Thinking today about mishaps.  Back in the eighties, the company I worked for had 3 Vulcan Super Cradles and 1 of the new Vulcan Scoop Wheellifts.  It was a joy to drive that Scoop truck, especially after hooking up cars on a Super Cradle.  One of the novelties at the time was the idea of the "strapless" wheellift, which is how the Scoops work, of course.  There was a lot of skepticism on the crew, and especially at rival companies.  My good friend Len, who was usually assigned to that truck, was fond of claiming that you could NOT lose a car out of that wheellift, even with no straps.  This was in the days before safety chains were fashionable.  Of course, if you go around making claims like that, the gods are going to make you the butt of a joke.  One evening Len took an exit off I5 south of Portland, pulled up to the light at the top of the exit, saw no traffic, and made a quick right turn.  When he did, the car jumped out of the scoops and rolled down into the bushes between the exit ramp and the freeway.  Fortunately no more harm that tracks through the landscaping occurred.  The car stopped before rolling into the freeway.  Len stopped, composed himself, cleaned up any mess that had taken place in the cab, and winched the car back up to the exit ramp.  He didn't talk as much smack about the "strapless" wheellift after that.

Another driver I worked with at the same company pulled into one of our service stations one afternoon with a customer vehicle on the hook and took a rather circuitous route through the parking lot and began to unhook the car in a remote corner of the station property.  This guy was normally a very jovial and talkative guy.  Usually he would arrive at a destination and, if he hadn't talked to someone in 10 minutes or so, he'd get out and gab for a half-hour before someone told him to get back to work.  This day he immediately began hurriedly unhooking the car.  The station manager thought maybe something was up, so we wandered over and casually inspected the vehicle.  On the passenger-side of the tow truck and the towed vehicle, there was dirt and vegetation, even some berry vines hanging.  There was also a huge dent in the trunk lid of the towed vehicle.  When questioned, the driver nervously blurted out the "it was like that when I got there" excuse.  After about eight seconds of intense interrogation, he caved and admitted the truth.  He had been in-tow, paying little attention to the traffic ahead, which was at a stop.  When he noticed this, it was too late to stop, so he veered into the ditch, where the push bumper of the tow truck struck a traffic sign of some sort, which flew up into the air and came down on the trunk lid of the towed vehicle.  He managed to get back onto the road, having cleared some of the brush out of the ditch.

In the "one that almost got away" category, my brother-in-law was asked to train a new driver how to run a sling truck.  This was back in the seventies.  The trainee was adamant that he already knew how, had been running a sling for years.  After some discussion, my brother-in-law gave up and headed out on his first call.  The new driver was given his own call soon afterward.  He completed the tow, a full-size van, and was sent on another.  After he was on this call for awhile, he radioed my brother-in-law to ask for some help.  When my brother-in-law arrived, the new driver said, "When I put the sling under the car and lift up, it just slides off."  My brother-in-law gave him a funny look and asked him if he'd tried using the j-hooks and chains WITH the sling.  He hadn't.  So the training that was supposed to have happened earlier that morning began at that point.  After the new driver had properly hooked up the vehicle, my brother-in-law remembered that the new driver had ALREADY TOWED A VEHICLE.  He asked the new driver how the other vehicle had stayed on the sling.  The full-size van had a trailer hitch, which caught on the lower bar of the sling and stayed on there for the duration of the tow.  Yikes!

Another Tow Sling disaster happened to a coworker of mine who was driving a light-duty wheellift with a tow sling.  For the first call of the day, he was dispatched to tow a brand-new BMW.  When he got to the car, he lowered the wheellift and slickly backed up to the front of the vehicle, coming to a quick stop as the wheellift closed to within inches of the BMW's tires.  Problem was, he had forgotten to secure the tow sling properly, which was flopped up to stay out of the way, and with the quick stop it flopped DOWN, right on the hood of the BMW.  We named the maneuver the McCain Technique, after the driver who inadvertently introduced it.

