stuff is they'll go around tell their friends all week yeah, like it's the dumbest piece of information that we all know, but you know to them it's not so if you know.
Speaker 2That's where I say, like I said, even with these four things, if you explain it to the customer why you're doing it, you're loading it up. That way you're gonna save yourself a lot of trouble. So, yeah, damage claims suck. I hate dealing with damage claims. They're my least favorite thing, especially when they're right, like when the customer's right, or like we're wrong, in other words, where there's just nothing you can do about it. Yeah, like, I like a good damage claim that I can argue.
Speaker 2I had a gentleman recently with a mercedes who claimed that you know we grabbed a wire on his vehicle, the wire that comes in through the top, strut and down. Um was adamant. We grabbed it with a j hook, doing an impound and I'll, I'll fight that one. I'll do my research. I'll look at where you know what I mean, the diagrams of these things. I'll look at the photos from the vehicle and you know, use what experience I do have, as short as it may be, um, to come up with a determination on the, the likely cause of the damage. I like fighting that. Those are fun to me. What I don't like is your guy just offloaded a cube truck and hit a brand new car in my parking lot.
Speaker 1Well, that is a very hard argument to find I saw a facebook post of this uh flatbed, it was a red ram, probably 2500, 3500, and the operator hooked his winch cable directly up to the driver's side tow hook on the ram and winched it onto the bed. And what this damage claim was is it showed the angle of the winch line pulling down to the winch and you know how the bumpers on those dodges have the little step up underneath the headlight wrap around. Well, the whole bumper apparently got twisted down so it pushed the far edge at the back towards the fender. And the damage claim is stating that he bent the bumper down, even though the tow hooks mount directly to the frame on the inside of the bumper. But the bumper also mounts to the same mounting bracket. So they're saying that he twisted the bumper and that the towing company it's a local towing company to us, it's a pretty big company is saying we didn't cause that. That's not an us thing.
Speaker 1And I went out and looked at my truck afterwards and my bumper is slightly twisted down and the one side's pushed in a little bit, but I remember it was pushed in when I bought it, but it's a negative and the one side's pushed in a little bit, but I remember it was pushed in when I bought it, but it's a negative like you don't really notice it because Unless you go looking for it Exactly and in this picture he's taking pictures of it of all around. You can't like why are you even going after this? Because it doesn't. It's not affecting the way the truck drives. It's not affecting the way the truck drives. It's not affecting the way the truck looks in any real way, shape or form like. Why are you just being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole? I can see, oh yeah, the tow truck driver bent or bent my bumper slightly, and but can you prove it wasn't like that prior to the toe?
Speaker 2but that's the problem is that it's our job to prove that it was like that prior to the toe. That is an unfortunate state in which we live in that it is not in the world of social media and public opinion. You're guilty until proven innocent. Yep right, in a court of law you're still innocent until proven guilty, but everywhere else in the world you were not. So what makes it easier proving it before? But again, if that's something that's so unnoticeable, it would be normal that your operator might not document it. What would save that? And I hate this because, like I'm, you know I've heard this argument before and I go well idealism to you know, there's realistic expectations. What would have saved him?
Speaker 2four corners, photos all around before he loaded it possibly right, like it sounds stupid, because you're like oh, I'm not gonna waste my time with that, but now your company is wasting more time defending itself than taking why am I gonna take pictures of nothing?
Speaker 2yeah, in case something happens, I guess you know, like, like I teach and I install that take photos, loading and unloading, and that way, you know, your ass is covered as an operator I'm guilty of. You know I will walk around and find the spots. You know the easy spots like the front valance is cracked, like there's um, when I was in a wrecker, and he sort of scuffs to the corners, especially on the front, where they would say that you jackknifed it or you had your wheel lifted in too close. You know, taking those kinds of there's stuff that you just don't think of taking photos. And then a customer comes in, what's his dent on my roof? Hmm, uh, like, there's no way I put a dent on your roof.
Speaker 1I had a wireless tow light. Even if I had a wired one, there's no way I did the tent on your roof. Yeah, but it's okay. So let's say you got a car up on the deck and while you're driving to the shop, a stone comes up and cracks your windshield.
Speaker 2How okay, how it's happened to me once over your cab and hits their windshield and cracks their windshield happened to me once when I was told something on the record.
