November 4, 2024 • 62 mins
Unfortunately, there are many topics we feel need to be revisited time and time again. These are a few of those topics.
Chapters
Welcome to Tow Business Podcast
Season 18 Begins
Mountain Biking in Bentonville
Innovations in Towing Equipment
The Challenges of Starting a Towing Business
Tackling Towing Scams
The Importance of Marketing
Investing in Employee Training
Rigging Inspections and Safety
Reflections on Podcasting and Collaboration
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:13):
You're listening to Tow Business Podcast, the towing industry's longest-running
show and your number one spot to find news and information to help you grow
your tow business and promote professionalism throughout the industry and your community.
The thoughts expressed on this show are those of each host. We don't offer legal
or financial advice, so it's best to get that from your attorney or CPA.
We're just two towers with very different backgrounds sharing their ideas and
(00:35):
opinions based on their time in the industry.
Be safe, be professional, and support the towing associations that support you.
Music.
Hey, welcome to Tow Business Podcast. This is show 131.
(00:57):
It is the first show of season 18.
Boy, that sounds like a long time.
We've been doing this a while here this
uh this break we're coming off of was a little longer than
uh usual thanks to a couple hurricanes you
may have heard about and then i had some uh out of town traveling
and everything just kind of kind of
(01:18):
came together to stick a monkey wrench into getting the season started so uh
we will uh we'll get back up to slip ead and uh yeah sup ead sup ead we'll get
back up to speed and sound it out crank them out when we're supposed to from here forward But,
yeah. So, whew!
(01:40):
131. Very nice.
How's it going? Feels like it's been forever. Yeah.
It doesn't feel like we've been doing this overall that long that you say season 18, but...
Time flies when you're all about having fun, but we do have fun doing this.
(02:03):
It's everything outside of this hour right here where we actually sit down and talk.
That kind of wears on us after a while, but I'm doing good.
Like you said, the hurricanes threw a little wrench in us getting back together.
We always take a season break, but this one kind of got pushed out a little
bit, like you said, due to my involvement in some hurricane work and your travel.
(02:27):
And just life in general um
i mean to be totally transparent um
on top of those two things i mean i think we're both just we're a little burnt
out um not so much in recording and talking and you know providing conversation
and content to the industry is just life in general and then,
(02:52):
um kind of feeling pressured to get this stuff out on time and find time in
the midst of our busy and and chaotic lives kind of took a toll on us i think
so that's just a little peek behind the curtain we are human we we do have other
things going on besides this which i wish we didn't but,
we do um this is a release for us to get together and talk but.
(03:18):
Squeezing that release in sometimes proves to
be difficult um but here
we are now we are you know heading into
winter it's almost november here um we're still hanging on to some decent weather
here in ohio but it's depressing because we know what's coming um and it was
(03:39):
it was below 50 the other day and i felt so depressed and mad and you know you
could have thought it was zero but uh,
we know it's coming i heard some good news looking
ahead to next year they just announced that the ohio tow show
which is you know near and dear to me we'll
be back to great wolf lodge back at um the
(04:02):
the water park the family oriented atmosphere will come back which i know will
um make a lot of people happy myself and my kids included so uh that's great
news do you know if there's any restrictions on on any towers from uh louisiana showing up this time,
(04:23):
I haven't heard of any, but I'm not on the inside. I'm not on that board or
that association, so I don't know of any such restrictions.
It wouldn't surprise me.
I know why you ask, but I...
I don't know. Those security camera photos are pretty damn hysterical.
(04:50):
Anyhow yeah the uh just got back in town we
had to go to uh my son and i and my partner we went
to kansas city last week for our owners group meeting this
is a really good one oh gosh i think they're all really good uh you learn a
lot you talk about a lot of subjects that you just don't really have a chance
to discuss uh in a group or on a phone you know you all get together and And
(05:13):
the last half day is always just kind of like open forum, new ideas,
any questions any of the members have, you know, it's great.
But the best part about this owners group meeting, and I'm probably going to
sound wrong, but was that on the way home, my son and I were able to go to Bentonville, Arkansas.
(05:35):
Bentonville, Arkansas is the mountain bike capital of the United States.
Uh it is unbelievable it's
been about three four years trying to get there because normally when i have
free time i go to vermont uh but uh kind of semi-passing bentonville on the
way to kansas city we said let's bring the bikes and get a vrbo for a few days
and uh check this out and it was,
(06:00):
it was heaven it was mountain bike heaven man they they have entire,
They're like little complexes of VRBOs that are totally set up for the mountain bike crowd.
They've got bike stands, toolkits, compressing, you know, really wild.
You can, there's got to be.
There's got to be more miles of trails in Bentonville than there are paved roads. It is unbelievable.
(06:24):
The, uh, Walton family has a lot to do with that. You know, Walmart's based in Bentonville.
Apparently, uh, some, uh, younger family members are mountain bike fanatics
from what I understand and really started getting it done.
Like you, you go to a regular bike park and if you go over a jump, it's a dirt jump.
It's just a big shaped mound of dirt. Well, you go to Bentonville and these
(06:46):
things have like, everything's surrounded with artwork, elaborate stonework,
metalwork, everything is just, it's, you know, there's, there's one, um.
Uh, they have several hubs and off each hub are several kind of related trails
that go off in different directions of different difficulties.
And one of them is called the castle and uh
(07:08):
there's they make a lot of the art out of
like bike oriented stuff so like the shield is a rim and the sword might be
a bicycle crank so i mean it's it's really wild to check out whether you're
a mountain biker or not that that town is so cool the the downtown is just really
really clean and like happening there's stuff going on all the time And man,
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what a, what an incredible job they've done with it.
So I have, uh, I'd say I marked that one off the old list, but,
uh, we both, we both agree. We'll be back there in the spring.
Um, so I don't know.
Makes me wish I had, uh, bought a house to put up as a VRBO about five,
six, 10 years ago up there. It'd be perfect.
(07:52):
Uh, Killington, where I normally go, you and I discussed VRBOs up there.
Uh they just took killington just became
uh fell under private ownership again and it's
a couple of local business guys with uh tons of money they've uh dedicated uh
or they've committed over 30 million dollars in capital improvements for the
(08:14):
the ski area itself and there's a lot going on in town and uh so uh yeah pretty
wild all these uh places i love to go just keep getting bigger and better.
So, yep, that is, uh, that's about that all that's going on with me that I know
of, uh, that I can think of right now, but, uh, we'll be right back.
(08:38):
Hey I'm a big fan of those videos Miller Industries keeps putting out.
They're really helpful for training and maintenance.
One of them I thought was pretty cool when I saw it was the new heavy-duty underlift
on their industrial carriers and here is Kip Felice with Miller Industries to talk about it.
Hey thanks Jeff. Yeah about two years ago we redesigned our 10,000 pound underlift
for the industrial carrier to give it more capacity and longer reach.
(09:01):
With the longer CB chassis you can get 77 inches of full extension with this
three-stage underlift It gives operators 10,000 pounds of lifting capacity and
the ability to tow something that weighs up to 50,000 pounds.
You know, if they're out on the delivery of a rental piece of equipment,
they can always tow a tractor back to the shop.
That is pretty cool and something that is definitely needed.
Yeah, anyone can check out the videos on our website, and we also do post to
(09:25):
our YouTube channel as well.
Sweet. Yeah, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel so you catch all
their videos and subscribe to their news feed at millerind.com.
Does your towing business need to improve efficiency to
unlock its growth potential then you need to partner with our
friends at Traxero who offer a full suite of software
solutions specifically for towers like you my team at Southside Wrecker uses
(09:48):
Traxero as does Brad's team at Sandy's Towing and Recovery and we know we can
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All right, we are back. And, uh, I don't know.
(10:10):
I feel kind of like it's, uh, you know, we could name this the beating a dead
horse show, but, uh, I think that name is taken. I think we've done that before. Oh, shoot.
So like one of the things that keeps amazing me and there's one thing in particular,
and this is why I don't mind beating that dead horse.
There's, there's a new reason to beat it.
(10:31):
Um there's a uh
a local page i say local
it's a it's a georgia towing page right and a guy just posts this ppi sign and
says hey is this sign legal like you can assume since it's a georgia page it's
in georgia but you know all this stuff there couldn't have been.
(10:57):
More contradictive responses than there was everything from call this person, call that person.
Why don't you, why are you going to Facebook for regulatory answers?
Call who regulates it.
Georgia people are throwing out all this stuff, this trashy info that's not
(11:22):
correct, or it's severely outdated.
And, uh, And somebody says, why are you people not going to the Georgia DPS website?
These regs are spelled out so clearly.
The rates, the sign requirements, all that. Why are you on here getting 100
(11:43):
wrong answers when you can just go to that website and get everything you need?
But it's crazy. When it comes to PPI red regulations, that's probably the big
one that I see questions asked for, um, whether or not you need DOT numbers.
Again, you get a hundred contradictive responses every time,
(12:05):
uh, hours of service questions.
Uh, I mean, you see crazy stuff, you know, well, you only need a log book.
If, uh, a crow flies over your truck, when you're
doing 56 miles an hour on the interstate i mean
it's it's just nonsense and i
don't drives me nuts the people
(12:25):
who don't know what the hell they're talking about come on
a public forum and try to make it sound like they know what they're talking about
you you what what is uh what's that
old saying something about uh something about
a fool talking leaves no question that
he's a fool something along those lines i can't
(12:46):
think of it but uh it's like you you'd look
a lot smarter if you just didn't respond so i don't know it's lazy right i mean
you can go uh you know you can search even if you didn't know you have to go
to the georgia dps website you can google georgia.
(13:09):
Uh, private impound laws or, or what, something like that.
And it will take you to that website. You didn't know the name of,
I, I, I just don't understand.
It's, I guess, I don't know. You could type in a search term way faster than
you could post that picture and ask, ask a question.
And, uh, really it's, it's, it's a guy, I think he's upset.
(13:32):
A guy bought a truck in his area and, and started throwing up signs.
I bet that happens a lot. I know it happens a lot. I've seen that happen a lot.
You'll see a towing company just pop up out of nowhere and all of a sudden their,
their signs are plastered all over the place.
A few years ago, uh, a company popped up, up, up towards Atlanta,
(13:55):
just kind of between us and Atlanta.
And if you drove down the road, we're talking like a state road.
They, this company now had their signs nailed to telephone poles along the, along the curb.
Like they were now enforcing the no parking on the, uh, state road that went
through the center of town and the, the signs weren't up to code.
(14:20):
Uh, and they were everywhere. They were in neighborhoods, just put up wherever
they could be all over town.
And, uh, yeah, Now, you can't do private property impounds off a damn city street or a state highway.
So I don't know. I think that happens a lot.
A guy buys a truck and doesn't know this stuff, right? I mean,
(14:42):
it probably would be a really good idea if you're thinking of starting a towing
business to maybe join your association.
Isn't PPI public property impounds? Isn't that PPI public property? Yeah.
No, I'm sorry. Private property. private same yeah yeah you got it you almost
got me yeah yeah almost got me but uh yeah so i mean how often does that happen
(15:07):
a guy and and you could you could see by a lot of the posts hey,
just bought my first tow truck where can i find customers you're doing it backwards
right you should have all your information before you start your business you
shouldn't be on there asking Okay, I got a truck.
