June 16, 2024 • 52 mins
Ever wondered why towing isn't a government-provided service like police or fire departments? We tackle this thought-provoking question and much more in our latest episode of the Towing Life Podcast. Join TowManG and Mr. PlainGuy as we navigate the whirlwind of recording amidst the chaos of the towing industry, sharing personal stories from early morning sessions and balancing commitments like Father’s Day. We also highlight our community engagement, especially Joe’s insightful comments on predatory towing in the southern U.S., adding a layer of audience interaction that keeps our discussions vibrant and real.
Imagine a world where towing costs are regulated by the government—sound too good to be true? We explore this bold concept, discussing the historical attempts and psychological impacts of such a move on operators. From the lack of mental health resources for tow truck drivers compared to other emergency services, to the financial constraints that deter proper support, we paint a comprehensive picture of the industry's complexities. Our conclusion? A government takeover of the towing business is unlikely in our lifetime, but it’s a topic worth dissecting.
Balancing the serious with the entertaining, we dive into the financial intricacies of the towing industry, discussing buy now, pay later strategies, Colorado’s 15% upfront payment bill, and debt collection alternatives. We also delve into the significance of proper training and goal setting, sharing real-life anecdotes that blend industry wisdom with humor. And for a bit of fun, we recount some off-topic banter that keeps our content fresh and engaging. Whether you’re in the towing industry or just curious, this episode promises a mix of insights, laughter, and thought-provoking discussions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey everyone.
I'm Brad from Calgary.
This is Sean from Cambridge,ontario.
I'm Terry from Cornwall,ontario.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, this is Larry from Pit Metals, British
Columbia, and you're listeningto the Towing Life Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Welcome to the Towing Life Podcast, where the ditches
are deep, the trucks are loaded, but the drivers are not.
I am your host, Towing man G,and, as usual, I'm joined by my
co-host, friend and formerco-worker, the man with very
strong opinions, Mr Plane Guy.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
What is going on?
G.
What is going on?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Two weeks in a row we're uploading a podcast.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Surprisingly what's going on?
G what?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
is going on Two weeks in a row.
We're uploading a podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yes, absolutely Surprisingly, with the chaos
that has gone on and everythingelse in the business that we've
had, we've still managed to dothis.
So it is nice to be back onsomewhat of a routine.
You have gotten me up extremelybright and early on a Sunday,
where I could still be sleeping,relaxing and enjoying a bit of
my weekend in order to do this.
But, as usual, I will work toaccommodate your fragile state
(01:12):
of mind.
Well, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I got things planned for the rest of the day.
I got my dad coming over forFather's Day because we're
recording this on Father's Day.
So happy Father's Day to any ofyou fathers out there.
Absolutely, we're makinghomemade burgers.
It's day to any of you fathersout there.
We're making homemade burgersand it's going to be good.
Uh, I moved all his shit intomy cold room last weekend so
that was his father's daypresent.
So he got out of a 400 every 28day storage unit because they
(01:38):
do it every 28 days.
Just, people probably shouldbleep that out because we're
still fairly early on in theepisode.
But whatever, um and yeah, soit's going to be a good day.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So hence why we have to record at currently 8 53 in
the morning as g said, welcomeback to another episode of the
tone life podcast, episode 140.
Um, as we continue to countupwards and onwards, moving
forward with the show, it is agreat time to mess mention your
comments.
Questions, concerns opinions,lack of opinions or just pure
(02:14):
stupidity is always welcome onthis show.
So where can you reach out tous and how can you find us?
It is pretty simple.
You can head over to ourwebsite at wwwtowinglifeca.
You can find us on facebook atthe towing life podcast, or you
can email us directly at thetowing life at gmailcom.
Don't forget, if you'rewatching over on the youtube
(02:35):
side, you can always hit thelike and subscribe and comment
down below.
Um, I haven't checked overrecently to see any of the
youtube comments.
G could maybe, uh, let us knowif there's been some negative,
positive and all of those goodthings.
By the way that he's laughing,I'm assuming there's some
comments that um might not like.
So, um, yeah, that being said,we've got a lot of good stuff to
(02:58):
cover.
This week.
