Stubborn66

On 3/3/2023 at 4:14 PM, brian991219 said:

Just a heads up, I have received notice from PSP they intend to cite for all blue light violations on the first offense. Seems Harrisburg is not that pleased we have this new legislation.

We have mounted rear facing blue's that are on a separate switch simply because it was easier and cheaper than to have the light bar modified.  We will continue to put out flares when on a busy roadway, the smoke and flame seems to get attention better than any light bar.

I am sure there will be operators who run with them on, hopefully when they get that ticket they will stop running with the yellows on the all the time as well.  It is amazing to me how many operators run with the lights on all the time.  It is no wonder the people are desensitized to the yellow's.  

Not surprising that someone would come out and try to complain about this new law, now that is has teeth.  

Flashing lights can be seen from far away, the problem is that no takes them seriously until they are right on top of them.  

you have to get a subscription to read the resource link

I was just notified by my rep that NSD has lost the Avis contract.  I think this has been in the works for a while now.

Also, I got another new rep, this makes about 6 over the past few years.  She is telling me that NSD is no longer paying the OOA fee.  They are only paying dead head miles back to your coverage area.  Watch what calls you take, if she is correct, there are many calls that we will not be running if we wont be compensated the $25.00 OOA fee.  We are already giving them 20 miles of dead head on all calls.

I dont think she is correct, and she cannot seem to answer my questions clearly.  She is supposed to have her manager call me to clear this up.

That new building and losing Avis will be interesting.

we have had Towbook for just about a year now.

Pros:

it gives us a good platform for documenting our calls easily and keeps all information in one place, the pictures and notes are all kept in one place.

It has actually saved us from Agero charge backs.

We are a small company, and tracking our drivers is not what we intended, but tracking our drivers via GPS tracking has also helped to prove service was completed.

We have maintained our volume level with Geico  which is who wanted us to go digital

We have integrated Towbook with our accounting system, Quick Books which has helped us streamline our billing and making sure we are paid properly.

Cons:

Agero seems to have access to us, even though we are not contracted with them.  They send out digital dispatches at all hours of the day with ridiculously low payouts and we cannot shut them down without stopping all digital dispatches.

One of their selling points is that we can get "extra" work with these digital dispatches, but only if you want to run for nothing.

Overall, we are happy with the choice, and although we were hesitant to go digital it has been a positive move, even considering the cost.

pretty sure that one will have insurance!!

thank you for what you do to keep the site going

1 geico

2 NSD

3 allstate

all others CC up front

happy new year, still here from PA

SENATE BILL No. 1123 Session of 2022

I can't get the whole thing to copy and paste, but yes, rear facing only.  If you read the whole thing, it is confusing on when the yellows can be used

I am going to wait a bit before I even put blue lights on the back of the trucks.

I think this is a good thing but now I envision guys going down the road with the blue lights flashing ((even though is specifically states when the vehicle is stationary.) 

For us, we still break out three flares when it is high traffic.  There is something about the flame and smoke that actually gets traffic to slow more than lights.  15-minute flares generally give plenty of time to load.

Curious as to everyone's thoughts on this

13 hours ago, yoBdaBenO said:

Does anyone think this driver has potential?

Welcome to Burger King, may I take your order

Just ordered a couple of rolls to try......tarps were getting beat up

Ed,

Nice Truck, thought you were a Ford guy???

Just curious, did you mount the back up camera off to the side of the pivot point on the wheel grid?  It looks that way in the picture.

When I mounted mine, I put it on the center line and use it to line up on the emblem of the causality when I can.

1 hour ago, DragNTow said:

Looks like Honk is learning from the other Motor Clubs. We accepted a rush lockout from them over the phone and quoted our price. A few minutes later it was accepted. We were on scene and completed the lockout  within 12 minutes. They sent credit card information and shorted us $25.00. 

We haven't heard anything from Honk in months, thankfully.  It just isn't worth the time spent dealing with them since they lost Carvana.  They would pay decent to get a Carvana vehicle moved but when it comes to their other accounts, not so much, they almost always declined our prices.  We asked to be removed from their attempt at digital dispatching through Towbook, we were getting a crazy amount of dispatch requests from them through Towbook that were hours away.

It seems they are scrambling since they lost Carvana, at least in our area.  Not surprised they are now shorting payments which was the only good thing about them when we did do some work for them, they paid promptly.

We renewed in August as well, then we got a notice in the mail that they were changing the dealer tags to a new style tag.  he questionnaire they sent asked if you were still using all of the tags that were assigned to you, if not, they wanted you to return any unused tags.  Supposedly, we are all getting new tags.  I would have to look, but I think it said in October

2 hours ago, brian991219 said:

Speaking of RT plates, did you have any trouble with your "re-justification" of how many plates you have and if you should even have RT plates at all? I am getting feedback from other towers that they are getting denied reissuance of their RT plates. I was kinda blindsided about this and only learned of it about 10 days ago, in fact just putting together an eblast to send out from the association asking for feedback on the process and Pennsylvania tower's results.

We filled out the questionnaire and have not gotten anything back from the state as yet.

Sounds like you would be better off with a 4wd wrecker, based on the versatility you want.  

51 minutes ago, Andy said:

Gotta remember the golden rule never leave on a tow without confirmation from the customer and bid a job right and dont back off that price. Especially with Agero. And Agero just seems to have more incorrect information than any company ive ever dealt with.

You hit the nail on the head, dont negotiate on calls when you are not contracted. 