Unfortunately, for insurance companies everywhere, I could go on with these stories for days.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com

Vehicle owners can be kind of funny about tow damage complaints, especially owners of impounded vehicles.  I had one man insist we damaged the tires and suspension of his vehicle by towing it on the front wheels (it was a rear-wheel drive) with the steering locked.  He claimed it caused "dragging" of the tires as the vehicle went around corners, damaging the tread due to the increased friction causing by wheels in a straight position going around a corner.  I pointed out 2 things to him:
1. If the steering is not locked, that creates a major problem that will lead to the friction of cars bouncing off each other.
2. The rear wheels on his car are always straight, and probably went around corners every now and then.  What was the sporadic but frequent "friction" doing to those tires?
He wasn't buying any of it.  He claimed his attorney would be in touch, and spun his rear tires on the way out of the lot.

I had another woman claim that towing a car backward with the front tires on the ground would cause "loosening" of the suspension that would lead to pieces falling off soon after she left our property.  Her brother-in-law, who owned a body shop, had told her that would happen.  I think she had heard something about the old "knock-off" wheels at some point.  I asked her how she dared to back her car into parking spaces, or out of a driveway.  She thought about it a moment and said the damage could only happen when the rear wheels were off the ground, because ALL of the weight of the vehicle was on the front wheels at that point.  A new towing technique, I guess:  Levitation.  I gave her a written guarantee that her suspension would not spontaneously fall apart for at least the next 1000 miles, with the exclusion of front-wheel-only driving.

Possibly one of the craziest claims was from a man who insisted we had damaged his door locks while unlocking his car to impound it for the police.  He wouldn't let me get a word in to explain.  How did we tow the car when it was in gear?  Didn't we get in the car to get it out of gear?  Did I know that those kind of vehicles were lockout-proof, and that ANY attempt to unlock them would result in damage?  That was one of the reasons he had bought that model--it was impenetrable to lockout attempts.  This was all BEFORE he paid his bill and inspected his car.  After several attempts to explain to him how his vehicle was towed, I just gave up and let him rant.  Finally, he paid his bill, and I handed him his receipt... AND his keys.  It was a DUI tow, and he didn't "remember" that the police had given us the keys.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper

www.TowPartsNow.com

 

I have had many Dollie Adventure in my time behind the wheel of a tow truck.  On one Sunday, I was sent out to impound an old Datsun 510, and when I got there I found that it had no wheels.  Other than it being an annoyance, it wasn’t  a terribly big deal, because I had towed many vehicles without wheels with a wrecker and dollies by that point in my career. Usually I would strap or chain the vehicle to the dollie, but it was a Sunday afternoon, so the traffic was light, and I was being lazy, so I centered  the Datsun on the dollie and headed for the impound lot (securing the vehicle  to the dollie prevents the load from moving in the dollie, which can happen with steel wheels on steel dollie crossrails). 

At that time, we had fixed-length steel crossrails on our trucks, which turned out to be important, as you will see. I got onto I-84 about 5 miles east of downtown Portland, and the 58th Avenue onramp went under the freeway and made a hard left just outside of the short tunnel.  I was going slow, but not slow enough apparently, because when I made the turn, the Datsun slid on the crossrails all the way to the right and slammed against the dollie frame.  The two dollie tires on the left came up off the ground about 2” and then rested back
onto the pavement.  I swallowed hard to get my heart out of my throat, and waited for the crossrails to fall out of the rail pockets.  I knew that only the weight of the car keeps the crossrails in the rail pockets, and since one side was temporarily hovering, even pulling the dollie tires up into midair, we were now defying the laws of science.  I was on the freeway now, with no emergency lane to work with, so I kept
going cautiously.  The left dollie tires were now sticking out about three feet past the wrecker bed, but everything held together, so I kept
  going.

If the crossrails had been telescoping crossrails, I think the Datsun’s suspension would not have slid so far or so easily, because the fixed-length crossrails are perfectly smooth.   As I approached the split to I-5, I remembered that the Steel Bridge offramp had nice right-turn angle to it, so I could correct the positioning of the Datsun on the dollie by swinging hard into the turn. These are the kinds of ideas that come into you head when you’re 25 years old, as I was at the time.

I tried the maneuver, but the exact reverse of the first shift took place, with the Datsun sliding all the way to the left, slamming against the left dollie frame, and the right dollie tires lifting off the ground and then settling.  Now the dollies were tracking three feet to the right of the wrecker bed. I was off the freeway now, so I could have stopped to make adjustments and maybe splash some water in my face,
but I was also close to the impound lot, so I just kept going.