We're going to go over, uh,some stories from G, some road
trip trip stories from myselfand a couple stupid photos that
we tend to find on the interwebs, as we like to call it.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So the YouTube comments are filled by Joe.
He is taking it upon himself tomake sure we have an abundance
of comments.
We've had five comments fromJoe over the past 11 days.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
No one else has commented so joe's just having a
straight up monologue in thecomments he said wow, meaning to
the toe world again.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I'm assuming that's when he first started watching
the video.
Um, they're back.
Was a separate, separatecomment.
I think those could be onecomment, joe, but I appreciate
you.
Thanks for the engagement.
Johnny Five was a comment.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yes, johnny Five is going back to Short Circuit, the
movie reference we were makingthat you didn't understand.
The laser lips comment Laserlips, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Okay, perfect, up to speed.
And four days ago, he says, thepredatory towing on the tractor
trailers, I believe was inKentucky or Tennessee and had a
lot of truckers and a lot oftruckers are not driving there
anymore they would park in truckstop where they were told to
(04:19):
park, and the towing companywould tell him why they were
sleeping in the rigs.
You need some commas in there,joe.
That is according to the newsarticle that I read.
As far as I followed throughwith Okay, that is now, joe.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
that is a different thing.
Okay, so that is a.
There was an issue where I wantto say, um I'm going to look it
up quickly that not, uh,tennessee or Kentucky, as he
said um can't had to come outwith a law that you could not
boot or tow a vehicle with aperson inside of it or something
(05:02):
.
And there was a lot of laughson that, that like as if this
actually has to be written thatas a law.
But it was true, because whathappened was there was a story
out of somewhere some southernstate, I don't know where
exactly where they were towingprivate parking vehicles with
truckers sleeping in them.
Um, which obviously is a no-no,how do you not wake up while
(05:24):
your truck's getting hooked up?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
But, besides the fact , well, they probably just be
like okay, I'll just sit in here, because then it's a lawsuit, I
can sue you for moving.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
No, either that or they had the really good sleep,
sleep right Like they were.
They were deep into Dodo landand didn't feel getting tilted
up in the air or anything.
It up in the air or anything.
But yeah.
So that was like, yeah, you canpark here.
And then they were telling themthere was some controversy over
that.
That wasn't so much to do withthe predatory towing fees we
were talking about Um.
This was a problem with, like Iknow, in the state of Georgia
(05:54):
they'd ran into some um where itwas again charging.
The government felt that theywere charging rates for
emergency response to removevehicles from the highways that
have been involved in this, youknow, that were disabled, have
been involved in an accident,all those kinds of things that
weren't justified.
So your your story that youread in the news article on the
private parking removal withpeople.
(06:14):
That was a whole other category.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
He has another comment here saying there was
another news article last weekor two weeks ago about a towing
company in colorado called wattstowing service something like
that where where they areovercharging for impound out of
private property like anapartment complex.
Look into that was veryinteresting that the state of
(06:37):
colorado changed the laws onthat because of what they were
doing allegedly it's wyatt'stowing.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Wyatt um, yeah, why it's towing?
Colorado attorney generalannounces one.
Um, I got a pop-up thing that Ican't get rid of.
Uh, one million dollarsettlement with wyatt towing
must change unfair, deceptivebusiness practices.
Um, the investigation foundthat since 2019, the company
(07:07):
towed thousands of vehicleswithout a valid permit or proper
authorization, charge unlawfulfees and illegally kept customer
funds and engaged in deceptiveand unfair business practices to
discourage Coloradans Didn'tknow, that's what you called
them from exercising the rightsunder the state's towing law.
So they were doing privateparking without a permit.
You know they obviously weren'tfollowing the rule, following
(07:27):
the rules of private parking.
Um, the towing bill of rightsalso allows customers to
retrieve their vehicle if theypay 15 percent of the towing
fees, up to a maximum of 60dollars.
The unpaid portion is a debtowed to the towing carrier and
the consumer must sign a pucform affirming that they live.
Wait what?
Okay Breaking news Colorado isscrewed.