Hey, I bought a truck, got a good deal. Where can I get cheap insurance?
(15:33):
Buddy, cheap, definitely a concern. But usually cheap means you're not getting
what you need, get what you pay for type of thing.
So you see that so much. And now this stuff here, I mean, people probably just
think, hey, I can throw up signs and start impounding out of parking lots.
Never realizing that Georgia State Patrol essentially runs that entire game.
(16:01):
That's like the one most heavily regulated game.
Part of towing across the country. It's the only regulated towing in the state
of Georgia, right? It's the only thing.
I don't know. These questions just over and over. And I will,
I will just briefly touch on the fact that if you hit the search bar and typed in your,
(16:25):
your subject, it'd come up with 30,000 other posts within the last week.
Um, and that's only a minor, minor exaggeration.
Um, I, I don't know talking about PPI, uh, God, I mean, it's in the news so
much, you know, many municipalities are moving towards restrictions on PPI.
(16:48):
Now, uh, a lot of them I'm seeing are like for a certain number of hours,
like a car can't be touched for 48 hours. It's gotta be sitting there.
And like, is that any good? Do you see any problems with that?
Well i mean i see a lot of problems i'm trying to trip you up.
(17:10):
So if you have to wait 48 hours before booting or or uh towing a car off of private property,
how is that serving the property owner right you you don't have the right here in two days Yeah.
(17:32):
So you've got that private parking spot taken up by someone who should not be using it for two days.
I think I would understand...
An hour, two hours, a couple hours, right? Cause you've got the flip side of the problem.
(17:54):
Like up in, uh, was it Memphis or Nashville? Nashville, right?
With the, uh, Memphis, right? Memphis. Okay. Memphis.
It's been a while. Come on, give me some slack. But, um, you know,
where in the time somebody left their truck to go by their parking permit and
came back, their truck was already booted or being hooked up to a tow truck.
(18:15):
So because of, um,
I don't know, because of dirt bags in our industry, you know,
there almost has to be some sort of almost has to be some sort.
Let's just get rid of the dirt bags.
Let's stop coming up with new rules and restrictions and regulations and figure
(18:37):
out how to get rid of the dirt bags.
Cause they're the ones who got us here and they don't care.
And I'm sure they can pop back up, shut one down, pop another one up,
you know, the second they get in trouble.
It might make them think twice. Yeah, make it a little less lucrative,
(18:58):
but still, I think the ultimate rights should go to the property owner.
You paid for it. You're insuring it. You're paying your taxes on it.
And some entitled jackwad just gets on there and wants to, leave their car on your property.
The property owner has to have a quick remedy available to them to fix that,
(19:20):
that problem or, okay, so I'm talking about the dirt bags causing us to have to do it.
How about the people that think they just have a right to park wherever the hell they want?
Right. Uh, I mean, that's always one of my favorite conversations to have is
when somebody calls in and somebody just randomly pulled over or their car died
(19:41):
or whatever in someone's driveway. Yep.
And they're like, I'm like, sorry, we can't, I know you own it and you don't
know who it is and they didn't have permission, but we can't just come move it.
I know it's, I know it sounds stupid, but unfortunately it's not worth it to
us to come do it because we're not allowed.
(20:02):
George georgia has a little carve out for that if
it's a uh if you own it and it's
less than four units like if you own two townhomes you know two double townhomes
then you fall under the the main regulations but if somebody just parked in
your front yard you don't have to wait the 24 hours with the signs up and all
that stuff and have a signed contract you know you pretty much have it done.
(20:25):
But a lot of times it's, it's, it's really best to, you know,
call the police department and, uh, get them to clear it.
Cause they'll normally tell you, no, we can't do nothing with a call to tow truck company.
And, and once that occurs, I feel a little better about it. You know,
uh, they said it's not their problem and that kind of, kind of throws it over
(20:46):
to us. So I'm, I'm okay with that.
Um, it doesn't happen a lot, but you know, it still happens.
And if there's a car parked in
your driveway and you're trying to go to work, what are you going to do?
Um, I guess, I guess you could back into it and push it out in the middle of
the road. And then, then the police will come and have it towed.
I mean, that's a one remedy, I guess.
(21:08):
We've definitely never told anybody to push it out to the road.
Oh, boy. But, you know, you're back to just creating regulation after regulation after regulation.
And sometimes it seems like the new regulations are not redundant,
(21:31):
but, well, sometimes, yeah, sometimes they contradict each other.
You know, one new law and everybody forgot about the law that kind of already
existed for the same reason or the regulation.
And, um, I kind of like the idea of, uh, in order to enact one new law in a
(21:53):
state, you have to repeal two just to keep those books clean and get rid of the old stuff.
Um, there's a, there's a channel I watch on TV and in the commercial breaks,
it's one of these streaming things that they, they tell you like a strange law in another state.
(22:13):
And I forget, I think it's Utah, somewhere in Utah.
It is, it is illegal to kill a Bigfoot legislators spent time arguing and passing a law,
It prevents you from being allowed to shoot something that doesn't exist.
Oh God. Allegedly. Oh God. Here we go. Here we go. Allegedly.
(22:39):
Let's see the feedback on that from the Sasquatch crew.
I'm a big foot guy. Yeah. Anyway, I think, I think something's out there, right?
I mean, they couldn't, we've seen everything there is to see,
but what is funny is, uh, there's a guy I know and dude, this is a intelligent
guy that, uh, and I know this has nothing to do with towing.
(23:02):
It is an intelligent guy owns a very successful construction company and his
entire back property is filled with trip wires and cameras and all.
This guy swears that there's a family that's of Bigfoots that stroll through his yard at night.
And then a couple of weeks ago, I see, I see a night vision picture.
(23:24):
I'm facebook and it's a guy in
a sasquatch no a guy in i think a chewbacca suit
and maybe his kid in an ewok suit and it says uh
for two years we've been we've been driving my
neighbor crazy with leaving these videos on his trail camera and
i instantly thought of the guy the guy i
know i told my son i said we need us
(23:45):
we need us a sasquatch uh you know some sort of
big hairy uniform just run around in the back of jimmy's yard but that
would drive him nuts but he is convinced they are back there
and and kind of lend credence
to his story he tells me oh yeah check out you gotta check out this park nearby
oh it's famous for bigfoot sightings i went online i probably spent two hours
(24:09):
trying to find anything on that park so yeah so bigfoot people don't get mad
at me i think they definitely did exist at one point.
You know i gigantopithecus or
whatever they call it i i i find
no reason to say they did not exist yeah um
obviously i can't prove they did you know but i
(24:33):
it's like aliens i you know i've never seen
one so i can't say they do exist i
think uh i don't know enough about the world to say
they don't exist um you
know that's probably a whole different show maybe i listened to i think i listened
to too much rogan here rightly yep so everybody this wraps up uh this episode
(24:56):
of uh let's get into politics it is election season oh my gosh can't wait till that shit's over oh,
i i the only thing i like about switching to t-mobile six months ago is their
anti-spam stuff is far superior to Verizon.
I just got one today saying that Ted Cruz must be stopped. I'm like,
(25:20):
I don't even get to vote for Ted Cruz in Ohio.
Oh, I get the flip side. I get the, hey, you know, if you could just send $1,
Ted Cruz can finally, you know, probably win.
I just got one at 12:57 right now. It's 1:29.
(25:40):
$1 billion. That's the size of Kamala's war chest. Every cent is stupid.
I block them all. I don't know how they keep, I guess they just generate them
from a new phone number and it doesn't, you know, it's not part of the blocked
database or whatever. I don't know.
Looking forward to that being over.
(26:02):
Yeah. Yeah. You got, you got someone in mind you're rooting for and you want
them to win, but really it gets so bad. You just like, well,
make a stop, make a stop, please.
Um.
Next thing we, we are noticing in our area and I believe we brought this up
(26:25):
a few shows ago, but now it seems much worse.
Um, these heavy startups around Atlanta, I mean, these trucks that I've seen, um,
don't look roadworthy, but they're popping up all over the place and they're
knocking on doors and, you know, I'll tow your tractor for $125
(27:00):
Yeah. There's a big difference between a older truck that is well-maintained
and, and looks professional and, and just a rolling pile of garbage that looks very unsafe.
And, uh, you know, these are the guys that are usually, you know,
sending no safety chains.
They got four ways on instead of, you know, of course they can do it cheaper, but my gosh, man,
(27:21):
why would, why would a major trucking company risk risk having someone,
that doesn't quite look up to snuff, you know, to save just a minimal amount of money.
You've got a terminal manager that's bonus on, you know, the financial operation of that.
(27:46):
It's the only thing I can come up with because it happens everywhere. Yeah, yeah.
And those terminal managers don't last. But, you know, it makes me wonder what
is creating this right now to allow these guys to start up?
Because, you know, I used to look at the heavy side of the business as,
you know, a higher barrier of entry, a little safer space to be in.
(28:11):
You're not going to have people popping up every day with heavies going after
customers like you do with the rollbacks and the snatch trucks and everything.
But I wonder what's going on right now that is fostering this.
Is it some sort of app that allows them to?
Draw in calls without being checked out or vetted, you know,
(28:34):
um, I just, something's got to be going on that is making this, this possible.
Cause even a cheap heavy isn't really cheap. Yeah.
And, uh, I can't imagine anybody lending money on a 25, 30 year old truck.
So I don't know. I don't know how somebody will with about a 20% interest rate. I'm sure.
(28:57):
Yeah, there's those.
You know, I got this, uh, uh, business capital, uh, commercial I hear on XM a lot.
And it says, do you need someone to lend you up to a million dollars regardless of your credit report?
It's like, wow, that's a good deal.
(29:18):
I don't have to show any intention or history of paying back loans and you'll
give me a million dollars.
I'm sure there's a little more into it than that, but, uh, that's,
that's their commercial, but, uh, yeah, I don't know.
So how do those, how do those guys get away?
Right. I mean, our, our motor carrier compliance in Georgia, they're really active.
(29:41):
Uh, it's not just pulling through a scale house and here's the day of the week
they chose to, you know, kind of crack down a little bit.
We've got a lot of officers and they're very active, um, roadside inspections,
all that good stuff, uh, roadside weighing.
(30:04):
Um, I don't know. They, they normally like attack area. Like they'll attack
I-85 and Coweta County for a couple of days and just pull over truck after like
three, four or five of them truck after then they'll move up the road like 20
miles and do the same thing again.
And I can't imagine any of these, these trucks passing, passing a roadside inspection.
(30:25):
Uh, so I don't know, maybe they're really good at sneaking around.
Maybe the officers say, hell, they can't pay their ticket. Anyhow, why bother? Hell, wow.
I don't know. I don't know what, uh, what's going on there, but it's happening.
And if it's happening there, oh, I put out a, uh, put out a post on,
uh, comfy sandals. No, no, no. God, don't get me started.
(30:50):
No business page, I think it was.
And what the hell was I just going to say?
Put out a post. Oh, I put out a post on the tow business page and it was,
um, holy shit, dude, what's wrong with me?
(31:11):
I just went blank a second time asking about, oh, the scam, the scam.
I put out a post on the tow business page. I think it was tow business page,
uh, about this towing scam.