When I got to the lot, I pulled in, put the truck in park, stepped out of the truck, and the rear crossrail fell out of both dollie frames and went “clink” as it hit the pavement.  Both ends had apparently been sitting on the “ledge,” waiting to pop out and make the entire dollie fly apart, but for some reason, neither end decided to do that.  The rest of the dollie stayed intact, with the wheelless Datsun still sitting on the front
crossrail.

I think I used up a whole lot of good luck that day, probably way more than an abandoned Datsun 510 with no wheels warranted.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
 www.TowPartsNow.com


 

A customer called me recently, pricing out a Fork Holder.  Seems he had lost one.  He called back a short while later to tell me he found it… in the ditch.  Not sure if it fell off while he was driving, or if he was working a recovery, but he found it, after a short search.

My experience is things are lost only temporarily.  I have many stories of losing or misplacing something, only to have it return later. I don’t even worry now when I do lose something of value.  It always seems to find its way back to me.  

One year, while elk hunting, I leaned my rifle against the truck tire, and later backed up and drove away.  I had been parked at the end of an old spur road that you could barely drive on. Not more than two hours later, a family member called for me over the CB, to ask if I had my rifle.  Someone I knew had driven out this same spur road, found the rifle, recognized it, and then ran into one of my family members out on the main road.  Hunting seems to be one activity that lends itself to me losing stuff and later finding it. I’ve found lost gloves, knives, had a lost gun belt returned to me, and last year my daughter lost her tag, license, and Hunter Safety Card, and we found them the next day on a trail we’d followed that day.

Years ago, before cell phones, tow truck drivers carried message pagers, and before that, beepers.  One late night I was sent up into the Forest Park west of Portland to meet a County Sheriff, who had found a stolen vehicle. He walked me out an old blocked-off road to this car, which was complete, but there was no way to drive to the vehicle.  The Sheriff has this idea that I could winch it downhill through the forest to the main road, which was about 500  yards. I had 150 feet of cable on my truck. He made me unspool it to prove I couldn’t do it, so I free-spooled through trees in the dark until it was all the way out, which was really silly because he just left me there and told me it was my problem.  I needed to make sure the car was impounded.

After I re-wound my cable, I left the scene, figuring we’d come back the next day with cable extensions and a
chainsaw.  I was halfway back to the shop when I realized I didn’t have my (bleeping) beeper. The forests here in Western Oregon tend to be thick, with a lot of underbrush.  At least it wasn’t raining.  I drove back up there, and fortunately I had the assistance of sound. I had the dispatcher set off the beeper until I found it.  I hadn’t particularly enjoyed being out in the dark forest the first time.  This time it was even creepier, with the faint sound of beeping getting slowly louder.  After about ten minutes I found it in the dead leaves.

My family gets irritated with me at home when there is a search for a misplaced item, because I confidently join the search, repeating the mantra, “I easily and effortlessly find the (lost item).” The idea is that if you walk around saying, “I can’t find my keys,” then your subconscious makes sure you’re right. I’m not saying my technique works best. I’m just saying I almost always find whatever we’re looking for first.  And I’m not unusually perceptive.  I think that’s what really bugs them about it.

So try it, if you’re ever in a ditch looking for a Fork Holder, or something like that.

Have a safe and profitable week.
 Sincerely,
Nick Kemper


www.TowPartsNow.com

Vehicle damage is one of those gray areas in towing that sometimes requires a crystal ball to divine the truth. Questioning drivers becomes a psychological exercise.  Outright denial is my favorite.  I called one driver shortly after he left work one day, and I explained to him that he had parked his truck a little too close to a vehicle in our storage lot.  He was driving an Eagle, and the fold cylinder had been leaking, so he flopped down the stinger before parking the truck, which was a good idea.  That way the stinger couldn't flop down on its own onto something important on its own.  Well, the problem was that he backed up a little too close to the Chrysler 300M that he was parking in front of.  "No way," he said.  "I know I didn't hit that car."  I explained to him that the end of the Eagle Claw was still inserted into the front bumper of the Chrysler.  "Someone else must have moved the truck," he said (he had been gone about 10 minutes).  Right, I said, and could he bring back the keys to the truck so we could move it away from the damaged vehicle?  Silence.I asked him if he had the keys still.  Might they be in one of his pockets? More silence.  "Yes," he finally admitted.

