TowZone

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HALIFAX, Pa. (WHTM) — A Halifax firefighter was laid to rest Thursday afternoon. Last Tuesday, 29-year-old Tyler Laudenslager was killed while he was working as a tow truck driver. Laudenslager is being remembered for his love and devotion to his family and his multiple jobs helping others. “Tyler just had an infectious laugh, infectious smile. Everybody gravitated toward him,” said Halifax Fire Chief Tim Neiter. “He was just one of those guys, even if it was a bad day and bad things were happening, he’d find the good in it.” He was firefighter in Halifax, but died while operating a tow truck for H&S Towing. “Anything you needed Tyler to do he dug into. You didn’t have to ask him because he was already doing it,” said Robert Hummelbaugh, owner of H&S Towing. Hummelbaugh said towing may be a competitive industry, “Yet we have each other’s back and you can see that right here. These people are here for support because we lost one of ours.” It’s another big reminder to slow down and move over when you see emergency vehicles. “That’s our office there alongside the highways,” said Jackie Weyandt, HR manager for H&S Towing. “We go out there to help the public every day and we have families that are waiting for us as well, so we would like to go home to them.” A fleet of tow trucks surrounded the service including the rig Laudenslager drove that night and his own pickup truck on top. “We’ve got people that came from the Philadelphia area and people that didn’t even know him but knew of him,” Neiter said. He enjoyed trains, camping, taking cruises and spending time with his wife Holly and 10-month-old daughter Riley. He was even working on restoring a fire truck for his daughter, which carried his casket on his last ride to the cemetery. “Whether it was being a tow operator, whether it was being a fireman, whether it was being a family member, whether it was being a friend, he always went above and beyond and he will be sorely missed,” Neiter said. RESOURCE LINK with video

Does anyone here have any information on this gathering of tow trucks this Saturday in Virginia? Saturday morning 08.01.20 - 10 AM AT NORTHERN VIRGINIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN ANNANDALE VA

This is one I ran across today and do not have enough information to forward on as a news story. It involves a Tow Truck and a AAA Members death from a gun shot. It is unclear if the tow truck driver was on the scene at the time of the shooting. Since this was likely a regional story perhaps a member has more info. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/mattapan-mother-mourns-daughter-slain-trying-to-buy-used-bmw-in-lowell-murder-suspect-arraigned-in-court/ar-BB17kQ2A

This is why Old School Professionals Do Not Drive Vehicles onto the roll back, carrier, flat-bed tow truck. I was taught this decades ago. How many of you were taught this is wrong? Classic car catches fire in Canton, Ohio Damage to the 1947 model was minimal, fire inspector says. CANTON City firefighters were called at 6:44 a.m. Tuesday to 19th Street NW where a classic car had caught fire. Canton Fire Prevention Inspector Joseph Carafelli said the 1947 Mercury Deluxe Convertible was being driven onto flat-bed tow truck in the 1100 block of 19th Street NE. It was being taken to a shop for brake repairs when a leaking fuel line ignited the engine. The towing driver immediately put out the fire to the car, which has only 73,000 original miles. Carafelli said the vehicle is salvageable, although no monetary amount was placed on the estimated damage. The fire was accidental, he said. https://www.cantonrep.com/news/20200728/classic-car-catches-fire-in-canton

IT's way past time we get back to the weekly T-shirt drawings. I have had a difficult time getting Savannah and myself in at the same time. I got in early this morning before she left for school. That's right she's back in school as of last week. The kids need to be in school, most can adapt to what is required. While is her school there is a choice as to attending school in person or e-learning. OK, enough of that and we hope many of you are getting back to some sort of normal. I know their trying to shut us down again. All the while there is more testing which raises the number of infected persons who may or may not be showing any signs. Many will never show signs yet be a carrier, so keep those with compromised immune systems safe. A vaccine is around the corner. What you heard there is a chip in the vaccine! Listen if the government wanted to implant a chip, they would have done it in the Flu Vaccine nearly half the population takes every year. I'm taking the Covid Vaccine after the initial round of shots. Now, enough of that here's the List of 10 plus 1 for a bonus prize to be anounced soon. Bill Kalenda - ChipZ - fenderbendr6 - FTI Groups - Jeff Myers - mdjohnson - njss - Riggio Towing - tmehi - Queensway Tire Mystery Prize - Bob Claessens Remember you must respond with 48 hours of this post or your name goes back into the drawing.

Unless it is a really small company with 3 or less drivers. Then I have stated numerous times I seriously dislike slip seating drivers. I have found that it is not productive, tow operators should be the best at what they do with each type of equipment. Yes, I have experienced heavy drivers who were capable of picking up a service truck (pickup style) with their heavy which was in the area they were in 100 miles from base and would not do it. That's Wrong! But, Leave Heavy Drivers in Heavy Equipment. Leave Carrier/Rollbacks drivers in that equipment and so on. Now there are medium duty drivers that aspire to be heavy drivers and are willing to go up or down. But, forcing a driver into a piece of equipment they are not comfortable operating. Is Wrong!