(07:53):
So, according to this, the AG'soffice has also said that Watts
continued to violate the newtow law and also instituted
practices to keep more fundsfrom vehicle sales and reduce
the amount of return to vehicleowners or the state, such as
driving up storage fees on morevaluable services.
(08:15):
Okay, so I think I've kind ofwrapped my head around this
quickly in this very articlethat we have read live, thanks
Joe, thanks Joe.
Have read live, thanks joe,thanks joe.
So my understanding to thiswould be in colorado, if a
vehicle is impounded and I don'tknow if this classifies as all
or or just for private parkingscenarios um, that you are
(08:40):
supposed to accept they canretrieve their vehicle if they
pay 15% of the towing fees up toa maximum of $60.
Wow, okay, 15% of the towingfees up to a maximum of $16.
The unpaid portion is a debtowed to the towing carrier and
(09:00):
the consumer must sign a PUCform I feel like this is an IOU
form, is what they should havecalled this Affirming that they
owe the payment.
Okay, that, and it sounds likeafter it's been towed, kind of
(09:21):
like with lien holders, if youhave to dispose of the vehicle,
you pay your bill off first andthen whatever money is left off
goes to either the owner of thevehicle or the state, and they
were running up their bills tomake their amount higher so that
the state or the customerwouldn't get the difference
(09:41):
Right, like that way they wouldget, all of you know whatever,
whatever auction price they got,whatever.
Um, that is crazy.
Yeah, that, the 15 is mine,that is mine, that is like that
gets me.
Like what do you mean?
50 like if I were to releasevehicles in my area with 15% of
(10:04):
the invoice paid.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You go out of business within a month.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Nobody is coming back .
No, like I know the U Sfinancial laws are a little
different.
My camera keeps shifting.
I know the U?
S laws are a little bitdifferent, meaning that you know
financially there's morepenalties if you don't stay true
to your financial obligations,right, like I know they're a lot
stricter down there.
But, like I would say, 60% ofmy customers, even 80% of the
(10:29):
people in which I released thatvehicle at 15%, are not coming
back.
They are taking the vehicle.
They are leaving me with thatIOU.
So, unless the state is goingto look, there's got to be a
backup plan that if you end upbeing owed and they don't come
good for it, that the state mustcover that.
Like there has to be.
You cannot force a company torelease it at a fraction of
(10:54):
their invoice without guaranteeof compensation if they do
everything right and it doesn't.
You you know what I mean.
Like that, that seems.
That seems excessive, do you?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
think so, especially in Ontario.
Here, with all the regulationsthat have come out, they're
trying to our capitalisticsociety is.
It's what we got.
I don't care if you are forcapitalism or against it, it's
what we got, it's what we areworking with.
And the problem with the towingindustry as a whole, from the
(11:31):
eyes of the government and theconsumers, is that we have to
charge our customers accordinglybecause we are for profit
businesses, businesses.
With that being said, do youthink in the next 20 to 30 years
that you're going to see moretowing companies no longer
(11:51):
becoming companies per se butbecome part of the government,
to where it's a governmentprovided service and they work
that into taxes somehow.
And the government just dealswith all the accidents on the
side of the road to cut out allthese inflated prices per se,
because they're just sick of usdoing our job and wanting to get
(12:11):
compensated accordingly for it?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I don't think so, because the reason I say that is
you have other problems, likeyou already have.
Like who does the highwaymaintenance?
They're for-profit companies.
Yeah, right, already have.
Like who does the highwaymaintenance?
They're for-profit companies.
No, right in in the province ofontario, fun fact, um, the, the
provincial police at one pointhad their own tow truck.
Okay, it was a, like a rolltight flatbed that they could
(12:40):
for sensitive um, you know, forfor fatals.
Were possibly those peopletrapped inside?
Whatever the case may be, theprovince had their own tow truck
and they would send out to go,and a lot of times this stuff
would end up going to toronto orsomething like that.
Right, they recently got rid ofit.
Their reason, the reasoning wasand this is all hearsay, of
(13:01):
course yeah, um, the reasoning,to my understanding, allegedly,
was that they did not like umexposing their civilian members
because that's who would operate, it would be a civilian unit
member of the police to thehorrors in which they were
seeing.
