All but the very luckiest of souls has, at some point, had
their car towed away from them in the wake of malfunction from an automotive
towing company, or worse, come out to the place it had once been parked only
to find some phantom tow truck had grabbed hold of their prized possession and
quickly spirited it away. The latter case is always most infuriating, though
having to call an towing company is never anyone’s idea of a ripping good time
in itself. Either way, without traffic enforcement bylaws and tow Trucks we probably wouldn’t recognize the world we
live in, so it’s time to accept their existence, and know a few things about
them that can help you in case you have to cross their path.
The first thing to make sure of as a car owner is that you
have a plan of action in mind in the event of a breakdown or, God forbid, a
sudden realization that you haven’t the requisite amount of gasoline to
continue running that combustion engine of yours. It’s embarrassing, yes – but
hey, it happens to all of us, so the best thing to do is swallow pride and
vanity and ring up a auto towing company ASAP to get that motionless heap of
your off the road as quickly as humanly possible. Having a number handy with
you in your car at all times is a necessity. Just when you’re having the worse
day of your life as your engine overheats on two-lane bridge in the middle of
summer, billowing smoke out like chimney, you don’t need the added joy of
having to stop and ask someone if they know the number of a tow truck so that
you can quickly get out of the flow angry motorists who are bound to be making
vocal their aggravation with you.
But that, of course, is the worst of the possible scenarios
which could force you to have to call a towing company. We’ve all done the
key-in-the-ignition thing, where we frantically grope ourselves in hopes of
realizing we’ve left our set of keys in some secret, hidden pocket we didn’t
realize we had, and then peered in through the tightly sealed window to see
them dangling there inside locked doors. Again, we hate to admit our own
stupidity, but it happens, and a towing company is the first number you punch
into your cell phone to admit the understandable lapse in common sense. Of
course, you may also be in the unfortunate position of having battery with no
more juice without another soul around to help jumpstart you back into running
order.
And then there’s the other kind of auto towing that we have
to bear witness to on a daily basis: the parking violation tow away. This,
surely, is no laughing matter, but it’s also important for you as the motorist
(in this case, parked motorist) to know that there are rules and regulations
that every towing company must abide by before they hook themselves up to your
car and speed off to the nearest impound lot. These laws are up to you to be
aware of, and are occasionally broken at the motorist expense, when companies
assume that car owners will be too ignorant to know their rights. Firstly, a
car cannot usually be towed by an auto towing company due to a parking
infraction unless the proper authorities are noted, and a significant amount of
time (usually in the neighborhood of an hour) has elapsed to give the owner a
chance to claim his automobile. Second, if you race out to see a truck in the
process of raising your car up to tow away, you have the right to tell him to
lower it back down, and it is against the law for him to impound it after you
have done so.
Just knowing this much can save you money and stress, in
what is bound to be a costly and stressful enough situation as it is. Know your
rights and be prepared, and your encounters with the towing companies won’t be
as horrifying as they could be.
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