Are you ignorant? Your laziness is rising at a faster rate than the temperature of this planet, and you just don’t care to learn more about the everyday things around you. Until one day, you get into trouble.
Your car broke down, and you required a towing service. From whom to call and how to get through the entire process, you knew nothing. You felt dumb and out of the world. All of us have been there once.
Not anymore. I have prepared this beginner’s guide to help anyone who gets stranded and needs help without feeling alone, helpless and stupid.
Guide To Hire A Towing Service.
1. What exactly is towing?
2. Types of Trailers and tow trucks
3. Services offered by a towing service
4. How to find the right towing services?
1. What exactly is towing?
When two or more objects are connected together and pulled, it’s called towing. The most familiar form is the transportation of vehicles parked in a no-parking zone or transportation of disabled vehicles. But there are a lot of sites when towing might be required.
A towing service can help you in some more situations than just moving your disabled car. But for this post, we will consider a situation when you need a towing service to move your car/vehicle.
2. Types of Trailers and tow trucks
Before moving further, you must learn about the types of tow trucks as well as trailers. This information will come handy when you need to call up a service and ask for assistance.
By trailer, I refer to any cargo-carrying device that can be attached to another vehicle. Trailers can be of three types.
First, the small ones that can be used to carry livestock, furniture, and boxes. Some are specifically designed to pull boats. Utility vehicles that have living facilities also come into this category.
Second are big trailers hauled in the 18-wheel tractor-trailer configuration. These include open trailers to carry objects of unconventional shapes and sizes, tank trailers to carry milk, oil or any liquid, and container trailers.
The third kind is the trailers that are specially built for certain operations like military trucks and personnel carriers.
What are the different types of towing equipment used in the United States?
There are five major kinds of towing equipment.
1. Boom tow truck: This type of tow truck uses a winch to reach and recover the vehicles.
2. Flatbed tow truck: Such tow trucks have a flat bed at the back. This bed inclines to form a ramp. The vehicles can be directly driven up this ramp or brought up using a winch. Once the vehicle is on the ramp, the bed moves back to the horizontal position using hydraulics.
3. Hook and chain tow truck: These tow trucks use a chain that wraps around the axle of the vehicle. Apparently, this can damage the car and thus, this method is out of use these days. Some companies use it in few cases of a severely damaged vehicle.
4. Wheel lift tow truck: These tow trucks are quite similar to the hook and chain tow trucks except that they use a yoke instead of a chain to haul the vehicles. The yoke lifts up the car from only one end and hence, only the drive wheels of the vehicle are picked up using this tow truck.
5. Integrated tow truck: These are a combination model of boom and wheel lift tow trucks.
While these five are clearly the most common types of tow trucks one can find in the United States, other combinations might be in use.
3. Services offered by a towing service
1. Flatbed Towing: If you need to transport your car from one location to another, this is the best towing method. It’s one of the safest ways and is usually expensive.
Medium & light duty towing: If you’ve got a flat tire or an engine stall, light duty towing services can help you out.
2. Heavy duty towing: If you need help with a big vehicle like a tractor-trailer, heavy duty towing can help. It usually involves docking/undocking and load transfers.
3. Incident management: In the case of accidents, you need a highly skilled professional to help you move the vehicle. Towing services might also need to do the tough job of getting people out of the wrecked vehicle in a safe manner. It is crucial that a well-trained expert works on such a task.
4. Parking enforcement: Towing services can help in parking enforcement by implement medium or light duty towing.
Apart from these services, you can also use services like motorcycle towing, water & fuel delivery, flat tire change, and recovery services.
4. How to find the right towing services?
Finally, we’re at the section where I will tell you how you can find right kind of towing services. Read carefully!
Don’t wait!
My most crucial advice is plan ahead. Don’t wait for your car to seize up. You must keep numbers of some good towing services on your emergency contact list. I feel sorry for you if you’re reading this while you’re in that unfortunate situation of being stranded on a road.
Look online
Locating towing services is easy. You can log on to Same Day Pros, enter your location and see all the towing service providers available around your current location. All you need to do is only call them. Easy?
Ask your family or friends
What if you’re stranded at a location where you have no internet access? Call up your friends or family. Either they can help you with direct recommendations or help you locate a service using the internet.
Ask for company information
Finally, you have numbers of few towing service providers, but the task isn’t finished yet. Ask them about the services they offer and rates. Rates may vary according to the location and service, but hook-up fees are around $25-$150 and mileage fee around $2-$6 per mile. Hook-Up charges vary a lot as they depend on the size of your vehicle.
Ask for license and insurance
Why should you care whether the company has the license or not? Because of towing safety. In a 2006 study (pretty old one I know, but good enough to make a point), researchers found out that almost 70% of towing services weren’t acutely aware of the proper towing process. Apparently, they were putting a lot of people in danger.
Thousands of crashes happen in the United States due to improper towing. Therefore, it is crucial to hire a service that has full knowledge of the towing process, and that takes necessary precautions and follows safety measures. A license is a proof that the company is well informed about safety procedures and knows how to do the job.
Hours of service and services offered
Chances are you have no idea when your car will break down. Obviously. It wouldn’t be good to know of a towing service that doesn’t provide 24/7 services. Looking for a local towing company that does.
Remember to mention clearly the kind of vehicle you want to be towed. It’s condition also matters. For example, if your car just broke down due to a mechanical fault and needs a ‘trip’ to the nearest garage, a hook and chain tow truck is certainly not the right equipment to haul it. It will severely damage the outer sheen of your vehicle. Be clear with your instructions and ask the rates correctly before you proceed.