Because, don't forget, thisroll tarp tight truck doesn't go
(13:24):
out for a two car NBC, thefender bender, right, this thing
is going out to a where avehicle caught fire and the guy
was trapped inside and and theyneed to get it back to be able
to identify him.
The worst of the worst they didnot want to expose their
civilian members who areoperating these trucks to that
that kind of thing.
(13:44):
So they say send the towingcompany, because they're
slightly slow already.
We will just keep exposing themto it it was ironic the
reasoning they gave thatallegedly that's.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
The big issue, though , is the police, fire, ems.
They all have these resourcesavailable to them to deal with
PTSD and the appropriateprocedures in place for those
traumatic events.
Now, I'm not saying that thetowing industry shouldn't have
something like that, but mostplaces don't.
(14:17):
Why?
Because it costs money, and afair few towing companies are
already running on fairly thinmargins, and probably even
thinner margins now that allthese practices have been thrown
on the towing industry.
So there just isn't that budgetto hire a counselor full-time
to be able to counsel yourdrivers when stuff like this
(14:39):
happens.
Our outlook on that is darkhumor and camaraderie between
co-workers.
That's how we normally getthrough it, and if you're in a
place that you're not superclose with your co-workers or
your management or whatever, youmight slip through the cracks
and not have a support systemper se to deal with that kind of
shit, and it's unfortunatelythe truth right.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So the the group with our government, funded
resources, yeah, to help dealwith these terrible accidents
and these things that you see inthe, the smell of burnt flesh
and and whatnot and so forth.
Like every.
I don't think I'm hurtinganyone's feelings by talking
about that.
I mean, we've all encounteredat one point or another.
If we haven't, if you haven'tyet and you're listening, I'm
(15:24):
sorry it does happen.
Please seek help if you need it, right, but it's, it's the
truth, it's.
You know, they went well, wedon't want to subject our
members to this right becausethey were civilian members, they
were not frontline officersdriving the you know these tow
trucks.
So they gave it off to thegroup, who doesn't have those
resources, and and it'd saypretty much, deal with it, right
(15:47):
, um, so no, going back to youroriginal question about do you
see the province just coming, oryou know the province or
federal level, however they wantto do it just coming out and
saying we are going to to do itall as a, a government entity?
I don't think so.
I'm not saying it's notpossible way, way, way in the
future.
I'm just saying we will not seeit in our lifetimes or our
(16:09):
future kids lifetimes.
I don't think it is somethingthat I could see, but that'd be
like, you know, the thegovernment taking over farming
and saying we're gonna run allthe farms.
I mean, they kind of do it theway that they they regulate and
price everything but at the sametime, um, they are still
for-profit businesses.
Um, it's a false for-profitidea.
I think.
Um, it's a very controlledfor-profit.
(16:29):
Uh, the same way that thetowing industry and other
industries are slowly becoming,um, but to say that they will
take over and I don't think theywant it, I I mean because, yeah
, I don't think they want it, Idon't think my tax dollars can
handle what the government wouldpay tow operators.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's.
The other issue, though, is ifthey do bring out these like if
they do go ahead with doing thatfor the highway accidents and
the local police departmenttowing needs you're going to
leave the few towing companiesthat are left to do all the
private tows, I'm assuming thedisabled, the.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, the government locked my keys in my car that
kind of bullshit.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah well, the rates are going to have to get
inflated even more on theremaining services that these
towing companies can provideunder the capitalistic society,
because they lost a good revenuestream of doing accident tows
right.
So I think it would be a verydouble-edged sword, because if
they're trying to curve therates and the absorbent,
(17:37):
absorbent fees that we charge inquotations for the audio
listeners, I think it would dothe opposite really.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, no, you'd need different equipment.
No, I don't think it wouldnecessarily drive those rates up
to compensate on that stuff.
It's just your businessstructure would be different
based on the units that you'dprovide.
If you were just doing moreservice calls and actual tows,
you would look at more servicevehicles.
You would do that kind of thingright.
So it's a different.
Yeah, I, I can't say it's not.
(18:08):
You're gonna up the rate of anunlock by a hundred dollars to
offset because you're notgetting this.