Speaker 1When I got to the shop I was like, was that windshield cracked when I picked it up and I couldn't remember to say it was probably.
Speaker 2No, it was probably a slight little chip and a bump cracked.
Speaker 1The goddamn thing, yes, but it still happened while it was in my possession right, but it is anything that you could have changed. No, it was out of my control and I think one of the main roadsides actually has a clause to where, if your windshield gets a stone chip while in transport, they will pay to get the stone chip replaced or a windshield replaced Like while you're driving, not while it's being towed.
Speaker 2No, while it's being towed.
Speaker 1What? Who has this? One of the big road sites, one of the?
big road side. Okay, I thought you said one of the roads, no no, that road sees a lot of tow trucks.
Speaker 1I'm not sure if they would pass that bill onto the tow provider. I'm hoping not because I've never seen one of those bills, but I did read at one of the big road sites. This is back when I first started towing. I'm not sure if they changed now, but they would pay to get your windshield repaired if it got damaged during shipment did they have like a fucking like epidemic of tow truck drivers taking out windshields for a while?
Speaker 2like how, what? Maybe like most of these rules and most of these things are brought in right because of an issue, right like you don't offer free windshield repair while being towed, unless you had a problem with windshields getting damaged while being towed yeah, right like well, I think you're seeing fewer and fewer gravel roads now too out and about, so it could have been a dying thing.
Speaker 1Yeah, Maybe back in the 60s, 70s, 80s it was more of a big deal.
Speaker 2Possibly. But yeah, it's just, it's an odd. It's an odd. I've never, I've never heard of it, I've never seen it. So I'm taking you know, as you should do, I'll take your opinion in this case, on it.
Speaker 1Yeah, um, your thoughts on it, but no, that's a that's wild to me but I could see a customer being upset about it Right, like if I tow their car and when it gets to the drop off. Now, all of a sudden, they've got a big cracked windshield or, having forbid, their windshield is now all spider cracked and you can't see throughout the windshield Right. That would be a fight that I wouldn't want to have, but it would be.
Speaker 2See, that's the kind of damage claim I would like to fight, because I go. Mr Customer, if you would have driven your car, you would have taken the exact same route, follow the exact same Like there's At one point it's go fly a kite.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Here's At one point it's go fly a kite. Yeah, I will take responsibility for any damage that we do because of our towing practices. I will not take responsibility for any damage. Okay, you're towing, you get a flat tire. Right, You're towing the car. You get a flat tire on, let's say, a front-wheel drive with rear tires. On the ground, you get a flat tire. Who's responsible? It's not the towing company.
Speaker 1It rear tires on the ground, you get a flat tire. Who's responsible? It's not the towing company. That's not the towing company. In that one they could say well, did the driver notice it right away? Did he pull over and change the tire, did he?
Speaker 2drive, like you know well, like he noticed, he noticed it. He comes around, got a flat tire, takes a corner. Okay, got a flat tire, pull. Who's responsible for paying for that tire? Not, not the towing company, right, I want to avoid that, put it on a bed, but it's not realistic and we understand that. Right, there is records and records are involved in the towing industry for many, many, many years for a reason. But, yeah, who's responsible? My opinion I've been in customer, right, I'm trying to think of other things that could happen, like the cracked windshield thing, customer, a stone coming up off the road and hitting the side of the car and putting a scratch in it. Let's say, oh, dollies, right, yeah, yeah, true, a stone coming up off a tire and hitting you know, customer, you see when you tow with dollies in the winter.
Speaker 2How disgusting it makes the side of the car going on a dirt, muddy road with dollies in the summertime, and you see how disgusting it makes out of a car, but no, okay. So here's an example stone comes up off of a dolly tire and scratches a car or something along those lines. Customer Dolly tire blows out and scratches the customer car Towing company. Right, if a stone comes off my tow truck and hits your car and I have my mud flaps, I'm fully road legal on everything. It's just a stone that came out of the tread.
Speaker 1It's customer. But what if that customer wanted a bed and you convinced him into a wrecker with dollies?
Speaker 2It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter it doesn't matter. It's a good way to lose a customer. His vehicle is getting transported up in the air off the ground, like stuff happened. Like it would have been no different if he drove it. Yeah.