That conversation with the vehicle owner, when you tell them that their car has been damaged—always fun.

On another occasion, I had 2 complaints in one day for tow light damage.  Both vehicles had been towed by the same driver, from the same location, impounds.  A Mercedes SUV, and a Toyota Landcruiser.  The damage was similar, circular scratches matching the size of the round magnets used on magnetic Tow Lights, on the roof of the vehicle on the passenger-side.  The next time the driver came to the
lot, with a car in-tow, I came out and explained to him that I had received the complaints.  "No way," he said, "I'm always very careful when I take tow lights off the car."  No twisting, I asked?  "No, definitely not."  He was towing an old beater that had been abandoned, so I asked him to show me how careful he was, with the car he was towing.  He carefully lifted the tow lights off the car and put them on the back of his truck. Then I asked him to put them back on.  Rolling his eyes, he walked the lights back to the car, and carefully placed them on the car.  Then he plugged the cord back into the socket, grabbed the cord, and slung it up on top of the car from right next to the tow truck, like he’s on one end of a hellaciously long jump rope.  The cord hit the car's roof with a loud bang.  I walked over to the tow light on his side and showed him how it was now pointing sideways.  The pull on the cord was twisting the magnet around 90 degrees with gale-force whip action.  My next question, I said to him, is did you put the light back the right way without checking to see if you scratched the paint underneath, or did you drive to the lot with the light pointing sideways?

I wonder how many cars he damaged before someone looked on their roof.

One driver wanted to change a rear tire on a Chevy S10 pickup, but he didn't want to jack it up, so he lifted the rear with
his truck and placed a jackstand under the side with the flat tire.  Problem was, he placed the jackstand under the rear side panel of the truck, rather than the frame or a sturdy suspension component.  The fender folded.  At least he got the pleasure of being present when the vehicle owner witnessed the damage.

 Have a safe and profitable week.

Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com
http://www.facebook.com/#!/towpartsnow

Impounding a large, American-made beater that had been ticketed for removal late one night, on a dark street in a bad neighborhood, I back up my Eagle to the rear of the car, and when the Claws touch the rear tires, the car immediately begins to roll away down the block.  The road is sloped gently, but
enough that I can't safely attempt to follow the escaping car with the truck and slide the claws in place to make a moving pick-up, which can be done if you keep your wits about you.  I feel I need to do SOMETHING, so I get out and started running after it.  The driver's door window is down or broken out, so I run alongside and grab the steering wheel.  Locked.  Some of you old-school guys might know this--you can move a locked steering wheel on older cars by hitting it in the right place while applying pressure one way or the other.  I frantically begin beating on the steering wheel, to turn it slightly to the right.  Keep in mind: it’s almost Midnight, I’m in a baaaaad neightborhood, running as fast as  I can, punching something through an open car window – it’s a miracle I didn’t draw sniper fire.  There is a space between parked cars on the other side of the street, and I’m aiming for it.  I manage to hit it.  The car hops the curb and stops on the  sidewalk.  I collect my thoughts, wait for my pulse to drop below 200 beats per minute, and complete the tow.

A common mistake I've made a few times over the years is forgetting to shift the truck's transmission in park during the hookup.  On
one occasion, I was impounding an older front-wheel drive car for the local county sheriff from the parking lot of a housing project.  It
was nosed into the parking space in park, so I backed up to the rear of the car, slid the Eagle Claws in place, lifted the vehicle, and strapped it down.  Then I began to assemble the tow dollie under the front wheels.  I activated the dollie on one side of the car.  I then activated the dollie on the other side of the car, and to my amazement, it started rolling away.  I had left the truck in reverse, but the towed vehicle's front wheels on the ground were enough to keep the whole thing stationary.  Freed from their position with the activation of the dollie, those wheels weren't much help anymore.  The dollie wheels climbed the curb and started over the sidewalk.  I was on the wrong side of the truck to attempt to get to the cab and put the truck in park, or apply the brake.  I grabbed the dollie release handles and
 deactivated the dollie.  There was some gouging of the grass on the other side of the sidewalk by the dollie frames, but the truck and the car stopped.  I smiled sheepishly at the sheriff's deputy, who gave me a puzzled look but didn't say anything.

