Road tractor as in truck: Heavy Rescue 401

[Greenfrog]

OT...sort of, but this might interest others anyway. On the tv shows of Heavy Rescue and Highway thru Hell, we never see any exchange of paperwork, as in names, companies, bills, etc. Who pays the recovery/tow away bill? Theyre not doing this for nothing! I know for tv show interest, this is not what we want to see. But, I curious just how much does it cost to recover and 18 wheeler out of the ditch? And to compound the issue, maybe there are two wreckers/rotators involved, maybe from two different towing companies. That could be difficult to bill out the charges. Or, in another maybe they retrieve 20 cars from the median in a snow storm.
I welcome some input discussion on this. Good shows.
In other words, how do they get paid?

 

[fastfarmall]

The truckers Insurance Company has to pay, and if they have to call out the rotator truck, they are expensieve is all i know!

 

[Greenfrog]

Adding more to my original post: Im watching the show as I am posting...a semi trailer is broke down; they have to offload 55,000 Lbs of cargo. I cant imagine what this would cost!! Anybody know? $$$$

 

[Greenfrog]

Thx for quick reply. How much? $$$$$$ I couldnt guess.

 

[Doug-Iowa]

Last summer, the windstorm blew my empty and unhitched 48' semi trailer over in a parking lot. Called a tow company, they showed up a couple hours later with a rotator. It took less than 10 minutes for the two guys to set it back up on its wheels and the bill was $850. The operator mentioned they got my call while coming back from another tow, so no trip charge. Compare that to a several hour recovery of a loaded trailer down in a deep ditch, I bet you can get to $10k tow bill pretty quick.

 

[fixerupper]

The towing company my son uses charges somewhere in the $800 range to tow a dead truck tractor from wherever it died to the truck repair shop. A simple empty laid over semi truck usually is not real hard to roll back on its wheels as a unit when two wreckers are used so that is $800x2 plus time and labor at the site. Someone has to crawl under the uprighted tractor to screw air fittings into the air tank and things like that. Last time I was at the scene I was the sucker who had to crawl in the water under the truck in the rain on a wet gravel road to do the air hose job. If the towing company needs to bring a semi tractor to pull the trailer away if it is towable there goes a few hundred more bucks depending on miles hauled. My sons company has a vac truck that can suck the feed out of a laid over feed truck. I dont know what that would cost them in lost time, productivity, etc. The vac truck is usually busy every day earning its keep elsewhere. When it is sitting there for two hours sucking out a laid over trailer it is not making money elsewhere. Handling that 6 inch vac hose down in a road ditch in the tall grass is hard work, more than this old guy can handle anymore. We figure eight hours from the time the truck laid over to the time the truck is towed away. And a laid over feed truck on a lonely gravel road is simple compared to some of the wrecks you mentioned.

 

[Nordic]

I know the people of one of the Towing Companies that are first on the list to do these recoveries on the main portion of this described highway and yes as has been said when it is a traffic mishap it is the truck insurance companies that have to pay. Believe me this is not the type of operation where the lowest bidder gets the job. The operators that have the most complete fleet of towing equipment and have the reputation of getting the job done have the work. There is never a case where the answer is "no we can't do it right now". Sometimes they nearly go days without sleep... logbooks don't apply here. No matter how much weight is being towed, if the tow truck has the only axles with brakes there is no rule book that shuts them down. On the recoveries you are referring to 10 and 20 thousand dollars per incident is nothing unusual. They look after the whole meal deal, if they need a D9 as part of the recovery, yes they bring their own, just get the job done. A bit further south of this highway stretch, but the same road, they looked after calling in divers to hook up a vehicle that collided with a semi, flew off the bridge, the occupants of the vehicle having drowned. When they share their stories I can assure you their career is not for me. With big invoices per job keep in mind that one of their last tow trucks cost 1/2 a million dollars. In the event of truck breakdowns the trucker himself pays, sometimes warranty covers the cost. The whole business on the highway is not for the faint of heart.

 

[jon f mn]

They just drug one of ours out of a ditch that was totaled and the bill was $7500. For a bad wreck with a loaded trailer the cost can easily go over $10.000.00.

 

[jimg.allentown]

I'm sure that they get paid well for what they do. Equipment is expensive, weather is nearly always terrible, and the pressure is extreme. I'would think that when two or more towing companies are involved, each bills separately for their time and equipment usage.

I was watching some of that show, but the over use of drama got a bit tiresome. Everything is on the edge of a disaster. Then they make stupid statements like closure is not an option. Right. The shows were just getting to be too much of eh same thing - call after call with the announcer declaring that one wrong move and the world stops turning or some other ridiculous statement. I finally turned it off.

 

[Hoofer B]

I never saw the show but have semis myself. We have a Pro Toe and recover our own broke down trucks. This device hooks to the 5th wheel of a semi and to the back frame of the broken one. WE haul a spare truck out to our driver and bring his back to our shop for repairs. This is by far the fastest and cheapest way to go. If our truck is in an accident, we hire a tow company for recovery. We had one slide off the road and tipped in the ditch . That was $13 grand. We had a guy fall asleep and go 700 feet of the roadway. That was $24 grand. A rotator wrecker is between $1000 and $1500 an hour. They cost upwards of a Million bucks. Bill

 

[fixerupper]

It sounds like having a truck towed in my area is cheap compared to other areas. We don't have any interstates close by and most of the trucking involves farm products and lighter traffic. Most wreckers in my neighborhood are tandem axles and not rotators. If something big needs to be handled the closest big wrecker is 90 miles away that I know of. We did learn not to have a truck towed to a certain yard in Sioux City because the radios and fuel will disappear from the truck within a half hour and no one will know where they went. My son who is a big guy had to get face to face with a wrecker driver to get the truck towed to my farm instead of his wrecking yard where parts will disappear.

 

[MARK ROBKE]

I was a truck mechanic for 40yrs in the leasing business. Our customers did not pay for a tow unless it was their 'fault'- a wreck or stuck in a ditch etc. Mechanical break downs were on us. We had accounts with various wrecker services and we just called them and they did the recovery or the tow. If it was on the customer, then we later billed them. All billing done thru the corporate office. The shop just made it happen. Mark.