Speaker 2Right, like road hazard stuff like that. That, would you know, applies to you driving the vehicle or it being towed, and maybe I I'll you know, maybe that'll some people don't agree with that. I'd love to hear the argument on it. Right? But you know, where does a damage claim start? At what point do you draw that line right, is it like? I'd be curious to different opinions on it and and that's the scenario, right, same concept though.
Speaker 1So you're towing something, let's say a Honda Civic. Honda Civic's probably a bad example, but anyways, you're driving down the road with it on your wrecker and you're driving down a road you've never driven down and you hit a bad pothole and you bust out an oil pit. So you had more than enough clearance. You just didn't see the condition of the road Towing company. I know it's the towing company, but like it's something that was kind of out of your control, that just happened going down the road.
Speaker 2No, it didn't. It's not out of your control to avoid the big pothole.
Speaker 1Well, I don't know about the roads around you, but some of our roads up here look like war zones.
Speaker 2Yeah, so take a different road. That's in completely in your control yeah so towing company yeah want to run other scenarios by me. What else you got?
Speaker 1it's just.
Speaker 2It's always a fight, though, no matter what it's yeah, it's towing the customers will always want something for free, and they always look at us as oh, the stupid tow truck driver damaged my car towing a customer's car on a pickup truck in the tailgate fucking, slams down while you're towing it fucking maybe catches, maybe it's got a trailer pinned well, that wouldn't really make sense, I don't know. Maybe he's got something on the bumper and it, you know, damages the tailgate because the tailgate opened while the tow truck driver was towing it. Customer, if I didn't touch your tailgate and I didn't go in, you know what I mean. Like, if I show up, this thing is lodged and it's going down the road in the tow truck and it hits a bump and the tailgate opens. Customer.
Speaker 1But what if it's the pickup truck and you've loaded it backwards and it had a roll up tunnel cover and you had to open up tailgate to roll up the tunnel cover?
Speaker 2Well then, the tailgate is falling the other way. Um talking to like the boom of your tow truck. Yeah, Towing company.
Speaker 1Yeah, so as soon as you touch it. You're now liable. Well, as soon as you touch it.
Speaker 2Yeah, so as soon as you touch it, you're now liable. Well, as soon as you touch it, yeah, like if you secure it and you check it, you're liable, 100%, 100%. I think that's the fair way to look at it. As soon as you touch it, you're liable for it. Right, I thought you were going to say that the tunnel cover comes off. I'm like towing company because it's backwards and it's not supposed to go that way.
Speaker 2Um, no, like I said, there's there's a lot of things like that, that fighting a damage claim is always fun, um, if you're in the right. It sucks when you're in the wrong, um, but there's times where you gotta, you know, tell people to kick rocks and then there's times it's easier to just shut them up, right, you know? I had a customer one time it cost me five dollars to solve a clam. I wasn't even going to fight it regardless. He popped the uh neutral release tab out of like a dodge caravan or a dodge something. It was like the one that you had like the cover. Yeah, you know, that little piece that comes out yeah and he said he put it in the cup holder.
Speaker 2Customer couldn't find it. Customer was mad because I was got a hole in her you know next to her shifter and I went to a scrapyard and grab her.
Speaker 2I think I found one in the backyard of our yard. No, I had to order it off dodge. I tried. I looked, I didn't have that same one, didn't have it in the same trim color and I ordered one for like five dollars off dodge and showed up at her house and put it in because it wasn't worth the argument that my drive, you know, he said. She said you know this wasn't, we weren't talking about a you know 200 part where I'd go. No, my guy, you know I stand by my driver. Whatever, this is just a really five bucks gonna make you happy. Okay, I'm gonna spend more time fighting you on this, like I'm gonna spend more than five dollars arguing with you. I'd rather just give you the five bucks I I think damage claims are.
Speaker 1I towed a rental car the once and I was putting it up on dollies.