I had a great career driving tow truck, with very few accidents/incidents that resulted in monetary loss for my employer.  I hired drivers in my management time who did more damage in 90 days than I did in 15+ years.  However, I had a LOT of close calls, often the result of my own inattention or overconfidence.  Towing is an inexact science.  There are a lot of variables.  Kind of like life.  And business.  How
you react to a situation of distress often defines your effectiveness.  Something tells me that, in 5 or 10 or 20 years' time, when we look back at this current time of economic distress, we will ask ourselves, how did we react?  Did we let the runaway car go off the cliff, or did we slow the moment down and locate our damage-control techniques? Could be the difference-maker.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com


 

We were only a few weeks into summer, and Desperation arrived early this year.  My wife made the announcement at Sunday dinner:  if our 2 boys, ages 12 and 7, could get along on any particular day, they
would earn $1 for that day.  Any problems from either of them, while interacting, and they both lose the
dollar.

So a value has been placed on Peace, and it is low.  A dollar per day for juveniles, two dollars per day for adults (we have to pay out to multiple parties, so it’s worth twice as much to us).  I like the plan. 
It turns the Penalty into Opportunity.  This is a concession from my wife.  She expects them to get along, but now she’s willing to pay for it.

I don’t know if you’ve ever used behavioral tactics designed for children on adults who work for you, but I have.  We used to do this thing
with the kids:  if one of them misbehaved, we’d calmly say, “That’s one.”  If they did something else, we’d say, “That’s two.”  If they got to
three, they went into time-out. The actions didn’t have to be related to each other, and they didn’t have to be of the same severity.  If they got to one or two and reeled it in for awhile, say an hour or so, they would get to start over.  It was something my wife read about in a book.

A driver who worked for me came stormed into my office one day, ranting about something meaningless.  He was visibly angry.  I expected him to start stomping his feet at any moment.  I engaged him, briefly, then stopped and said, calmly, “That’s one.”

He yelled more incoherencies, so I said, “That’s two.  If I get to three, you’re fired.”

I really did not expect him to pull it together at that point.  This guy had a short fuse, and I could tell by the changing shades of red that he really wanted to say something more, but he kept his mouth shut and walked out.

It worked.  And he hadn’t even been clued in to the program at the family meeting.

Have a safe and profitable week.
Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
 www.TowPartsNow.com


 

I was thinking the other day about getting pulled over by the police while towing a car, which happened to me a few times.  We were all talking at the house about car accidents and tickets, and I really think how many miles you've logged should be taken into consideration. When you're driving 500 miles a week at work, or more, of course you're going to get into a few more fender benders.

There's a degree of professional courtesy between police officers and tow truck drivers.  Unfortunately, sometimes it's a low degree.  It's really a crapshoot.  You might get an officer who got towed away at some point and now they have an agenda.

  At one point when I was a driver I was given an assignment to record everything I did during my shift for a week.  I think it was the insurance company who was doing some kind of research.  Anyway, I was known for my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, so I took it to heart and scribbled down times and every change of status and locations and whatnot for a week, typed it up (yes, "typed" it up--this was awhile back), and turned it in.  Which is the first time my bosses got to hear about my run-in with Portland's finest.

I was impounding an abandoned van, with no tires and wheels.  I was driving an Eagle Claw, so I frame-forked one end and set the other end up on dollies.  I chained the suspension down to the dollies and down to the wheellift.  It was still a little iffyy--there was a
lot of play in the hookup--things moving around and shifting during stops and starts.

I didn't have far to go, maybe 3 miles, but there's a river intersecting Portland, so I had to go across a bridge, and I chose a non-freeway
bridge where the traffic was relatively light.  It was an early summer evening, after rush hour.  The first problem I ran into was driving down an urban street, where I came up to a stop light, and I was cruising slowly--about 20 mph--and the light changed.  I had enough time to stop, but I really didn't want to stop quick with the load I had, and I could see that there was no cross-traffic, so I rolled through.  I did not accelerate.  The light changed to red about halfway through.