You'd restructure your businessin a way um, that, uh, you know
, accommodates what your volumeis like.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Under state law, towing carriers can only charge
a notification fee and storagefees if they've notified the
owner of a vehicle about anon-consensual tow by certified
mail.
This makes sense.
The investigation found about2,000 owners of vehicles were
charged a notification fee of atleast $75 without any
documentation by Wyatts that thestatutory requirement of
(18:43):
notification had been met.
In other words, they didn'thave records of sending out the
certified mail notifications andcharge it anyways.
If a tow vehicle was found tobe abandoned at a tow lot, a
towing carrier can sell thevehicle to recover the cost of
the tow and any other feesincurred by the towing operator.
State law previously requiredthe towing carriers pay any
(19:05):
proceeds to the sale, of thesale to the Colorado Department
of Revenue, which would dispersethe money to the owner of the
vehicle.
Why?
Why should the owner whoabandoned the vehicle in the
towing yard receive any sort ofthat money?
Yeah, like, what is your?
Your justification?
I got illegally towed.
I said I don't have the moneyfor the.
(19:27):
I guess it's a finite.
It is colorado like.
It's colorado very likeprogressive in the sense of
bleeding heart, are they I?
I feel like this kind of givesme the idea, on this section at
least.
But yeah, the investigationalso alleged why it withheld
information from people who hadtheir cars towed about the law
(19:47):
that allowed them to pay only aportion.
I would too.
That allowed them to pay aportion of the fees up front and
get their vehicle and, for awhile, required customers to
enter into a loan agreement toutilize the towing bill of
rights and for a while requiredcustomers to enter into a loan
agreement to utilize the towingbill of rights.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Um I colorado has been trending uh democrat in the
last years due to the risingpercentage of young college
educated, suburban andunaffiliated voters leaning to
the democrat side, so I don'twant to get into the whole
geopolitical of the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I just kind of, you know, I wasn't sure where
Colorado Colorado wasn't, youknow, a Texas um wasn't a fair
enough Um, yeah, so the companywas accused of not telling
customers they could pay aportion of their bill to get
their vehicle out.
Uh, like, would you willingly,if you had that law?
(20:41):
I would, you know, do like, Iwould have it posted, I would
meet the government requirementminimum to a T.
Right, because that's how youstay out of trouble.
Let's be honest, trouble let's.
(21:02):
Let's be honest.
Towing and governmentrequirements are all about
finding the minimum on certainthings that hurt you and and
applying the minimums.
So I would, but I would not be.
Hey, I'm here to get my car.
Okay, the bill's two hundreddollars, right, okay, well, I
don't have two hundred dollars,oh's, okay, like, you can just
pay the 15%, which is $30, andget your car out of here, no
(21:24):
problem, let me, let me help youwith that.
Let me, let me fill out thisform that you need to fill.
Let me, like, go suck it.
Yeah, I am not, unless the lawmay mandate that I have to,
which I don't know what the lawactually states they have to do.
But a hundred percent, I'm nottelling people if I don't have
to.
Like, imagine that a twohundred dollar, because it's
(21:47):
capped.
It's at sixty dollars, yep,which is four hundred dollar
invoice, right, anything overfour hundred dollars.
You are.
You know, your percentage pointstarts going down.
Yep, so does the state ofcolorado.
But, like, what is the offset?
How do they get the rest of itIf the customer doesn't pay?
And why should the towingcompany be out of pocket?
(22:10):
And now my understanding isthere is an interest they can
charge on that.
Okay, so, but it's still you'refinancing a release of a car.
That's what you're doing.
You're financing the release ofa car with an interest rate.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Well, I think we're seeing this a lot more in
today's society, where credit isbecoming more prevalent and
things like Affirm and Apple Pay, where you can break things
down into installments, isbecoming like a norm for a lot
of people, because not too manypeople save everyone's living
(22:48):
paycheck to paycheck, with thehigher cost of living and
bullshit like that, and there isreasons why people stay broke.
I'm not saying that there isn't, but there is.
Like people don't have safetynets anymore and if you are in
debt, I would highly recommendgetting a safety net of at least
a month or two of your livingexpenses put aside and then
(23:13):
start tackling more on your debtso you can take care of
yourself.