Special procession held to honor tow truck driver killed while helping motorist on turnpike RESOURCE LINK

Sadly this is not a united industry, you couldn't even get near 100% of the industry to shut down for an hour across the nation. Pull to the side and turn their lights on, get National News. Show up in front of the Court Houses, Mayors and Governors Offices. Yeah, even pushing other protestors out of the way for an hour. It could happen but it won't and another Tower Down message will go out before the month is out. Now I know many of you are shaking your heads. Now think about all the tow operators who are not just sick and tire of seeing these tower down messages. Our Brothers are being Murdered by distracted drivers and the numbers are not declining. Slow Down Move Over Laws are No Better than Seat Belt Laws. Kinda like the Mayor of Chicago who says if the President wants to help in Chicago, don't send in forces. Implement Stronger Gun Regulation. WOW, think about it.

26 Companies is the definition of insanity! Is this on a rotation basis or assigned area?

Had a call 30 years ago, about A mile away from the seen they said step it up they needed assistance with the extrication of the injured driver. As as I did an officer pulled out and lit me up. OK, either he is attempting to pull me over or follow me to the scene. Either way I was not slowing down. He got on the PA and said pull over, get this I'm maybe a 1000 feet or 4 blocks from the scene. I arrive on scene and he comes running up as I exit the truck. The other direction is a Sargent that immediately chews that officer out as I continue to walk up the the scene. Of Course Fire was getting the driver out of the vehicle. That's the way it used to happen more than not. As Fire became more skilled and added more tools they don't call for code as often. Actually rarely, I assume the officer, ducked tail and left the scene. I may have had a couple of more run ins with him before he either left the department or was reassigned. Someone said he was placed on desk duty because of his strong temper. He must have been one of the 1%. I've met a few and they met me, oddly I never realized I had higher connections then they did and the officer often had a bad past. One of the last ones transferred from another department which did not release his disciplinary records until after the transfer. For a couple of reasons it took the department several years and multiple public confrontations to terminate him. Even though they released ALL the records, I heard another department hired him. You may ask way these departments hire bad cops or keep bad cops. It's similar to the reason tow companies don't send new tow operators to training. Actually it's opposite, Police Departments spend considerable money to train an officer and do not want to spend more to train another officer even though in most of these officers in training the mental issues should have been recognized. Towing Companies do not send new drivers to training because of the number of drivers that leave once they have the training. However, when we look deeper into the training we find that drivers without proper training cost the company more money over time then drivers that received skills from training sessions.

By, Norris McDonald Special to the Star Several weeks ago, I wrote a column about tow trucks. I specifically talked about how, when there’s a crash on the highway, there’s a no-holds-barred race between trucks to get there because the first to reach the scene gets the tow. Ambulances used to do that. They were privately owned and they’d race to get to a crash scene first because if there was a fatality, the first-on-scene would get the body. Some of those ambulances were owned by funeral homes; other parlours paid the ambulance driver for the delivery. Mike Harris put an end to that in 1998 with what was called the Local Services Realignment, which resulted in the EMS ambulance system. And at least one tow-truck company president thinks the current government has to act as decisively to end the free-for-all on the roads that exists today. Joey Gagne is the owner and president of Abrams Towing Services. Abrams has locations in the GTA, Hamilton, Windsor, Ottawa — just about everywhere — and has been in business since 1984. For years, Gagne was president of the Provincial Towing Association of Ontario, which works on the legislation process with government. For just about forever, there’s been a problem with accident clearance on, particularly, the 400-Series highways. That’s where the money is. You have established, honest, tow companies that have been around for what seems like forever and they frequently have their business stolen from them by poorly trained, opportunistic, cowboy towers who swoop in, scoop the damaged vehicle and haul if off to unscrupulous body shop operators who refuse to release it until obscene amounts of money are paid. Since that column appeared, I heard from a lawyer who spends just about all his time in court on behalf of Canada’s big banks, trying to get those cars and light trucks released from liens. And from Gagne, who felt I owed the honest towers a column to tell their side of the story. Gagne, in his role as president of the tow association, was on the committee that came up with the most recent set of regulations that became law in 2018 and stipulated that tow trucks had to have their rates posted, had to take credit cards as payment, and that sort of thing. But Gagne, in our wide-ranging interview in which he talked about his company’s rigorous training program and how a few bad apples are not representative of what’s essentially been a long-established, mom-and-pop industry, said those regulations failed to put an end to the “first-on-scene” or “first available” system. RESOURCE LINK

Yeah, I heard he's on Linkedin these days and twitter these days. The industry is so fragmented, it was so much easier back in the days of Tow411. I gave up on Facebook a few months back and deleted most of my contacts. The attacks seen on other drivers and lack of control in groups that think their number one was too much. I just follow some politics but even that is better on YouTube.