I didn't know, but there was a patrol car behind me.  He didn't make his presence known.

The next intersection was a bigger problem. It was a stop sign, where I had to turn left or right onto a busy street.  Although traffic was light, cars kept coming from different directions, and the road had turns in it, making it difficult to see far in either direction.  Thinking back, I should have avoided that by taking a different street that put me at a stop light, instead of a stop sign.  Finally, after waiting for quite awhile, I eased out slowly, and sure enough, a cab came flying around the corner, so I reached down and switched on my overhead lights.  I was already out in the street, so there was no going back.  He slowed down, and I coasted through the intersection, and then I heard
the siren.

So, here I am, towing this abandoned van with no tires and wheels, FOR THE CITY, and the patrol car has been following me.  He
could have pulled up and offered to escort me through the intersection.  He could have looked the other way when I cautiously flipped on my overheads.  But he didn’t. I don't have a problem with any of that.  It's what happened AFTER all that that was kind of twisted.

He pulled me over, and asked for my info.  I was polite.  I'm always polite when I get pulled over.  He started asking me questions, like why
did I run the light, and did I know that it was illegal to drive with the overheads on.  I explained why I had done what I did.  Then he
asked, "What are you on?"  I really honestly did not know what he was getting at.  Then he said, "Your pupils are like dots! What are you on?"  Well, it was late afternoon, and we were parked facing the setting sun, so my first thought was that I was looking toward the sunlight, which would cause my pupils to get smaller.  I hazarded that guess.  He made me get out, and we went through a sobriety test, minus the breathalyzer.  I was a little unnerved, but had no problem because I was not "on" anything. He was adamant that I spill my guts about what kind of drugs I was taking.  I think I actually looked around to see if there was a hidden camera somewhere, because I've had tricks played on me before.  He seemed very serious, so I didn't challenge him at all, even though he was the one who was clearly  impaired.

He had me get back in the cab and let me sit there awhile, and then he approached the door and told me that he was letting me off with a
warning.  After all that, not even a ticket.  Are there drugs that make your pupils smaller?  I thought it was dilated pupils they were supposed to look for.  To this day, I don't know what that officer's agenda was.  My bosses read the report and were just as amazed, but they took that part out before forwarding it to the insurance company.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com 

For those of you in the towing industry, do you remember your first experience driving a tow truck?  I do.  I was 15, and I was with my brother-in-law, one of two drivers (the other was my older brother Mike) at McMinnville Towing, the company my parents owned.  We were at the parts store, and he said, "You drive back to the lot."  It was an old Ford 1-ton 4-speed, and it wasn't just the first time driving a tow truck, it was the first time driving a stick shift.  It wasn't pretty.  After backing out of the space, I was having a hard time going forward without killing the engine.  The tow sling was edging farther out into the street every time I rolled slightly backward and tried to depress the  accelerator pedal in conjunction with releasing the clutch.  I have to hand it to my brother-in-law, though.  He calmly turned on the rotator lights so no one would run into us, and he had me keep trying till I got it.

One of the benefits of being in a tow truck and not a car.

The first vehicle I owned was a 1949 Willys Jeep with a Chevy 283 in it, painted camo.  My 8-year-old just the other day asked me what happened to it, because I've told him about it a few times.  "I traded it for a '69 LeMans," I told him.

"What's that."

"A car with a nose longer than the Honda I'm driving now."

"You shoulda kept the jeep," he said.

Duh.  Like I don't know that now.  I crashed the LeMans into a tree a year after I got it.  The Willys couldn't go 95 mph, so I doubt it would have met the same end.

My parents sold the tow company before I was old enough to drive legally for them, so my first real driving experience was when I was 20, for a company named Estby Towing in Beaverton, Oregon, where my brother-in-law was now managing.  His brother Leonard was my trainer. Leonard and I had known each other for years, so learning from him was easy.  I was assigned to a Chevy 1-ton with a 454 and a Vulcan Cradle Snatcher.  Wow, what fun! Like dollying a car every time you hook up.  And try keeping those extension chains
away from the side of a Suburban.  We would tie shop rags around the clevis hook at the top of the extension chain so that it was a scuff rather than a scratch.