Speaker 1And as I was putting it up on dollies, I was looking at the back corner panel of this car and I looked and I saw a scratch, kind of like at the same level as the dollies, but not where the dollies could even touch it. I was like I'm gonna get blamed for that, because anytime a rental car gets brought back in they go over it with like a fine-tooth comb. So I had to take, I took pictures of everything, I brought my manager out to the scene because he was close anyways, and we dropped the dollies and cranked the dollies back up just to show like the dollies couldn't touch where this big scrape was and just to cover our ass, because I didn't notice it prior to loading. If I noticed it prior to putting dollies underneath of it and took a picture of it, my ass would have been covered. But since I already had dollies underneath the car, I wanted to just double and triple check to make sure that I couldn't be blamed for something I didn't do.
Speaker 2And that's what a lot of it is. It's covering your goddamn ass, remembering that everybody out there is trying to get a buck off you and nobody wants to pay you for your services. So, for the love of God, cover your ass cover ass always.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly Our favorite three letters. Yeah, but no, it's true. Cover your ass when it comes to avoiding damage, slams, and cover your ass when it comes to getting payment. We've talked about this before, and I want to share two separate stories that we recently had. I don't think I ever shared the. The most recent one, right the burn job.
Speaker 1the most recent burn job I'm not sure if it was on the show or not okay.
So, um, we've talked about, you know, confirming payment, two stories that we had. One customer calls us up one day, says I got a dodge ram pickup truck that was coming back from new brunswick and I started having transmission issues. Where when have I heard that joke before? So, on the safe side, I was towing my fifth wheel camper. I left my fifth wheel camper there and drove the truck back empty to put less strain on the transmission. I made it back. I'm currently in the process of rebuilding my transmission, but I need to get my camper brought back.
Speaker 2What would you charge me? And we're not going to get into the camper brought back. What would you charge me and I, you know we're not going to get into the billing side. On what we would charge, it was about a I want to say it was like 2 000 kilometer round trip, you know, on this whole thing. And so we put together a price with the customer. He agrees okay, no problem, okay.
Speaker 2So we go and we drive down to new brunswick and we pick up the trailer, exactly where. It is nothing wrong with the trailer, right, we haul it back and we had one driver go down and bring it back and then I went and delivered it to the customer's house. So I show up at the customer's house with him. We kept in contact with him the whole time and everything. And he comes out and he goes. Yeah, he's like you guys have never been screwed before. Eh, I go, what do you mean? He goes? Well, you went down, you did 2 000 kilometer, you know a thousand kilometers down to go get my trailer. You never asked me for a credit card number in advance. What if the trailer wasn't there? I was like, well, you're lucky, it was. Yeah, but it's true, like I never.
Speaker 2This guy called us out of the blue and I dealt with him directly and I'm I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character, yep, and I spoke with him on the phone because I remember asking him, like, how'd you hear about us? Oh well, we stopped to get food at the truck stop, you know, and so whenever we ran into problems, we just thought, oh, we'll try calling them, they're close to home and different things like that. But I never guaranteed any sort of payment before I left. It was a country guy, I don't know. You just get those moments. So that was, you know, take note, you can. You know that would have burned, driving all the way down to New Brunswick for nothing. I mean, we just went down with a 2500 pickup, right, we didn't bring a tow truck down because it didn't require anything special and towed it back. So we talked weeks ago it was just a fun little story I wanted to share um, we talked weeks ago about a motorcycle recovery that we did where the police had called us and we wouldn't go ahead and do the job until the insurance company, you know, got involved their guaranteed payment.
Speaker 2Well, I ran into that again. I get a call from a, a local but, um, a different police force than we normally deal with, for a vehicle burnt to a crisp, and so right away, my dispatch was trained okay, police call. Okay, get a truck going. I'm like I'm gonna go take a look at this. It's over, uh, it's over the bridge you need. There's tolls involved and everything else. It's a big, you know.
Speaker 2So I go over and I meet the officers over there and it is a 2023 rolls royce, not rolls royce, sorry. Uh, land rover burnt to the ground. Well, actually, at first when I got there, I didn't know what it was burnt to the ground. They had no vin number that they've been able to find. They don't know who the owner is like. They just want us to pick it up. And it's in a field, not blocking a road. It's not an emergency, it's in a field. So I tell the officers, I go okay, well, it's not going to come out of here today. Here's what's going to like. Here's my problem. I do not want to send all my the resources that I need to properly do this job, only to find out that I'm going to get stuck with this bill. Do you have an owner? Do you have a whatever? Okay, well, let's look. And then they started to do the digging a little deeper yeah, and now I guess we got to do our job now shit 100.