For me, that call would have been a GOA when I could not find the vehicle at the address given and the customer did not answer.  Run the card and move on.  Agero does have terrible dispatching, but that is on them, not us.  Better than 50% of club calls I get have some sort of bad information.  I know alot of companies who run the card before they even leave the shop.  I generally don't, but I run it right when I finish the call.  

I had a similar situation where they sent me out 60 miles in the wrong direction, customer did not answer phone when I called but I proceeded toward the address.  The customer called me when I was about 15 minutes away and tells me he is in an entirely different location.  I explained where they had sent me and told him he would need to call back in for service.  I immediately ran the card before they could cancel it.  On my way back, Agero called me, I explained the situation and they asked me what it would cost them for me to go to the right location and complete the call.  I told them it would be a totally separate dispatch, I would not be responsible for the bad information and I had the dispatch records to prove THEIR mistake.  I quoted the job a second time and hard to believe, but they called me back and gave it to me.

This is also another example of where Towbook would have helped.  I make Agero and all clubs send dispatches to me through Towbook.  Customers who do not have the ability to send calls directly to me through Towbook, I manually convert the information however I receive it into Towbook. 

That automatically puts the addresses on the call with the time stamp of when it was sent to my Towbook account.  It also integrates with Google GPS, so I hit the address button and it puts me enroute to the address in Towbook.   When I arrive on scene, I hit the "On Scene" status and now I have a time stamp that I was where I was dispatched.  Pictures can be uploaded directly from my phone into Towbook so that information is already put together in the call file.

That is why I would have been confident in just running the card and call it a GOA.

If I get bad information on the rest of the call, locked in park, winching necessary etc.  I show the customer the dispatch I was given, explain the extra charges to them, give them the ability to cover those charges and get reimbursed or I run it as a GOA and move on.  Most times, the customers have been waiting so long, they will pay the overage and I complete the job.  I do give them a receipt very well documented so that can get paid.  I would bet better than half have to fight just like we do.  

If you bid them correctly and document correctly, you can make money but you will deal with a certain amount of club BS.

My main business is a repair shop, towing was always for our customers, a few years ago we decided to get more work on the trucks as filler work, and to bring some extra work into the shop.  For us, it has worked out well, but, we now have to deal with the BS that goes with that. 

We have only contracted with 3 companies, all other are VCC up front, including Agero.

I have had Agero challenge charges before and after I had Towbook and my documentation was good before but is even better now.  I have not refunded them anything.

You can take Towbook for a 3 month test drive.  I don't want to sound like a salesman for them and I didn't think I needed it either, but after I used it, I bought it.

For me the highlights are

time stamps on every step of the job, even when the call originates from the club

Vehicle information by plate or by vin the same was we look up parts, or it can be manually entered

pictures directly from my phone uploaded to each job, and I take many pictures

Customers sign a damage waiver directly on my phone that is included in the Towbook record

I "push" the calls to Quickbooks and the invoice is created in my accounting software.

There are other features, but for me, this is why I bought it.  There are other companies out there that offer this service and we looked at a few of them, but Towbook was the right fit for us.  We don't do any PPI work and very few impounds

tracy@blainesrepairservice.com

Ed is giving you very good advise.  You need to know what your true operating costs are before you can make good decisions.  Once you do that, you will be surprised what it costs to operate a tow business but you will know what you need to make a profit.  It takes more than being able to run a truck to successfully run a business.  I have a chart to calculate expenses that I will share with you if you email me that can help you.  Like Ed said, many of these new companies will be busy as hell loosing money and not even realize it until it is too late.

As far as insurance, if you are a new company with no history, your options will be limited.  You need to have a few years under your belt and be able to share loss runs to get better rates.  The biggest cost factor is generally your "on hook" coverage.  Most of the insurance companies require 150K of On Hook coverage.  Be sure you are getting quoted for On Hook, not just general liability.

17K for a new company with one truck is high, but not sure you will do much better.  Progressive is where many new companies land in the beginning

Motor clubs will not sustain a Tow business in my opinion.  They are great as fill in work but if you are going to be relying on them, you have a tough road ahead.  If you are solely a towing operation, you need to reach out to local repair shops, and establish your name with them.  Police rotations are great if you can get on, but they generally have equipment requirements as well as insurance requirements.  Google ads are another good source of customers, but they will generally be shopping price.

If you do go the motorclub route and you and your buddy are in the same area, I would find out his rates and start higher in my negotiation with the clubs.

Good Luck

When the front end starts coming off the ground is when it gets Interesting  😁

Has anyone tried these?  I have a Matco jump starter which is good, but heavy and still wont do the bigger diesels.  I also have a cheap Autozone one that charges from the USB port, it is light and honestly I think it does as good a job as the Matco one so long as the vehicle starts on the first or second try.  BUT, the charging port on the Autozone one is junk, I have had it replaced three times because the charging port connection comes apart.  I like the USB charging because I can leave it in the truck.

I am thinking of trying one of these

Thanks

Weego 120 Jump Starting Power Pack | 1200 Amps | Jump 0V Batteries (myweego.com)

Weego 120 Jump Starting Power Pack | 1200 Amps | Jump 0V Batteries (myweego.com)

Towbook gives you everything you need to combat this BS with Agero.  I am a small company and it was a big decision for me to pay for Towbook, but it is worth every penny.   

I didn't think the RT tag made a difference.  I was under the assumption that if you had a DOT number and an MC number with interstate authority you were good.  As I recall, NJ has some sort of use tax similar to NY hut but I thought that only pertained to CDL vehicles.

I am far enough away from the state lines that I don't have to deal with either, I just don't run them, but I can see you running into NJ quite a bit from where you are.

They get you anyway they can!