Since my last story looking at towing practices with several cases in the Southeast, no fewer than half a dozen truck drivers and industry professionals got in touch with their own personal horror stories about exorbitant, predatory fees. Such practices take advantage of the fact that, in each of the cases here, operators and their support staff were simply at the mercy of the towing company, sometimes with law enforcement on the scene as well.
In owner-operator William Booth's case, a few years back when he was leased to Prime, he misjudged the turn into a gas station, and he "wasn't watching my trailer tires."
You can guess what happened next.
"I turned a little short and before I knew it my two trailer tires on one side dropped down into a two-foot-deep ditch," he said. "I almost pulled out, but the back bumper dragged on the asphalt."
Booth was loaded "with about 40,000 lbs. on the trailer," he said, and this was in the wee hours of the night. Given Booth was blocking traffic, the cops eventually came and summoned a wrecker.
"I almost fainted" when he saw the bill, he said. It came in at around $3,000 to simply lift the trailer up two feet out of the ditch, and swing it over about ten feet back onto the road. "I was in no position to argue with anybody I was new to the driving thing and there’s two cops standing there with the tow truck driver just like, 'That'll be $3,000.' I was in shock. What can a guy say? I could have swallowed $1,500, but $3,000?"
[Related: $6,000 for 16 miles? Viral video sparks outrage over predatory towing]