Speaker 2So they called the owner while I was there and I got her policy number and it was an american vehicle. It was insured through geico. Saved me 15 or more on insurance by torching in the field a stupid little lizard.
Speaker 2So I call geico with all this information and I explain to them who I am, because I'm in the canadian side. They're, you know, they trust me to buffalo, um and and get this all sorted out. And they said, okay, we're gonna send you an email um, you know, it's like a claim through like thread so that you can respond and whatever. I said okay, so I send them off an email. I go here is, uh, our breakdown for our recovery for this vehicle right now. I've got a roll-off truck to clean up the debris, I've got my float, I've got this, I've got the disposal fee at the landfill. This, this, this, all here here is my, my all in total and it the only thing that is is to be added to this is 65 a day. Storage for the um, storage of the carcass. I'm going to call it because I'm going to pretty much go there and I'm going to take the carcass and I'm going to shake it like the frame and get all the loose stuff off, put that on a bed and the rest is getting scooped into a roll off bin and go into the dump.
Speaker 2Yeah, never hear back from them. Day or two goes by. Don ever hear back from them. Day or two goes by don't hear back from them. My wife gets a call on impound. Hey, this is a canadian insurance company or that manages or that deals with and it pickups out of our yard. I'm looking for information and a payout on this, this vehicle. My wife explains to them the vehicle is not currently in our yard. Until we can get confirmation of this invoice, you know, being accepted, where we're, we haven't sent out the trucks. So if you can get confirmation for that, we'll send out the trucks. Nope, there he goes by, don't hear back from anybody. Okay, great, so I'm not going to get it. Next day, tow truck shows up at our yard with a check from the company to pick up the vehicle.
Speaker 1Just tell them where it is. I'll keep the check. Go get it bud.
Speaker 2I'm like it's not here. What do you mean? It's not here. I'm like nobody has given us confirmation. He's like well, I think the check is confirmation. I'm like I agree the check is I'll?
Speaker 2have it here this afternoon. Yeah, we went out and we went and got it, but did he leave the check for you? No, no, no, he took the check back. And then he showed up the next day with a check just for an extra day storage, which didn't make any sense oh, because they didn't want to get it that afternoon, um, with an extra day storage, and then didn't have the original check. And then came with the original check and it was worth more than the invoice. Like I don't understand insurance companies and so it was.
Speaker 2But it's one of those things like confirm your payment. It was another one where it would be so easy for somebody to take this vehicle in and sit on it and chase ownership and chase whatever and all that where it's like, if it's not, it's a non-priority vehicle, make the calls first. Get the information from these. Make the calls. The cops surprisingly understand if this is in the middle of the road blocking an intersection you can't go hold on. I want to call their insurance to make sure they'll pay my bill. I get that part right and on most vehicles right with the process that you have through ontario, depending on on, you know you can pile up and scrap them at one point to get most of your cost back out of it. Yeah, I ain't getting anything out of a burnt frame suv. There's no weight left and what I'm paying to dispose of garbage right. So the it's so important to just it's little things like that, especially when our industry is in such an upside-down, tipsy-turvy kind of place that you can make those arrangements ahead of time.
Speaker 2People have asked before seeing trailers on the side of highways in Canada. Right, Americans have been shocked by that at NBC. What's this trailer still doing here? Because they're waiting for confirmation before they go get it. They're doing the right thing instead of getting screwed and stuck with the bill.
Speaker 1I think you are. I think you're in a better position to negotiate that way, though, because if you're in a very populated area, they'll just keep calling another tow company until some schmuck goes out and does it.
Speaker 2Then let him fucking deal with the bullshit that comes with it. Yeah.
Speaker 2You know, let him deal with the bullshit. If the cops can't understand that, at the end of the day, you are a business, you know they. I think they get a little too complacent in the thought well, fire, ambulance, whatever they're all like me, tow trucks, like you guys just got to do, like we just do this and it's like no, I'm a business, you're publicly funded and at the end of the day, my business has to make money. If not, it's not a business, it's a fucking charity and I don't I believe in donating to cherry. I charity, I don't believe in running. The business is one. So you know most cops. So if you just have an honest conversation about it, they understand.