I've talked about a few times now where they're getting somebody's,
uh, seeing a tow truck company, hook up to a, uh, tractor, trailer, dump truck, whatever.
(31:33):
And then they call the company you're towing and collect with an EFS check before
you even finished the tow and you call up there.
Yeah, we already, we already called you, man. It looks like it's probably happened
in the past couple of years, probably at least 12 to 15 times that we know of now.
So it's, it's bigger, it's bigger and stretching a little farther than, than I had realized.
(31:57):
Um, you know, initially I knew it was just us the first time.
And then I hear someone in Alabama and then several people. And one time they even screwed up.
They, the scammer sent an invoice from the wrong company and the other people still paid it.
You know, they, they, they, they called Bob's record service and Sam's wrecker
(32:20):
service called up wanting to collect on a bill and, and, you know,
just got some guy in breakdown.
Okay. I know that truck. We've got an incident file on this truck breaking down.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll pay this bill.
Uh, so it seems to be a little bigger than, than I first, uh, first imagined.
So I, I don't know. I don't know how to stop that one.
(32:41):
The one time we called the police, you know, they said, well,
somebody called that company and asked for money and the company chose to give
them money where's the crime it's like well i think fraudulent use of my business
name i think that might be some sort of crime but you know nah i don't know but.
(33:02):
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The next thing I wanted to talk about, training, the investment in training.
(34:33):
I see a lot of people, a lot of businesses send their employees for training,
whether it's towing training, recovery training, maybe billing training.
And then like everybody's gung ho about applying this new training.
But like a month later it all starts fading away
(34:56):
and yeah like
what are your ideas on how to keep it enforced right if you really i think a
lot of times it comes down to how many layers of management you have how many
direct reports because like a guy with 20 people reporting directly to him how
the hell is he supposed to stay on top of 20 people every day and make sure
(35:17):
everything they're doing every day is, is right.
Um, I think the people that, you know, get it down to five, six,
seven, eight people reporting to one person.
I think that's very helpful in, in any of these cases. But, uh,
you know, the big one is like, I I'm blown away at like how many tow trucks
(35:38):
are running around one chain on it, no tow light on the wheel lift car, stuff like that.
And it's like, man, every time I'm driving down the road, I mean,
literally anytime I'm driving down the road, if I see a tow truck off somewhere,
I'm trying to find out if it's one of mine and I am going to get up next to
it and, uh, give that thing a little, uh.
(35:59):
In traffic inspection, make sure, you know, everything's done right.
And if it's not, I'm going to call them and we'll have a little retrain session.
And, uh, I've been, I've been in.
I don't know, probably as far as South Florida, Mississippi,
North Carolina, and past one of our trucks, right?
(36:21):
So the joke with the guys is, dude, you got to do your shit right,
man. Jeff's everywhere. It doesn't matter where you are.
Jeff's going to see you and he's going to pass you and he's going to look at everything you do.
I like this. It's not even that you're everywhere. Like at this point,
you know, you've got friends all across the country, you know, towing, um,
(36:42):
towing buddies, or you got, you know, just people, you know,
from any walk of life that lives all across the country. I'm sure you get, I get them.
I'm sure you get pictures like, Hey, saw one of your trucks and whatever,
Illinois, like, and you can, depending on the angle, you can zoom in and look
and see how everything's rigged. Yep.
Um, yeah, not too long ago, I got a phone call and said, uh,
(37:03):
Hey, Hey, just nothing bad.
He was like hey just want to let you know i just passed one
of your trucks i think it was like up near knoxville and uh
dude it looks like one side of the light bar is starting to you know
come loose you might want to call that guy and get him to pull over and sure
as shit my guy pulled over and that light bar was about to fall off so a lot
of it a lot of the times it's just helpful stuff it's not it's not your buddy
(37:24):
trying to get your driver in trouble or anything like that it's people really
trying to help out but you know when that when that driver got back in town
the next day he's like, how in the hell did you know that?
It was like, buddy, I know a lot of people and, uh, sometimes good,
sometimes bad. A lot of people have my cell phone number.
So yeah, that's how, uh, that's how that works. So we, we have eyes everywhere. Right.
(37:49):
Um, I don't know. Uh, I just, when you have the training, all right.
So there's a incident I I was told, uh, probably two, three weeks ago,
guy had an incident, no safety chains, had a truck come off.
So many of our operators, and I say are in, in the nation are,
(38:14):
have received some really good training.
And I know the first day of training class they get to talks about the importance
of safety chains. So, I mean, how often.
Not to mention the legality of it
yeah yeah you know i i
tell i tell when i was a lot more involved in our training like you know first
(38:36):
person there in the truck training guy when i was still in a truck yeah i'd
always tell i put it in their head i don't i don't want to be over dramatic
but i always say you know what happens if something comes loose,
somebody gets seriously injured or killed how are you going to go tell that
(38:57):
family i'm really sorry this never would have happened if i just spent another
minute and a half attaching safety chains how do you live with that for the rest of your life.
I believe somebody probably told that to me like 20 years ago,
but it's in my head and I've repeated it so much.
It's kind of my own thing now. I say that to all of them.
(39:19):
The next time you decide to, eh, nah, it'll be fine. Hop back in the truck.
Think about that one thing. How do you explain it to a family while their,
why their loved one is gone?
Cause you're too damn lazy or didn't care enough about being a professional
to put those safety chains on.
So, hey, you know, without constant inspections, right?
(39:41):
Like as owners, managers, when you walk the yard, I think you ought to be looking at the trucks.
I think you ought to randomly pop doors open, look inside, make sure they're
clean, make sure there's nothing in there that's not supposed to be in there.
Pop open the toolboxes, take a look at their tie down straps.
Look at how their winches wound up on the drum.
And, and, and if you see something that's not up to par for you or your company,
(40:05):
that's the time to address it right now.
And I tell you, once you start doing that.
They're a lot more likely to keep their stuff straight because they know if
I'm parked on the yard and Jeff comes walking out, yeah, he's going,
he's, he's probably going to stop and look at my truck and look all around it.
(40:26):
So I think it goes a long way.
Having them know there are watchful eyes on them, right? If you, Hey, clean your truck.
And then you never verify that they cleaned your, their truck.
When you asked them to, why are they going to clean their truck?
Right. If they're not, unless they're one of those guys, one of those weirdos
that has to have everything clean and organized, uh, unless,
(40:50):
unless you're one of those guys, um, those trucks aren't going to get cleaned.
It's kind of the same thing. You just talked about, you know,
you invest all this money in dispatch training and then you let it just fall apart.
It's it's just follow up and
whatever you want to call it enforcement or uh giving
(41:11):
a shit necessarily yeah you know
you paid for it it's your you know business on the line your your wallet on
the line so to speak it's all the same thing yeah i don't know if you're if
you're not going to enforce the training why pay for it to begin with right um because,
(41:33):
good training isn't cheap and it shouldn't be right.
You want quality instructors, uh, quality material, all that good stuff.
Not looking, not looking to go cheap on the training, but, uh,
I just want the best training, but then I, I need, uh, I need a way to ensure
that everybody is, uh, using the training you've provided to them.
(41:54):
And, uh, you just, you do that with policies, right? That's why you don't walk
up to someone and say, Hey, new policy. That's why it goes down in writing.
And you get an acknowledgement, a signature, whatever. If you do it online,
have them respond. Yep, I understand. You know, I always say...
Whenever I put something new out, I say, if any of this is unclear,
(42:15):
if you are unsure of anything here, now is the time to get with me.
Not after there's a problem because you did something wrong and you come back
and say, oh, I didn't get it. I didn't understand that. I didn't know I was supposed to do that. No.
At the bottom of the new policy, anyone who does not completely understand this,
now is the time to get with me.
(42:37):
Not a month from now after something went wrong.
Um, it's just a lot of, that's managing stuff, right? Staying on top of it,
making sure everything's going the way it's supposed to go.
You, uh, you, you, if you're a manager, if you're an owner, it's,
it's one of your obligations. If you want to have a, uh, a safe workplace and
a professional workplace.
(43:00):
So yeah, if you're going to make the investment, uh, keep following up on it.
And, uh, you know, we're quick to say like, oh, we deserve to be paid, you know,
a fair, a fair rate there's so
much that goes into you know quality is not cheap it's
it's you know he just said cheap training
(43:20):
isn't good like it's it's the same thing like you have
to pony up for the good training if the expensive
training so to speak because it's the good training yeah cheap training is not
good good training is not cheap it's the same thing in every industry yeah if
you want paid well you know we want other people to pay as well we have to pay well for quality.
(43:48):
Arts quality service quality whatever that we buy from other vendors and training is the same thing,
i was uh camping in another state and the guy the guy the people staying next
to us like barely limped in,
uh, towing their trailer with a truck that, uh, I believe it was the rear end
(44:11):
clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.
Like they barely got into the, the camp spot and were able to drop their trailer.
And then a company, it came out big company.
They like to pound their chest. We're the best around type of deal.
And, uh, I see this guy just throw one damn big J hook up under the front control
arm and one more big j hook on the on the back axle both on one side and then
(44:36):
crank this freaking thing down like i'm pretty sure that truck did a little bit of crab walking.
But uh it ain't going nowhere it ain't going nowhere um,
And it's like, how, how, I don't know.
I was almost embarrassed for them having, they pound their chest all the time,
(44:58):
telling everybody how good they are.
And then you're tearing a guy's truck in half, uh, at the very least,
probably, probably making it in, in need of an alignment when they're done with the toe.
But uh i don't know yesterday yesterday i
was i got photos to
(45:19):
prove it there was a nice rt challenger on the
deck of a flatbed and the only
thing holding the back of the car down was a
big j hook through the spoke of each rear wheel chained back and like it wasn't
even like the hook through the wheel that looked really bad the eyelet that
(45:40):
the chain attaches to on that hook was also against the rim,
but out in a much more visible place.
And as that car is hopping and jerking back and forth, you could see that this
edge of this ring on this J hook, just like carving its nice little signature in that, that RT wheel.
Holy shit. How do you get away with doing that? Like it was a,
(46:03):
a newer, newer, uh, like 5,500 Ram. It wasn't a junky truck at all.
The car damn sure wasn't junky it was a
nice uh nice challenger and damn
things being like there's several things wrong with that
right i mean damage the wheel yes but that wheel if it rotates at all if it's
(46:27):
if it's able to even even if it's you know it may be a stick if it's a challenger
there's a good chance it's a stick um a parking brake's probably not going to
hold that wheel still you You know,
all that yanking and jerking could rotate those wheels just enough to throw
some slack in those chains.
Now you got damage on tap of damage on tap of damage.
I love seeing little T hooks or just whatever through hubcaps.
(46:54):
Some of my favorite things. Like, come on.
You can't be that stupid. You're just giving the appearance that you tried.
Yeah. that you know that that that one yesterday
with that that challenger was like that that was so
obviously wrong like if you threw a guy in
a truck who'd never run a record before or loaded a car before and said i go
(47:16):
tie that thing down even that guy should recognize that you don't put a metal
hook through a through a uh mag wheel uh but you know they're probably online
telling everybody how good they are, too.
Local toes, $65. Oh, my gosh. Those are my favorite.