An undetermined number of tow truck drivers not operators have little to no respect for police officers. These are not career tow truck operators, these are the warm bodies that companies are putting behind the wheel. They are unskilled, untrained and unaware of their actions. The companies either do not care or have no other option. Like a Bad Cop which nationally is under 1.8 percent of all police officers. a factor of 1 in 50 tow truck drivers being Bad reflects on an entire industry. That's what we're dealing with and have dealt with for years.

Not sure I feel that AAA has ever truly been in touch with the tow operators themselves. But then we have not had any interaction with AAA representative on the message board in years.

Randall, it's related to the current situation regarding civil unrest. Never before have we seen the level of attacks on anyone associated with the police. While the majority are not physical and the danger may not even be aimed at the tow truck operator, the fire fighter, the EMS worker, even the trash collectors which many now carry guns. It is present in the inner city, those is rural communities do not have the same danger level. Then again when you go into a rural community many towers have been carrying for years without an issue. This is the reason I stated in another topic that a tow operator should always without delay call a police officer when the is a subject down in a vehicle. I know that many will attempt to wake that driver unaware that the majority of the time even a police officer will not do this without back up. Think about it, what is that tow truck driver waking up. It sure is not the same drunk from 20, 30, 40 years ago. Back then an officer or a tow truck driver thinking they were doing a person a favor would give them a ride home. Especially a tow truck operator who might be sympathetic to the individual and their situation. Today that could get one injured as the dangers service personals face has increased. Officers are at a higher risk and tow truck operators are at a higher risk. Ask the motor clubs what percentage of companies will send a driver out between midnight and 6am compared to a year ago. You will be amazed how many have chosen to refuse or delay that service call. Do I blame them, not if they are untrained, unarmed and unprepared.

I find that more that half of the drivers which complain about being struck have both placed themselves in the danger zone for more time then they needed to be there. Being they could have both worked the truck away from the traveled lanes and worn proper ANSI Clothing. I find that the Guardian Angel light on the right side of my belt is a benefit as well. The side side is the side of my body most visible and I can place it on my shoulder if needed. I really should have placed my second Guardian Angel there last night. It's a habit, we're due to get tactical vests in a few months. I'll likely leave the other one on it at all times.

We must start Calling Out these Trucking Companies who have Drivers that DO NOT Slow Down & Move Over. The names are right there on the sides of the trucks, we need to bring this to managements attention pronto. "I was nearly struck numerous times last night by truckers who even though they could not move over due to the fact I was working in one lane. They did not reduce their speed and flew by throwing up rocks which were in the roadway due to the accident. I got hit at least a couple of times by the pebbles. Yes, they sting and it wasn't 4 wheeler's this time. It was truckers who had plenty of time to slow down. There were 3 marked police cars staged up to 150 feet back. Plenty of time, yet these TRUCKERS didn't CARE." WE HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE.., Since commercial vehicles are the easiest to identify. I truly believe we have to start from the biggest down rather the the smallest up as has been done in the past. When was the last time you were pelted by a rock, hurts doesn't it. Though, I am sure it's not as bad as being struck by that vehicle that failed to Slow Down.

More than half of those who have had their vehicle towed claim it was an illegal tow. Yes, there are companies who either know their drivers are towing legally parked vehicles or the drivers are doing this to make commission. Regardless there needs to be proof on both sides and this article provides none. I am down with legally conducting private property impounds and we don't hear about the price gouging and illegal tows as much these days. That is mainly due to fewer companies conducting these types of impound tows. Regulations resulting from price gouging have made it unappealing to many companies, leaving property owners with few options in some localities. I have my own opinions on the proper way to conduct these types of tows which I have voiced in the past. I'll go over those again in a proper post.

Myself, this is obviously shady. My issue is the $205 and $265 is not out of line or price gouging. The report doesn't provide any supporting evidence the tows were not legal, so I have to question that as well. While it appears to be unacceptable, I need to see more complaints to verify this is a serious problem. I suppose that is because I have actually seen price gouging and drivers taking vehicles improperly because they were not making enough money on their patrol towing. Personal property missing out of those vehicles when paid for a few hours later. These issues didn't come up, so I need to heard more on this one.

I keep coming back to this topic and it just isn't that much of a factor for myself. Because 4 out of 5 of the rollovers I recover our on their roof.

"placement of 4x4's on the pavement to arrest rollaway" Might be Experienced, but 4 X 4's are always the sign of a trained operator.

I be the one to show up muddy drive tires and shiny dolly tires when the inspector arrives. As for the birds nested wire rope, that sets me off. Even to see it on a unit for sale aggravates me. It takes so little time to keep them neat and tight. Dollies can be a constant maintenance requirement when used regularly. Even when they are not used the have to be inspected regularly.