Speaker 2Look, I don't want to get stuck with this thing. You don't say that I'm not under contract to be. You know that you have to make me do this. There is one police force I have that I'm under contract, that I don't have a choice. I have to. It's a dumb contract, but it is what it is. I don't have to. This is why I'm concerned. If you can help me with these concerns by giving me an RO's information, by giving me this kind of stuff, then I can work something out and we'll get this done for you. You're right From the private parking side of things. They're just going to call somebody else right Like private parking I still don't do.
Speaker 2Right, like private parking, I still don't do. I love they call us. Well, the cops told us to call you. Well, I only go if the cops call us. Well, I call the cops, I know, but that's not what I mean. Right, because that's what happens. They'll call the police and say, hey, I got a private vehicle here I want removed. Okay, well, you can call company towing. You know A towing one, one, two, three towing. They're who we use. And then they call us.
Speaker 2We go, no, we don't do that. Like what do you mean? And then again it's. It comes down to it's just like I don't. It's not that I don't want to help you, it comes down to it's bad public, it's, it's by publicity.
Speaker 2Um, you know we're here to help the community and I understand that you're in a bit of a situation with this. However, um, you know, I'm gonna get stuck with this vehicle. I'm, or I'm gonna have to charge you ludicrous pricing where there's all the stuff that goes into it. We'd rather not get involved in it. Most people go no, that makes sense. But if you call company 245, they will absolutely help you out. And they call company 245 and they go, haul their scrap away and deal with it. You know what I mean. Like there's no reason that just because you're a towing company that you need to take all the shit right, like if you're going to get the shit, fine, you know, find ways.
Speaker 2And this bill, like my bill was it was a high bill for a burn recovery, right, but it was detailed. It was this unit. You know my triaxial float and it's going to sound like overkill my triaxial float at an hourly rate for three hours. Travel out, load and clean up everything, travel back my roll-off truck for three hours. Yep, the dumping of the fee. And I went based on the last one that I did. I put the pricing at the same price and my skid steer that I was using to do the cleanup in the field. No, did you. That's why I use the triaxial.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly, I charged slightly more, yeah, but saved a second, another unit having to go out and then paying, and then I, you know 100 bucks in tolls, whatever it was, whatever the tolls we calculated would be. No, I sent the triaxial so I could haul the carcass onto the bed and then also reload the skid steer on it. Save a truck, because I'm not trying to screw the insurance company, I'm trying to get paid value for my services, right, and that's the problem. They, they want to pre-bill. A lot of them ahead of time, they, lot of them ahead of time. They want to know what it's going to cost. Well, okay, so I went three hours. Well, it took me two. Well, guess what?
you needed a price rate up front no if it would have taken me four, you wouldn't let me charge four. So if it took me two, you're paying three. Right, that was the agreed upon every invoice that they had seen before that had three hours on it before we had even done the job. So, protecting yourself, making sure you're getting paid, the importance in the towing industry, at the end of the day, we can do the job in, you know, every day, all day. Half the half the battle is getting is doing the job. The other half is getting paid. Right, that is, that's the big struggle, and not just getting paid, but getting paid what you're worth. So, um, I think that was fun. I like this episode, gee.
Speaker 1I think we had a good time. Did the learning curve ramp up a little bit.
Speaker 2Yeah, I feel like we're. We were very, uh, educational to our listeners. Hmm, I figured like you know, watch out Sesame street, we're coming for you With a couple extra fucks sprinkled throughout.
Speaker 2A couple F-bombs sprinkled in on the Sesame Street. So yeah, that being said, on behalf of myself and my wonderful co-host, mr Tomanji, we thank you for joining us for another episode of the Toman Life Podcast. We cannot wait to see you again next week. Take care, toodles, joining us for another episode of the towing life podcast. We cannot wait to see you again next week. Take care, toodles, did you try and make a joke about the fucking shooting?
Speaker 1yeah, yeah, I did make a joke about the fucking shooting.
Speaker 2What was the joke exactly that you said? I knew it was Local law enforcement's always dropped the ball.
Speaker 1Oh, because they're supposed to be on that roof. They're in the building but not on the roof. Apparently, that roof was too slopey, even though the Secret Service was on a more slanted roof.
Speaker 2Could you think of let's end this recording.