(47:39):
Oh, there's somebody that keeps... I'm back to that Georgia towing page again.
There's somebody that keeps...
It looks like they've posted it twice in the past couple of days.
And, uh, it says, Hey, today and tomorrow only $75 in town toes.
(48:01):
Then it says like within 20 miles or something like that.
70 what?
$75 for an in town toe. Shouldn't sound that crazy.
It was just like two years ago i heard a guy in
town throw out a uh 65 quote for
a in county tow on an f-450 that
(48:24):
was loaded down 65 our county is i think 45 square miles and uh yeah 65 dollars
to put a loaded f-450 on his bed uh service truck and uh bring it um if i remember
correctly it's probably about 14,
15 miles, that $65.
(48:46):
And you know, it was one of those deals, you know, I'm standing there and guy, guy walks up to him.
Hey man, we were in a parking lot.
Guy says, Hey man, didn't you tow my truck for me? And just walks up to the
other guy. He's like, yeah. He goes, man, you ain't gonna believe this. I got another one down.
And uh, he says, you charged me 65 last time. What are you going to charge me
for this one? He said, well, where is it? Is it in the County?
(49:07):
Yeah, it's in the County, man. You know, I'm going to take care you,
man, you're a repeat customer. I'll do it for 65, man. I'll do this one for 65 too.
This guy was more concerned with being like the cool tow truck owner cutting this guy.
If you told him once last year, that is not of the frequency of calls from that
(49:31):
customer to warrant doing something for a third of the price of what it was supposed to be.
Uh i don't know it's kind of like you know you see all these parents grow up
with these rotten kids because they were too busy trying to be the cool parent
instead of being a parent it's kind of the same thing a business owner trying to be the cool guy,
you're probably not doing things right but uh.
(49:55):
Oh well um yeah i got one more thing you got anything,
Nothing outside of your list, no. All right. All right.
Yeah, I, uh, this goes back to kind of the training and it's rigging inspections.
(50:17):
I, I like when it comes to rigging, especially in a rotator,
I like to keep some dedicated rigging for lifts, right?
Chain straps that I'm not dragging through the damn mud. I'm not cutting two
feet into the earth, bringing a dozer up over a, a hill.
I like that, that, that dedicated lifting only stuff.
(50:41):
Um, but man, everything needs to be inspected, everything.
And, uh, just wondering, you know, like I do a lot of my own,
not, not my own on my own truck, but on our trucks, my son does it too.
If you're running heavies and you haven't gone, if you're actually operating
(51:03):
a heavy and you haven't like attended one of Crosby's classes,
most commonly you hear about them at the Miller Rotator School.
That is some of the most important information a tower can receive is from the
rigging company about how to use their rigging and more importantly when to
(51:27):
stop using their rigging,
and you've you've got to have i mean if you've got one guy who's got the training,
and task him with doing periodic uh
inspections on everybody else's equipment if
he knows what he's doing and then as he's doing truck by truck
by truck he can pass along some of that knowledge until you
(51:48):
can get that next driver into the the rigging training
but i mean it's there's there's
guys that don't understand the construction of an endless loop and they don't
understand that when one strand breaks there's only one strand that goes around
(52:08):
and around and around you've just ruin the whole damn thing.
Um, friction might get you by for a little while with a, you know,
a couple, a small cut in the, uh, the, uh.
Strap there, but you know, that, that cover is just a cover.
There's stuff going on inside that thing and it needs to be able to move and
(52:29):
twist and, you know, do what it needs to do.
Uh, you don't want to put the stuff up, uh, dry. I mean, uh,
wet you want, you want to always put it back in your boxes dry.
Um, obviously lubrication on the snatch blocks, um, chemicals,
certain chemicals, you don't want to soak these straps down with like degreasers
(52:50):
and stuff, you know, um, they'll tell you everything.
Cause there's Kevlar, there's nylon, there's, there's different materials and,
and some of them don't react well in direct sunlight.
Uh, some of them don't like heat at all.
Uh, and then, and then it's the, the chemicals on top of that.
And I just, I'm, I'm just, I'm asking everybody to get somebody on your team,
(53:14):
that's trained in, uh, rigging inspections and, uh,
out of service criteria, you know, what to look for, know when to say when type
of thing, it sucks having to buy new rigging, but it's going to happen, right?
The stuff rubs on things and, you know, and, and also they go into great detail
on, you know, if you have a sharp edge of metal, you're not putting a strap over that.
(53:37):
That's a chain situation all day long. Uh, you're, I've seen guys now,
usually it's just the junk haulers, but they'll put like a car or two on their bed.
I've seen them stacked up too high. And then the winch cable run from the winch
up over the center of the car, back down to the back of the truck and just pulled tight.
Nothing else keeping this like mini stack of cars on the bed other than a cable
(54:02):
that was never intended to tie that stuff down.
So you know if the if um
management doesn't have the training they're never going to be able
to pass that training along so so please you know make sure you got one guy
uh that can do it and pass that pass that along until you have an opportunity
(54:23):
to get them in now i actually did some reading up on this last week and uh crosby
like it's not just a miller rotator thing if you contact Crosby,
they, they will try to, uh,
find someone in your area, a local Crosby distributor to help,
uh, facilitate the training on, on their equipment and, you know, and things change.
(54:47):
Like if you got trained 20 years ago.
Things probably have changed. The equipment may not have changed,
but the proper procedure for use has changed.
And in 06, when I went to my first training class, we were always told to back
the screw pin shackle out by a quarter turn, bottom it out, back it out a quarter turn.
(55:11):
That allows you to undo it quickly and easily when you're done.
And then eventually you go to another class years later and says,
no, that's why there's a hole in it.
So you can stick a small pike bar or a screwdriver through it and break it free and twist it out.
These things are make, you know, if that thing is not bottomed out and tight
(55:31):
in there and you put a heavy load on that, it can deform a little bit and that's no good.
So yeah, there's a lot of little things like that. So if, especially if you're
in the, in the heavy world, the rotator world, if you're doing actual like, uh,
lifts, you know, not just recovery work, you're doing actual,
(55:53):
you know, critical lifting jobs with a very expensive equipment.
Uh, you really need that training and, uh, no one to know when to get rid of that stuff.
Uh, we, we have a policy when, when something comes off a truck,
uh, we, we like to destroy it,
not for the fun, but so some knucklehead doesn't pick through a dumpster and
(56:17):
say, damn, look at that nice strap. And they use it.
You know, I, I really have no doubt if they could, if they have an accident
and they could tie it back to your ownership at one point, you're probably,
probably going to get named in some sort of lawsuit. I know it's happened.
Even if it's not somebody outside of your company, if you have it in the dumpster
(56:37):
and the driver sees it and they're like, Oh shit, I lost one of those last week.
I can avoid getting in trouble for that by just taking this one and put it on my truck.
They'll probably do it. And that's, that's just as bad.
Yeah. Cause one location there's, there's two of us that share the property.
So we share things like dumpsters.
(56:57):
Um, so yeah, you don't want someone else.
Somebody sees you throw some stuff out like, Hey, what'd they throw that out for?
And they could run and grab it. Uh, and then our other location,
the, the, uh, the dumpster is actually located outside of our,
our, uh, fenced in lot because the, the, uh.
(57:19):
The garbage people come to dump it at like 3 a.m. And nobody wants to be sitting
there and opening a gate for them.
So it stays just outside the gate.
Anybody come through that. I mean, hell, if somebody can throw a sectional sofa
in a three-yard dumpster, I'm sure they'll come back and look for other stuff in it.
(57:40):
We have one dumpster up on our top yard, and it's been there for three months.
We look in it the other day, and it was just sitting there empty.
You know, it wasn't really, we weren't using it for anything,
but, uh, my son peaks inside it and somebody decided they to get a new,
uh, bedroom set and throw, throw what they no longer needed in the, uh, dumpster.
(58:01):
So yeah, they, they do the same thing. If they think there's something of value
in their chains, hooks, snatch blocks, stuff like that.
Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it past, uh, someone to come and grab that
stuff out of there and try and put it into use.
But i think that wraps up show 131 correct yes 131 all right i knew i knew it was 130 something,
(58:27):
so uh the a i don't real quick uh saw a post uh from the towing life podcast
up in canada and they've decided to take a break it really goes back to what
we we started the show with just the needing content and,
and the scheduling and everything.
And, and, uh, you know, it was just, uh, I, I really enjoy their show.
(58:50):
Um, in the beginning, much like ours, it was much less polished,
you know, but as they, as they, you know, moved ahead, uh, I,
I started listening to it on a regular basis and, and it was almost, uh.
You know, it was nice to see we're not the only one struggling with uh schedules
(59:10):
and content and stuff like that the same they
are in the same boat and uh they've decided to take a uh
a break and and we'll see how that goes but
uh yeah they were uh they were rolling along pretty good i think they were up
to like show 160 or something like that but they do them every week they're
crazy that's 200 i mean the last thing we want to do the last thing we want
(59:31):
to do is get on here and say the same thing over and over and over which ends
up happening sometimes just because of the nature of the industry and we have the same,
frustrations and pain points and those tend to surface no matter what the topic is but we don't want to.
Put stuff out just to put stuff out yeah we
(59:54):
want it to be a value or at least if nothing else at
least entertaining or interesting um so i
i i appreciate that they um realized
kind of where they were at and they needed a break and and we
can we can definitely relate to that it was i
liked listening to them because you would hear a lot about
(01:00:15):
um Canadian regulation
or at least Canadian standards or just the way businesses operate
that might be different versus here in the states um
so hopefully it'll get back at it
soon yeah and there's a chance that uh sean may be stopping in atlanta for a
visit not too long from now and uh we agreed to try and try and hook up for
(01:00:39):
dinner or something and i think uh record a show see oh that'd be pretty cool
if they want to check us out.
Yeah, that'd be, that'd be pretty cool.
They're, uh, they're, uh, very interested in, uh, trying out one of our new
rotators with that XD Endurant Pro automatic transmission from Eaton in it.
(01:00:59):
Uh, so yeah, I think that gives them like justification to, uh,
add this leg of their trip under, uh, the business category.
There you go. Go for test drive. But, uh, yeah, definitely it'd be really cool if that happens.
And, uh, that may be worth trying to do a, uh, doing a, uh, joint show there.
Me and him have actually talked about it a lot in probably the past year and
(01:01:23):
a half trying to get us together.
And, you know, again, scheduling, you try to get four people on the same schedule
is freaking impossible.
Uh, so yeah, it hasn't, it hasn't happened.
I, I thought it was going to be funny. I didn't get much response.
I thought it would have been funny on, uh, April fools to like me and Brad start
(01:01:46):
their show. Cause their show is video, right?
Me and Brad start there. Don't say a freaking word. No April fools bullshit.
Just start in, go to a break and it comes back with those guys. Never missing.
I thought that would have been funny, but I threw that out to him and he either
missed it or thought it, thought it was a shitty idea.
So one of those, but maybe we'll get them on soon. But, uh, other than that,
(01:02:08):
thanks for listening. Uh, we'll talk to you soon.
Music.