Leonard did a good job of training me, I have to admit.  In the 20 years I was behind the wheel  accidents and damage claims were few and far between, and it's my experience that getting off to a good start is crucial.  And we had fun.  One day we stopped for lunch at Burger King, and we ate in the truck.  There were no cupholders, so while eating I was in the habit of resting a drink on the bottom of the steering wheel so that it leaned against the horn button.  I had parked with the wheels turned slightly, so this time I had to give the steering wheel a laborious partial-turn to lock it into place before my “cupholder” was in place.  We ate our food and shot the breeze, and when it came time to leave, I forgot that I had given the steering wheel the turn to lock it, so when I turned the key over, the steering wheel sprung back to its resting position, launching the three-quarters full cup of soda into a 540-degree spin before it landed upside-down on my lap.  I can still hear the sound of Leonard laughing.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com

Many of you in the repo and impound businesses are familiar with the term "hook-n-book."  There were many occasions over the years when I would arrive at the scene of an impound tow to find that the chance of getting away with the car was slim-to-none.  In some cases, you could hook up to a vehicle, and then if the owner showed up before you left, you could charge a "drop fee."  I was never a big fan of the drop fee.  I liked to get away with the car.  Most conflicts with vehicle owners occur on-scene, in those drop fee situations.  Releasing a vehicle in a storage facility is a much more secure situation.

On one occasion, I was looking for a repo, and I found the vehicle at the owner's address, in a trailer park.  It was a Honda, nosed into a carport, so the first problem was, is the vehicle in gear or in park?  The second problem was, a person, presumably the owner, was outside, about 20 feet away, installing a satellite dish on the carport roof.  The front door of the trailer was open, right next to the car.  He went in and out of the trailer a few times.  I watched him for about 20 minutes, trying to decide if it was worth trying.  I actually thought about just walking over to talk to him and ask him for the keys to the car.

Vehicle owners generally know that a repo is a possibility, when it is a possibility, and sometimes they don't care about losing the car.  Since this guy could get a satellite dish but not make his car payment, I thought the car might not be that important to him.

Finally, he went into the trailer and was gone for several minutes.  The door was still wide open.  I backed my truck up to the car, slid the claws around the rear tires, and got out to try to determine if the car was in gear or in park.  The passenger window of the car was open, so I reached in and shifted the tranny out of gear and gave the steering wheel a wiggle to lock it.  Then I got back in the truck, lifted the wheellift up, and eased the car out of the carport.  I was about a block away when I heard the yelling.

On another occasion, I was called to impound a vehicle from a restaurant parking lot.  We worked for a restaurant in a business district that had been there a long time and had a fairly big parking lot.  Another restaurant, one of a very popular national chain, opened on the same block, with a much smaller parking lot.  So restaurant B's patrons typically parked in restaurant A's parking lot and spent all of their money at restaurant B, which restaurant A didn't much like.  So restaurant A (after attempted negotiations with restaurant B) had us station a monitor in the lot, and he would note which cars were illegally parked, give the vehicle owner a 20-minute grace period, and then call in the tow.

When I arrived for this car, the monitor explained to me that the vehicle owner was sitting on the other side of the wood fence that separated the two properties.  Restaurant B had an outside seating area, so he was sitting about 10 feet from his car.  The fence was about 6 feet high, but you could see through the spaces between the boards, so there was very little chance of getting away unnoticed.  It was a VW Rabbit, nosed in, so the same front-wheel-drive problem was in play.

I backed up to the car, slid the claws around the rear tires, lifted up the wheellift, shifted into drive, and slowly let off the brake to see if there was any resistance from the car's transmission.  There was none—the car was out-of-gear.  I drove forward and out of the lot.  As I turned the corner onto the street, I saw the guy come over the fence.  He ran behind me down the street, and I pulled onto a side street about 2 blocks away when I saw one of his shoes fly off.  Kind of felt obligated to stop, since he was at a disadvantage with only one shoe, and he was clearly doing his best to catch me.  Turned out he was an employee of restaurant B, stopping by to get his paycheck and have a drink.  If anyone should have known about the parking policy, it was him.

Poetic justice.


Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com