That's the end of another show if you enjoy listening please
help support the show by leaving a five-star review wherever
you listen to podcasts other ways to help the show are by sharing our shows
(01:02:28):
and social media content with others if you have an idea for a future show please
submit it at info at towbusinesspodcast.com be safe out there and be sure to
promote slow down move over to those you know outside of our industry.
Music.
(00:13):
You're listening to Tow Business Podcast, the towing industry's longest-running
show and your number one spot to find news and information to help you grow
your tow business and promote professionalism throughout the industry and your community.
The thoughts expressed on this show are those of each host. We don't offer legal
or financial advice, so it's best to get that from your attorney or CPA.
We're just two towers with very different backgrounds sharing their ideas and
(00:35):
opinions based on their time in the industry.
Be safe, be professional, and support the towing associations that support you.
Music.
Hey, welcome to Tow Business Podcast. This is show 131.
(00:57):
It is the first show of season 18.
Boy, that sounds like a long time.
We've been doing this a while here this
uh this break we're coming off of was a little longer than
uh usual thanks to a couple hurricanes you
may have heard about and then i had some uh out of town traveling
and everything just kind of kind of
(01:18):
came together to stick a monkey wrench into getting the season started so uh
we will uh we'll get back up to slip ead and uh yeah sup ead sup ead we'll get
back up to speed and sound it out crank them out when we're supposed to from here forward But,
yeah. So, whew!
(01:40):
131. Very nice.
How's it going? Feels like it's been forever. Yeah.
It doesn't feel like we've been doing this overall that long that you say season 18, but...
Time flies when you're all about having fun, but we do have fun doing this.
(02:03):
It's everything outside of this hour right here where we actually sit down and talk.
That kind of wears on us after a while, but I'm doing good.
Like you said, the hurricanes threw a little wrench in us getting back together.
We always take a season break, but this one kind of got pushed out a little
bit, like you said, due to my involvement in some hurricane work and your travel.
(02:27):
And just life in general um
i mean to be totally transparent um
on top of those two things i mean i think we're both just we're a little burnt
out um not so much in recording and talking and you know providing conversation
and content to the industry is just life in general and then,
(02:52):
um kind of feeling pressured to get this stuff out on time and find time in
the midst of our busy and and chaotic lives kind of took a toll on us i think
so that's just a little peek behind the curtain we are human we we do have other
things going on besides this which i wish we didn't but,
we do um this is a release for us to get together and talk but.
(03:18):
Squeezing that release in sometimes proves to
be difficult um but here
we are now we are you know heading into
winter it's almost november here um we're still hanging on to some decent weather
here in ohio but it's depressing because we know what's coming um and it was
(03:39):
it was below 50 the other day and i felt so depressed and mad and you know you
could have thought it was zero but uh,
we know it's coming i heard some good news looking
ahead to next year they just announced that the ohio tow show
which is you know near and dear to me we'll
be back to great wolf lodge back at um the
(04:02):
the water park the family oriented atmosphere will come back which i know will
um make a lot of people happy myself and my kids included so uh that's great
news do you know if there's any restrictions on on any towers from uh louisiana showing up this time,
(04:23):
I haven't heard of any, but I'm not on the inside. I'm not on that board or
that association, so I don't know of any such restrictions.
It wouldn't surprise me.
I know why you ask, but I...
I don't know. Those security camera photos are pretty damn hysterical.
(04:50):
Anyhow yeah the uh just got back in town we
had to go to uh my son and i and my partner we went
to kansas city last week for our owners group meeting this
is a really good one oh gosh i think they're all really good uh you learn a
lot you talk about a lot of subjects that you just don't really have a chance
to discuss uh in a group or on a phone you know you all get together and And
(05:13):
the last half day is always just kind of like open forum, new ideas,
any questions any of the members have, you know, it's great.
But the best part about this owners group meeting, and I'm probably going to
sound wrong, but was that on the way home, my son and I were able to go to Bentonville, Arkansas.
(05:35):
Bentonville, Arkansas is the mountain bike capital of the United States.
Uh it is unbelievable it's
been about three four years trying to get there because normally when i have
free time i go to vermont uh but uh kind of semi-passing bentonville on the
way to kansas city we said let's bring the bikes and get a vrbo for a few days
and uh check this out and it was,
(06:00):
it was heaven it was mountain bike heaven man they they have entire,
They're like little complexes of VRBOs that are totally set up for the mountain bike crowd.
They've got bike stands, toolkits, compressing, you know, really wild.
You can, there's got to be.
There's got to be more miles of trails in Bentonville than there are paved roads. It is unbelievable.
(06:24):
The, uh, Walton family has a lot to do with that. You know, Walmart's based in Bentonville.
Apparently, uh, some, uh, younger family members are mountain bike fanatics
from what I understand and really started getting it done.
Like you, you go to a regular bike park and if you go over a jump, it's a dirt jump.
It's just a big shaped mound of dirt. Well, you go to Bentonville and these
(06:46):
things have like, everything's surrounded with artwork, elaborate stonework,
metalwork, everything is just, it's, you know, there's, there's one, um.
Uh, they have several hubs and off each hub are several kind of related trails
that go off in different directions of different difficulties.
And one of them is called the castle and uh
(07:08):
there's they make a lot of the art out of
like bike oriented stuff so like the shield is a rim and the sword might be
a bicycle crank so i mean it's it's really wild to check out whether you're
a mountain biker or not that that town is so cool the the downtown is just really
really clean and like happening there's stuff going on all the time And man,
(07:30):
what a, what an incredible job they've done with it.
So I have, uh, I'd say I marked that one off the old list, but,
uh, we both, we both agree. We'll be back there in the spring.
Um, so I don't know.
Makes me wish I had, uh, bought a house to put up as a VRBO about five,
six, 10 years ago up there. It'd be perfect.
(07:52):
Uh, Killington, where I normally go, you and I discussed VRBOs up there.
Uh they just took killington just became
uh fell under private ownership again and it's
a couple of local business guys with uh tons of money they've uh dedicated uh
or they've committed over 30 million dollars in capital improvements for the
(08:14):
the ski area itself and there's a lot going on in town and uh so uh yeah pretty
wild all these uh places i love to go just keep getting bigger and better.
So, yep, that is, uh, that's about that all that's going on with me that I know
of, uh, that I can think of right now, but, uh, we'll be right back.
(08:38):
Hey I'm a big fan of those videos Miller Industries keeps putting out.
They're really helpful for training and maintenance.
One of them I thought was pretty cool when I saw it was the new heavy-duty underlift
on their industrial carriers and here is Kip Felice with Miller Industries to talk about it.
Hey thanks Jeff. Yeah about two years ago we redesigned our 10,000 pound underlift
for the industrial carrier to give it more capacity and longer reach.
(09:01):
With the longer CB chassis you can get 77 inches of full extension with this
three-stage underlift It gives operators 10,000 pounds of lifting capacity and
the ability to tow something that weighs up to 50,000 pounds.
You know, if they're out on the delivery of a rental piece of equipment,
they can always tow a tractor back to the shop.
That is pretty cool and something that is definitely needed.
Yeah, anyone can check out the videos on our website, and we also do post to
(09:25):
our YouTube channel as well.
Sweet. Yeah, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel so you catch all
their videos and subscribe to their news feed at millerind.com.
Does your towing business need to improve efficiency to
unlock its growth potential then you need to partner with our
friends at Traxero who offer a full suite of software
solutions specifically for towers like you my team at Southside Wrecker uses
(09:48):
Traxero as does Brad's team at Sandy's Towing and Recovery and we know we can
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request your demo now at Traxero.com to see how their towing software can help
you take your business to the next level.
All right, we are back. And, uh, I don't know.
(10:10):
I feel kind of like it's, uh, you know, we could name this the beating a dead
horse show, but, uh, I think that name is taken. I think we've done that before. Oh, shoot.
So like one of the things that keeps amazing me and there's one thing in particular,
and this is why I don't mind beating that dead horse.
There's, there's a new reason to beat it.
(10:31):
Um there's a uh
a local page i say local
it's a it's a georgia towing page right and a guy just posts this ppi sign and
says hey is this sign legal like you can assume since it's a georgia page it's
in georgia but you know all this stuff there couldn't have been.
(10:57):
More contradictive responses than there was everything from call this person, call that person.
Why don't you, why are you going to Facebook for regulatory answers?
Call who regulates it.
Georgia people are throwing out all this stuff, this trashy info that's not
(11:22):
correct, or it's severely outdated.
And, uh, And somebody says, why are you people not going to the Georgia DPS website?
These regs are spelled out so clearly.
The rates, the sign requirements, all that. Why are you on here getting 100
(11:43):
wrong answers when you can just go to that website and get everything you need?
But it's crazy. When it comes to PPI red regulations, that's probably the big
one that I see questions asked for, um, whether or not you need DOT numbers.
Again, you get a hundred contradictive responses every time,
(12:05):
uh, hours of service questions.
Uh, I mean, you see crazy stuff, you know, well, you only need a log book.
If, uh, a crow flies over your truck, when you're
doing 56 miles an hour on the interstate i mean
it's it's just nonsense and i
don't drives me nuts the people
(12:25):
who don't know what the hell they're talking about come on
a public forum and try to make it sound like they know what they're talking about
you you what what is uh what's that
old saying something about uh something about
a fool talking leaves no question that
he's a fool something along those lines i can't
(12:46):
think of it but uh it's like you you'd look
a lot smarter if you just didn't respond so i don't know it's lazy right i mean
you can go uh you know you can search even if you didn't know you have to go
to the georgia dps website you can google georgia.
(13:09):
Uh, private impound laws or, or what, something like that.
And it will take you to that website. You didn't know the name of,
I, I, I just don't understand.
It's, I guess, I don't know. You could type in a search term way faster than
you could post that picture and ask, ask a question.
And, uh, really it's, it's, it's a guy, I think he's upset.
(13:32):
A guy bought a truck in his area and, and started throwing up signs.
I bet that happens a lot. I know it happens a lot. I've seen that happen a lot.
You'll see a towing company just pop up out of nowhere and all of a sudden their,
their signs are plastered all over the place.
A few years ago, uh, a company popped up, up, up towards Atlanta,
(13:55):
just kind of between us and Atlanta.
And if you drove down the road, we're talking like a state road.
They, this company now had their signs nailed to telephone poles along the, along the curb.
Like they were now enforcing the no parking on the, uh, state road that went
through the center of town and the, the signs weren't up to code.
(14:20):
Uh, and they were everywhere. They were in neighborhoods, just put up wherever
they could be all over town.
And, uh, yeah, Now, you can't do private property impounds off a damn city street or a state highway.
So I don't know. I think that happens a lot.
A guy buys a truck and doesn't know this stuff, right? I mean,
(14:42):
it probably would be a really good idea if you're thinking of starting a towing
business to maybe join your association.
Isn't PPI public property impounds? Isn't that PPI public property? Yeah.
No, I'm sorry. Private property. private same yeah yeah you got it you almost
got me yeah yeah almost got me but uh yeah so i mean how often does that happen
(15:07):
a guy and and you could you could see by a lot of the posts hey,
just bought my first tow truck where can i find customers you're doing it backwards
right you should have all your information before you start your business you
shouldn't be on there asking Okay, I got a truck.
Hey, I bought a truck, got a good deal. Where can I get cheap insurance?
(15:33):
Buddy, cheap, definitely a concern. But usually cheap means you're not getting
what you need, get what you pay for type of thing.
So you see that so much. And now this stuff here, I mean, people probably just
think, hey, I can throw up signs and start impounding out of parking lots.
Never realizing that Georgia State Patrol essentially runs that entire game.
(16:01):
That's like the one most heavily regulated game.
Part of towing across the country. It's the only regulated towing in the state
of Georgia, right? It's the only thing.
I don't know. These questions just over and over. And I will,
I will just briefly touch on the fact that if you hit the search bar and typed in your,
(16:25):
your subject, it'd come up with 30,000 other posts within the last week.
Um, and that's only a minor, minor exaggeration.
Um, I, I don't know talking about PPI, uh, God, I mean, it's in the news so
much, you know, many municipalities are moving towards restrictions on PPI.
(16:48):
Now, uh, a lot of them I'm seeing are like for a certain number of hours,
like a car can't be touched for 48 hours. It's gotta be sitting there.
And like, is that any good? Do you see any problems with that?
Well i mean i see a lot of problems i'm trying to trip you up.
(17:10):
So if you have to wait 48 hours before booting or or uh towing a car off of private property,
how is that serving the property owner right you you don't have the right here in two days Yeah.
(17:32):
So you've got that private parking spot taken up by someone who should not be using it for two days.
I think I would understand...
An hour, two hours, a couple hours, right? Cause you've got the flip side of the problem.
(17:54):
Like up in, uh, was it Memphis or Nashville? Nashville, right?
With the, uh, Memphis, right? Memphis. Okay. Memphis.
It's been a while. Come on, give me some slack. But, um, you know,
where in the time somebody left their truck to go by their parking permit and
came back, their truck was already booted or being hooked up to a tow truck.
(18:15):
So because of, um,
I don't know, because of dirt bags in our industry, you know,
there almost has to be some sort of almost has to be some sort.
Let's just get rid of the dirt bags.
Let's stop coming up with new rules and restrictions and regulations and figure
(18:37):
out how to get rid of the dirt bags.
Cause they're the ones who got us here and they don't care.
And I'm sure they can pop back up, shut one down, pop another one up,
you know, the second they get in trouble.
It might make them think twice. Yeah, make it a little less lucrative,
(18:58):
but still, I think the ultimate rights should go to the property owner.
You paid for it. You're insuring it. You're paying your taxes on it.
And some entitled jackwad just gets on there and wants to, leave their car on your property.
The property owner has to have a quick remedy available to them to fix that,
(19:20):
that problem or, okay, so I'm talking about the dirt bags causing us to have to do it.
How about the people that think they just have a right to park wherever the hell they want?
Right. Uh, I mean, that's always one of my favorite conversations to have is
when somebody calls in and somebody just randomly pulled over or their car died
(19:41):
or whatever in someone's driveway. Yep.
And they're like, I'm like, sorry, we can't, I know you own it and you don't
know who it is and they didn't have permission, but we can't just come move it.
I know it's, I know it sounds stupid, but unfortunately it's not worth it to
us to come do it because we're not allowed.
(20:02):
George georgia has a little carve out for that if
it's a uh if you own it and it's
less than four units like if you own two townhomes you know two double townhomes
then you fall under the the main regulations but if somebody just parked in
your front yard you don't have to wait the 24 hours with the signs up and all
that stuff and have a signed contract you know you pretty much have it done.
(20:25):
But a lot of times it's, it's, it's really best to, you know,
call the police department and, uh, get them to clear it.
Cause they'll normally tell you, no, we can't do nothing with a call to tow truck company.
And, and once that occurs, I feel a little better about it. You know,
uh, they said it's not their problem and that kind of, kind of throws it over
(20:46):
to us. So I'm, I'm okay with that.
Um, it doesn't happen a lot, but you know, it still happens.
And if there's a car parked in
your driveway and you're trying to go to work, what are you going to do?
Um, I guess, I guess you could back into it and push it out in the middle of
the road. And then, then the police will come and have it towed.
I mean, that's a one remedy, I guess.
(21:08):
We've definitely never told anybody to push it out to the road.
Oh, boy. But, you know, you're back to just creating regulation after regulation after regulation.
And sometimes it seems like the new regulations are not redundant,
(21:31):
but, well, sometimes, yeah, sometimes they contradict each other.
You know, one new law and everybody forgot about the law that kind of already
existed for the same reason or the regulation.
And, um, I kind of like the idea of, uh, in order to enact one new law in a
(21:53):
state, you have to repeal two just to keep those books clean and get rid of the old stuff.
Um, there's a, there's a channel I watch on TV and in the commercial breaks,
it's one of these streaming things that they, they tell you like a strange law in another state.
(22:13):
And I forget, I think it's Utah, somewhere in Utah.
It is, it is illegal to kill a Bigfoot legislators spent time arguing and passing a law,
It prevents you from being allowed to shoot something that doesn't exist.
Oh God. Allegedly. Oh God. Here we go. Here we go. Allegedly.
(22:39):
Let's see the feedback on that from the Sasquatch crew.
I'm a big foot guy. Yeah. Anyway, I think, I think something's out there, right?
I mean, they couldn't, we've seen everything there is to see,
but what is funny is, uh, there's a guy I know and dude, this is a intelligent
guy that, uh, and I know this has nothing to do with towing.
(23:02):
It is an intelligent guy owns a very successful construction company and his
entire back property is filled with trip wires and cameras and all.
This guy swears that there's a family that's of Bigfoots that stroll through his yard at night.
And then a couple of weeks ago, I see, I see a night vision picture.
(23:24):
I'm facebook and it's a guy in
a sasquatch no a guy in i think a chewbacca suit
and maybe his kid in an ewok suit and it says uh
for two years we've been we've been driving my
neighbor crazy with leaving these videos on his trail camera and
i instantly thought of the guy the guy i
know i told my son i said we need us
(23:45):
we need us a sasquatch uh you know some sort of
big hairy uniform just run around in the back of jimmy's yard but that
would drive him nuts but he is convinced they are back there
and and kind of lend credence
to his story he tells me oh yeah check out you gotta check out this park nearby
oh it's famous for bigfoot sightings i went online i probably spent two hours
(24:09):
trying to find anything on that park so yeah so bigfoot people don't get mad
at me i think they definitely did exist at one point.
You know i gigantopithecus or
whatever they call it i i i find
no reason to say they did not exist yeah um
obviously i can't prove they did you know but i
(24:33):
it's like aliens i you know i've never seen
one so i can't say they do exist i
think uh i don't know enough about the world to say
they don't exist um you
know that's probably a whole different show maybe i listened to i think i listened
to too much rogan here rightly yep so everybody this wraps up uh this episode
(24:56):
of uh let's get into politics it is election season oh my gosh can't wait till that shit's over oh,
i i the only thing i like about switching to t-mobile six months ago is their
anti-spam stuff is far superior to Verizon.
I just got one today saying that Ted Cruz must be stopped. I'm like,
(25:20):
I don't even get to vote for Ted Cruz in Ohio.
Oh, I get the flip side. I get the, hey, you know, if you could just send $1,
Ted Cruz can finally, you know, probably win.
I just got one at 12:57 right now. It's 1:29.
(25:40):
$1 billion. That's the size of Kamala's war chest. Every cent is stupid.
I block them all. I don't know how they keep, I guess they just generate them
from a new phone number and it doesn't, you know, it's not part of the blocked
database or whatever. I don't know.
Looking forward to that being over.
(26:02):
Yeah. Yeah. You got, you got someone in mind you're rooting for and you want
them to win, but really it gets so bad. You just like, well,
make a stop, make a stop, please.
Um.
Next thing we, we are noticing in our area and I believe we brought this up
(26:25):
a few shows ago, but now it seems much worse.
Um, these heavy startups around Atlanta, I mean, these trucks that I've seen, um,
don't look roadworthy, but they're popping up all over the place and they're
knocking on doors and, you know, I'll tow your tractor for $125
(27:00):
Yeah. There's a big difference between a older truck that is well-maintained
and, and looks professional and, and just a rolling pile of garbage that looks very unsafe.
And, uh, you know, these are the guys that are usually, you know,
sending no safety chains.
They got four ways on instead of, you know, of course they can do it cheaper, but my gosh, man,
(27:21):
why would, why would a major trucking company risk risk having someone,
that doesn't quite look up to snuff, you know, to save just a minimal amount of money.
You've got a terminal manager that's bonus on, you know, the financial operation of that.
(27:46):
It's the only thing I can come up with because it happens everywhere. Yeah, yeah.
And those terminal managers don't last. But, you know, it makes me wonder what
is creating this right now to allow these guys to start up?
Because, you know, I used to look at the heavy side of the business as,
you know, a higher barrier of entry, a little safer space to be in.
(28:11):
You're not going to have people popping up every day with heavies going after
customers like you do with the rollbacks and the snatch trucks and everything.
But I wonder what's going on right now that is fostering this.
Is it some sort of app that allows them to?
Draw in calls without being checked out or vetted, you know,
(28:34):
um, I just, something's got to be going on that is making this, this possible.
Cause even a cheap heavy isn't really cheap. Yeah.
And, uh, I can't imagine anybody lending money on a 25, 30 year old truck.
So I don't know. I don't know how somebody will with about a 20% interest rate. I'm sure.
(28:57):
Yeah, there's those.
You know, I got this, uh, uh, business capital, uh, commercial I hear on XM a lot.
And it says, do you need someone to lend you up to a million dollars regardless of your credit report?
It's like, wow, that's a good deal.
(29:18):
I don't have to show any intention or history of paying back loans and you'll
give me a million dollars.
I'm sure there's a little more into it than that, but, uh, that's,
that's their commercial, but, uh, yeah, I don't know.
So how do those, how do those guys get away?
Right. I mean, our, our motor carrier compliance in Georgia, they're really active.
(29:41):
Uh, it's not just pulling through a scale house and here's the day of the week
they chose to, you know, kind of crack down a little bit.
We've got a lot of officers and they're very active, um, roadside inspections,
all that good stuff, uh, roadside weighing.
(30:04):
Um, I don't know. They, they normally like attack area. Like they'll attack
I-85 and Coweta County for a couple of days and just pull over truck after like
three, four or five of them truck after then they'll move up the road like 20
miles and do the same thing again.
And I can't imagine any of these, these trucks passing, passing a roadside inspection.
(30:25):
Uh, so I don't know, maybe they're really good at sneaking around.
Maybe the officers say, hell, they can't pay their ticket. Anyhow, why bother? Hell, wow.
I don't know. I don't know what, uh, what's going on there, but it's happening.
And if it's happening there, oh, I put out a, uh, put out a post on,
uh, comfy sandals. No, no, no. God, don't get me started.
(30:50):
No business page, I think it was.
And what the hell was I just going to say?
Put out a post. Oh, I put out a post on the tow business page and it was,
um, holy shit, dude, what's wrong with me?
(31:11):
I just went blank a second time asking about, oh, the scam, the scam.
I put out a post on the tow business page. I think it was tow business page,
uh, about this towing scam.
I've talked about a few times now where they're getting somebody's,
uh, seeing a tow truck company, hook up to a, uh, tractor, trailer, dump truck, whatever.
(31:33):
And then they call the company you're towing and collect with an EFS check before
you even finished the tow and you call up there.
Yeah, we already, we already called you, man. It looks like it's probably happened
in the past couple of years, probably at least 12 to 15 times that we know of now.
So it's, it's bigger, it's bigger and stretching a little farther than, than I had realized.
(31:57):
Um, you know, initially I knew it was just us the first time.
And then I hear someone in Alabama and then several people. And one time they even screwed up.
They, the scammer sent an invoice from the wrong company and the other people still paid it.
You know, they, they, they, they called Bob's record service and Sam's wrecker
(32:20):
service called up wanting to collect on a bill and, and, you know,
just got some guy in breakdown.
Okay. I know that truck. We've got an incident file on this truck breaking down.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll pay this bill.
Uh, so it seems to be a little bigger than, than I first, uh, first imagined.
So I, I don't know. I don't know how to stop that one.
(32:41):
The one time we called the police, you know, they said, well,
somebody called that company and asked for money and the company chose to give
them money where's the crime it's like well i think fraudulent use of my business
name i think that might be some sort of crime but you know nah i don't know but.
(33:02):
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The next thing I wanted to talk about, training, the investment in training.
(34:33):
I see a lot of people, a lot of businesses send their employees for training,
whether it's towing training, recovery training, maybe billing training.
And then like everybody's gung ho about applying this new training.
But like a month later it all starts fading away
(34:56):
and yeah like
what are your ideas on how to keep it enforced right if you really i think a
lot of times it comes down to how many layers of management you have how many
direct reports because like a guy with 20 people reporting directly to him how
the hell is he supposed to stay on top of 20 people every day and make sure
(35:17):
everything they're doing every day is, is right.
Um, I think the people that, you know, get it down to five, six,
seven, eight people reporting to one person.
I think that's very helpful in, in any of these cases. But, uh,
you know, the big one is like, I I'm blown away at like how many tow trucks
(35:38):
are running around one chain on it, no tow light on the wheel lift car, stuff like that.
And it's like, man, every time I'm driving down the road, I mean,
literally anytime I'm driving down the road, if I see a tow truck off somewhere,
I'm trying to find out if it's one of mine and I am going to get up next to
it and, uh, give that thing a little, uh.
(35:59):
In traffic inspection, make sure, you know, everything's done right.
And if it's not, I'm going to call them and we'll have a little retrain session.
And, uh, I've been, I've been in.
I don't know, probably as far as South Florida, Mississippi,
North Carolina, and past one of our trucks, right?
(36:21):
So the joke with the guys is, dude, you got to do your shit right,
man. Jeff's everywhere. It doesn't matter where you are.
Jeff's going to see you and he's going to pass you and he's going to look at everything you do.
I like this. It's not even that you're everywhere. Like at this point,
you know, you've got friends all across the country, you know, towing, um,
(36:42):
towing buddies, or you got, you know, just people, you know,
from any walk of life that lives all across the country. I'm sure you get, I get them.
I'm sure you get pictures like, Hey, saw one of your trucks and whatever,
Illinois, like, and you can, depending on the angle, you can zoom in and look
and see how everything's rigged. Yep.
Um, yeah, not too long ago, I got a phone call and said, uh,
(37:03):
Hey, Hey, just nothing bad.
He was like hey just want to let you know i just passed one
of your trucks i think it was like up near knoxville and uh
dude it looks like one side of the light bar is starting to you know
come loose you might want to call that guy and get him to pull over and sure
as shit my guy pulled over and that light bar was about to fall off so a lot
of it a lot of the times it's just helpful stuff it's not it's not your buddy
(37:24):
trying to get your driver in trouble or anything like that it's people really
trying to help out but you know when that when that driver got back in town
the next day he's like, how in the hell did you know that?
It was like, buddy, I know a lot of people and, uh, sometimes good,
sometimes bad. A lot of people have my cell phone number.
So yeah, that's how, uh, that's how that works. So we, we have eyes everywhere. Right.
(37:49):
Um, I don't know. Uh, I just, when you have the training, all right.
So there's a incident I I was told, uh, probably two, three weeks ago,
guy had an incident, no safety chains, had a truck come off.
So many of our operators, and I say are in, in the nation are,
(38:14):
have received some really good training.
And I know the first day of training class they get to talks about the importance
of safety chains. So, I mean, how often.
Not to mention the legality of it
yeah yeah you know i i
tell i tell when i was a lot more involved in our training like you know first
(38:36):
person there in the truck training guy when i was still in a truck yeah i'd
always tell i put it in their head i don't i don't want to be over dramatic
but i always say you know what happens if something comes loose,
somebody gets seriously injured or killed how are you going to go tell that
(38:57):
family i'm really sorry this never would have happened if i just spent another
minute and a half attaching safety chains how do you live with that for the rest of your life.
I believe somebody probably told that to me like 20 years ago,
but it's in my head and I've repeated it so much.
It's kind of my own thing now. I say that to all of them.
(39:19):
The next time you decide to, eh, nah, it'll be fine. Hop back in the truck.
Think about that one thing. How do you explain it to a family while their,
why their loved one is gone?
Cause you're too damn lazy or didn't care enough about being a professional
to put those safety chains on.
So, hey, you know, without constant inspections, right?
(39:41):
Like as owners, managers, when you walk the yard, I think you ought to be looking at the trucks.
I think you ought to randomly pop doors open, look inside, make sure they're
clean, make sure there's nothing in there that's not supposed to be in there.
Pop open the toolboxes, take a look at their tie down straps.
Look at how their winches wound up on the drum.
And, and, and if you see something that's not up to par for you or your company,
(40:05):
that's the time to address it right now.
And I tell you, once you start doing that.
They're a lot more likely to keep their stuff straight because they know if
I'm parked on the yard and Jeff comes walking out, yeah, he's going,
he's, he's probably going to stop and look at my truck and look all around it.
(40:26):
So I think it goes a long way.
Having them know there are watchful eyes on them, right? If you, Hey, clean your truck.
And then you never verify that they cleaned your, their truck.
When you asked them to, why are they going to clean their truck?
Right. If they're not, unless they're one of those guys, one of those weirdos
that has to have everything clean and organized, uh, unless,
(40:50):
unless you're one of those guys, um, those trucks aren't going to get cleaned.
It's kind of the same thing. You just talked about, you know,
you invest all this money in dispatch training and then you let it just fall apart.
It's it's just follow up and
whatever you want to call it enforcement or uh giving
(41:11):
a shit necessarily yeah you know
you paid for it it's your you know business on the line your your wallet on
the line so to speak it's all the same thing yeah i don't know if you're if
you're not going to enforce the training why pay for it to begin with right um because,
(41:33):
good training isn't cheap and it shouldn't be right.
You want quality instructors, uh, quality material, all that good stuff.
Not looking, not looking to go cheap on the training, but, uh,
I just want the best training, but then I, I need, uh, I need a way to ensure
that everybody is, uh, using the training you've provided to them.
(41:54):
And, uh, you just, you do that with policies, right? That's why you don't walk
up to someone and say, Hey, new policy. That's why it goes down in writing.
And you get an acknowledgement, a signature, whatever. If you do it online,
have them respond. Yep, I understand. You know, I always say...
Whenever I put something new out, I say, if any of this is unclear,
(42:15):
if you are unsure of anything here, now is the time to get with me.
Not after there's a problem because you did something wrong and you come back
and say, oh, I didn't get it. I didn't understand that. I didn't know I was supposed to do that. No.
At the bottom of the new policy, anyone who does not completely understand this,
now is the time to get with me.
(42:37):
Not a month from now after something went wrong.
Um, it's just a lot of, that's managing stuff, right? Staying on top of it,
making sure everything's going the way it's supposed to go.
You, uh, you, you, if you're a manager, if you're an owner, it's,
it's one of your obligations. If you want to have a, uh, a safe workplace and
a professional workplace.
(43:00):
So yeah, if you're going to make the investment, uh, keep following up on it.
And, uh, you know, we're quick to say like, oh, we deserve to be paid, you know,
a fair, a fair rate there's so
much that goes into you know quality is not cheap it's
it's you know he just said cheap training
(43:20):
isn't good like it's it's the same thing like you have
to pony up for the good training if the expensive
training so to speak because it's the good training yeah cheap training is not
good good training is not cheap it's the same thing in every industry yeah if
you want paid well you know we want other people to pay as well we have to pay well for quality.
(43:48):
Arts quality service quality whatever that we buy from other vendors and training is the same thing,
i was uh camping in another state and the guy the guy the people staying next
to us like barely limped in,
uh, towing their trailer with a truck that, uh, I believe it was the rear end
(44:11):
clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.
Like they barely got into the, the camp spot and were able to drop their trailer.
And then a company, it came out big company.
They like to pound their chest. We're the best around type of deal.
And, uh, I see this guy just throw one damn big J hook up under the front control
arm and one more big j hook on the on the back axle both on one side and then
(44:36):
crank this freaking thing down like i'm pretty sure that truck did a little bit of crab walking.
But uh it ain't going nowhere it ain't going nowhere um,
And it's like, how, how, I don't know.
I was almost embarrassed for them having, they pound their chest all the time,
(44:58):
telling everybody how good they are.
And then you're tearing a guy's truck in half, uh, at the very least,
probably, probably making it in, in need of an alignment when they're done with the toe.
But uh i don't know yesterday yesterday i
was i got photos to
(45:19):
prove it there was a nice rt challenger on the
deck of a flatbed and the only
thing holding the back of the car down was a
big j hook through the spoke of each rear wheel chained back and like it wasn't
even like the hook through the wheel that looked really bad the eyelet that
(45:40):
the chain attaches to on that hook was also against the rim,
but out in a much more visible place.
And as that car is hopping and jerking back and forth, you could see that this
edge of this ring on this J hook, just like carving its nice little signature in that, that RT wheel.
Holy shit. How do you get away with doing that? Like it was a,
(46:03):
a newer, newer, uh, like 5,500 Ram. It wasn't a junky truck at all.
The car damn sure wasn't junky it was a
nice uh nice challenger and damn
things being like there's several things wrong with that
right i mean damage the wheel yes but that wheel if it rotates at all if it's
(46:27):
if it's able to even even if it's you know it may be a stick if it's a challenger
there's a good chance it's a stick um a parking brake's probably not going to
hold that wheel still you You know,
all that yanking and jerking could rotate those wheels just enough to throw
some slack in those chains.
Now you got damage on tap of damage on tap of damage.
I love seeing little T hooks or just whatever through hubcaps.
(46:54):
Some of my favorite things. Like, come on.
You can't be that stupid. You're just giving the appearance that you tried.
Yeah. that you know that that that one yesterday
with that that challenger was like that that was so
obviously wrong like if you threw a guy in
a truck who'd never run a record before or loaded a car before and said i go
(47:16):
tie that thing down even that guy should recognize that you don't put a metal
hook through a through a uh mag wheel uh but you know they're probably online
telling everybody how good they are, too.
Local toes, $65. Oh, my gosh. Those are my favorite.
(47:39):
Oh, there's somebody that keeps... I'm back to that Georgia towing page again.
There's somebody that keeps...
It looks like they've posted it twice in the past couple of days.
And, uh, it says, Hey, today and tomorrow only $75 in town toes.
(48:01):
Then it says like within 20 miles or something like that.
70 what?
$75 for an in town toe. Shouldn't sound that crazy.
It was just like two years ago i heard a guy in
town throw out a uh 65 quote for
a in county tow on an f-450 that
(48:24):
was loaded down 65 our county is i think 45 square miles and uh yeah 65 dollars
to put a loaded f-450 on his bed uh service truck and uh bring it um if i remember
correctly it's probably about 14,
15 miles, that $65.
(48:46):
And you know, it was one of those deals, you know, I'm standing there and guy, guy walks up to him.
Hey man, we were in a parking lot.
Guy says, Hey man, didn't you tow my truck for me? And just walks up to the
other guy. He's like, yeah. He goes, man, you ain't gonna believe this. I got another one down.
And uh, he says, you charged me 65 last time. What are you going to charge me
for this one? He said, well, where is it? Is it in the County?
(49:07):
Yeah, it's in the County, man. You know, I'm going to take care you,
man, you're a repeat customer. I'll do it for 65, man. I'll do this one for 65 too.
This guy was more concerned with being like the cool tow truck owner cutting this guy.
If you told him once last year, that is not of the frequency of calls from that
(49:31):
customer to warrant doing something for a third of the price of what it was supposed to be.
Uh i don't know it's kind of like you know you see all these parents grow up
with these rotten kids because they were too busy trying to be the cool parent
instead of being a parent it's kind of the same thing a business owner trying to be the cool guy,
you're probably not doing things right but uh.
(49:55):
Oh well um yeah i got one more thing you got anything,
Nothing outside of your list, no. All right. All right.
Yeah, I, uh, this goes back to kind of the training and it's rigging inspections.
(50:17):
I, I like when it comes to rigging, especially in a rotator,
I like to keep some dedicated rigging for lifts, right?
Chain straps that I'm not dragging through the damn mud. I'm not cutting two
feet into the earth, bringing a dozer up over a, a hill.
I like that, that, that dedicated lifting only stuff.
(50:41):
Um, but man, everything needs to be inspected, everything.
And, uh, just wondering, you know, like I do a lot of my own,
not, not my own on my own truck, but on our trucks, my son does it too.
If you're running heavies and you haven't gone, if you're actually operating
(51:03):
a heavy and you haven't like attended one of Crosby's classes,
most commonly you hear about them at the Miller Rotator School.
That is some of the most important information a tower can receive is from the
rigging company about how to use their rigging and more importantly when to
(51:27):
stop using their rigging,
and you've you've got to have i mean if you've got one guy who's got the training,
and task him with doing periodic uh
inspections on everybody else's equipment if
he knows what he's doing and then as he's doing truck by truck
by truck he can pass along some of that knowledge until you
(51:48):
can get that next driver into the the rigging training
but i mean it's there's there's
guys that don't understand the construction of an endless loop and they don't
understand that when one strand breaks there's only one strand that goes around
(52:08):
and around and around you've just ruin the whole damn thing.
Um, friction might get you by for a little while with a, you know,
a couple, a small cut in the, uh, the, uh.
Strap there, but you know, that, that cover is just a cover.
There's stuff going on inside that thing and it needs to be able to move and
(52:29):
twist and, you know, do what it needs to do.
Uh, you don't want to put the stuff up, uh, dry. I mean, uh,
wet you want, you want to always put it back in your boxes dry.
Um, obviously lubrication on the snatch blocks, um, chemicals,
certain chemicals, you don't want to soak these straps down with like degreasers
(52:50):
and stuff, you know, um, they'll tell you everything.
Cause there's Kevlar, there's nylon, there's, there's different materials and,
and some of them don't react well in direct sunlight.
Uh, some of them don't like heat at all.
Uh, and then, and then it's the, the chemicals on top of that.
And I just, I'm, I'm just, I'm asking everybody to get somebody on your team,
(53:14):
that's trained in, uh, rigging inspections and, uh,
out of service criteria, you know, what to look for, know when to say when type
of thing, it sucks having to buy new rigging, but it's going to happen, right?
The stuff rubs on things and, you know, and, and also they go into great detail
on, you know, if you have a sharp edge of metal, you're not putting a strap over that.
(53:37):
That's a chain situation all day long. Uh, you're, I've seen guys now,
usually it's just the junk haulers, but they'll put like a car or two on their bed.
I've seen them stacked up too high. And then the winch cable run from the winch
up over the center of the car, back down to the back of the truck and just pulled tight.
Nothing else keeping this like mini stack of cars on the bed other than a cable
(54:02):
that was never intended to tie that stuff down.
So you know if the if um
management doesn't have the training they're never going to be able
to pass that training along so so please you know make sure you got one guy
uh that can do it and pass that pass that along until you have an opportunity
(54:23):
to get them in now i actually did some reading up on this last week and uh crosby
like it's not just a miller rotator thing if you contact Crosby,
they, they will try to, uh,
find someone in your area, a local Crosby distributor to help,
uh, facilitate the training on, on their equipment and, you know, and things change.
(54:47):
Like if you got trained 20 years ago.
Things probably have changed. The equipment may not have changed,
but the proper procedure for use has changed.
And in 06, when I went to my first training class, we were always told to back
the screw pin shackle out by a quarter turn, bottom it out, back it out a quarter turn.
(55:11):
That allows you to undo it quickly and easily when you're done.
And then eventually you go to another class years later and says,
no, that's why there's a hole in it.
So you can stick a small pike bar or a screwdriver through it and break it free and twist it out.
These things are make, you know, if that thing is not bottomed out and tight
(55:31):
in there and you put a heavy load on that, it can deform a little bit and that's no good.
So yeah, there's a lot of little things like that. So if, especially if you're
in the, in the heavy world, the rotator world, if you're doing actual like, uh,
lifts, you know, not just recovery work, you're doing actual,
(55:53):
you know, critical lifting jobs with a very expensive equipment.
Uh, you really need that training and, uh, no one to know when to get rid of that stuff.
Uh, we, we have a policy when, when something comes off a truck,
uh, we, we like to destroy it,
not for the fun, but so some knucklehead doesn't pick through a dumpster and
(56:17):
say, damn, look at that nice strap. And they use it.
You know, I, I really have no doubt if they could, if they have an accident
and they could tie it back to your ownership at one point, you're probably,
probably going to get named in some sort of lawsuit. I know it's happened.
Even if it's not somebody outside of your company, if you have it in the dumpster
(56:37):
and the driver sees it and they're like, Oh shit, I lost one of those last week.
I can avoid getting in trouble for that by just taking this one and put it on my truck.
They'll probably do it. And that's, that's just as bad.
Yeah. Cause one location there's, there's two of us that share the property.
So we share things like dumpsters.
(56:57):
Um, so yeah, you don't want someone else.
Somebody sees you throw some stuff out like, Hey, what'd they throw that out for?
And they could run and grab it. Uh, and then our other location,
the, the, uh, the dumpster is actually located outside of our,
our, uh, fenced in lot because the, the, uh.
(57:19):
The garbage people come to dump it at like 3 a.m. And nobody wants to be sitting
there and opening a gate for them.
So it stays just outside the gate.
Anybody come through that. I mean, hell, if somebody can throw a sectional sofa
in a three-yard dumpster, I'm sure they'll come back and look for other stuff in it.
(57:40):
We have one dumpster up on our top yard, and it's been there for three months.
We look in it the other day, and it was just sitting there empty.
You know, it wasn't really, we weren't using it for anything,
but, uh, my son peaks inside it and somebody decided they to get a new,
uh, bedroom set and throw, throw what they no longer needed in the, uh, dumpster.
(58:01):
So yeah, they, they do the same thing. If they think there's something of value
in their chains, hooks, snatch blocks, stuff like that.
Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it past, uh, someone to come and grab that
stuff out of there and try and put it into use.
But i think that wraps up show 131 correct yes 131 all right i knew i knew it was 130 something,
(58:27):
so uh the a i don't real quick uh saw a post uh from the towing life podcast
up in canada and they've decided to take a break it really goes back to what
we we started the show with just the needing content and,
and the scheduling and everything.
And, and, uh, you know, it was just, uh, I, I really enjoy their show.
(58:50):
Um, in the beginning, much like ours, it was much less polished,
you know, but as they, as they, you know, moved ahead, uh, I,
I started listening to it on a regular basis and, and it was almost, uh.
You know, it was nice to see we're not the only one struggling with uh schedules
(59:10):
and content and stuff like that the same they
are in the same boat and uh they've decided to take a uh
a break and and we'll see how that goes but
uh yeah they were uh they were rolling along pretty good i think they were up
to like show 160 or something like that but they do them every week they're
crazy that's 200 i mean the last thing we want to do the last thing we want
(59:31):
to do is get on here and say the same thing over and over and over which ends
up happening sometimes just because of the nature of the industry and we have the same,
frustrations and pain points and those tend to surface no matter what the topic is but we don't want to.
Put stuff out just to put stuff out yeah we
(59:54):
want it to be a value or at least if nothing else at
least entertaining or interesting um so i
i i appreciate that they um realized
kind of where they were at and they needed a break and and we
can we can definitely relate to that it was i
liked listening to them because you would hear a lot about
(01:00:15):
um Canadian regulation
or at least Canadian standards or just the way businesses operate
that might be different versus here in the states um
so hopefully it'll get back at it
soon yeah and there's a chance that uh sean may be stopping in atlanta for a
visit not too long from now and uh we agreed to try and try and hook up for
(01:00:39):
dinner or something and i think uh record a show see oh that'd be pretty cool
if they want to check us out.
Yeah, that'd be, that'd be pretty cool.
They're, uh, they're, uh, very interested in, uh, trying out one of our new
rotators with that XD Endurant Pro automatic transmission from Eaton in it.
(01:00:59):
Uh, so yeah, I think that gives them like justification to, uh,
add this leg of their trip under, uh, the business category.
There you go. Go for test drive. But, uh, yeah, definitely it'd be really cool if that happens.
And, uh, that may be worth trying to do a, uh, doing a, uh, joint show there.
Me and him have actually talked about it a lot in probably the past year and
(01:01:23):
a half trying to get us together.
And, you know, again, scheduling, you try to get four people on the same schedule
is freaking impossible.
Uh, so yeah, it hasn't, it hasn't happened.
I, I thought it was going to be funny. I didn't get much response.
I thought it would have been funny on, uh, April fools to like me and Brad start
(01:01:46):
their show. Cause their show is video, right?
Me and Brad start there. Don't say a freaking word. No April fools bullshit.
Just start in, go to a break and it comes back with those guys. Never missing.
I thought that would have been funny, but I threw that out to him and he either
missed it or thought it, thought it was a shitty idea.
So one of those, but maybe we'll get them on soon. But, uh, other than that,
(01:02:08):
thanks for listening. Uh, we'll talk to you soon.
Music.
That's the end of another show if you enjoy listening please
help support the show by leaving a five-star review wherever
you listen to podcasts other ways to help the show are by sharing our shows
(01:02:28):
and social media content with others if you have an idea for a future show please
submit it at info at towbusinesspodcast.com be safe out there and be sure to
promote slow down move over to those you know outside of our industry.
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