Something happens.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
And if you're stupid and your car?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
gets impounded, then at least you have some money to
get your car back out of theimpound lot.
But that's not the world welive in.
So I think the next step for usas towing companies is to offer
payment plans with interest ata stupid interest rate like 32.5
.
So it's on par with creditcards to say hey you, you got a
(23:43):
thousand dollar towing bill.
We can break that down into atwo-year payment plan.
Um, there's 32 percent interest.
You're going to end up payinglike 12, 13, 1400 by the time
everything's all said and done.
Hell, it could even be closerto two grand by the time
everything's all said and done.
And if you stop paying, thenwe'll put it to collections and
done.
Hell, it could even be closerto two grand by the time
everything's all said and done.
And if you stop paying, thenwe'll put it to collections and
(24:04):
then someone will buy it off ofus for whatever.
And I think that's somethingthat the towing industry is
going to have to go through,because you can buy now and pay
later for furniture, cars, liketiny little purchases.
You can do it on Amazon forpurchases that are $40.
I'm sorry, if you don't have$40 to buy some bullshit off of
(24:25):
Amazon.
You don't need the bullshit offof Amazon.
I'm sorry that's my little bitof a rant, but finances, I think
, plays a big role in this, andjust people don't have the money
, and I'm sorry that peopledon't have the money.
A lot of people are in the sameboat, but at the end of the day
(24:48):
, the company providing theservice, regardless if you ask
for it or not, has to getcompensated.
And I think the buy now, paylater strategy as much as I hate
it, it's here to stay and itdoes have its uses for certain
things.
I think that's something thetowing companies are going to
have to start implementing totry to get paid, because that's
what Colorado's pretty much done, right?
They say, well, you pay 15%down, you put 15% down and then
(25:08):
they will charge you interest onthe remaining of your bill.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Well, you got to watch though, too, because part
of this complaint against thiswhy it's towing and one of the
ones I didn't read because Ididn't think at the time it was
going to be important asconversation was they were also
accused of charging the maximumrate of interest allowed without
going up into you know someother financial section that
they would require, so they arecapped on the amount of interest
(25:34):
that they are allowed to chargeas well.
No, I don't know.
I'm reading the bill nowquickly as we do it, so
obviously it's not going to bevery thorough and it might be
something we have to touch backon, um to try and see if I can
find what those are or what theum.
What happens to a vehicle thatyou know they take the 15 and
they don't pay it back does?
Does the state um cover that?
(25:57):
Um, I have not found anything,uh yet to justify that.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So well, that's, that's the other thing.
Okay, so you're saying that thestate should reimburse you, but
then you're saying here's daddygovernment coming to.
If we're going to be a privatefor-profit company, why don't we
do it the same way, as I know,banks get bailouts all the
fucking time and they're justlike another branch of the
government.
But if, let's say, I rack up athousand dollars of credit card
(26:25):
debt and I don't pay my monthly,monthly payments, or I don't
pay any of the interest, andthat interest is gained to a
fifteen hundred dollars, well,that credit card company, it's
not worth their time to try tofight me over the fifteen
hundred dollars.
So they'll just sell it to adebt collector for $1,200.
Right.
And then that debt collectorwill try to get you to pay the
(26:48):
$1,500, what it actually is,right.
So why don't us, as towingcompanies, say okay, government,
you screwed us enough.
We're not going to rely on youfor dealing with the mess that
you made.
We just going to deal with itourselves and go that route,
right.
So then you are at leastgetting paid because you're
dealing with another for-profitbusiness.
Is it shady sometimes?
(27:10):
Sure it is.
But if that's the route thatwe're going to go to get payment
, that's kind of what we shoulddo.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Well, I Well, I okay, so I want to um this bill in
Colorado that I'm reviewing andthis, this whole thing that we
were talking about, I think it'simportant to mention, only
applies to um concern the rightsof a person with ownership
interest in a vehicle that hasbeen towed from private property
(27:36):
without the person's consentand in connection there with
making an appropriation so thisis not no, no, no, don't just
say non-consensual to privateproperty removal.
Non-consensual toes is what thisapplies to.
So I kind of changed my tuneonce I, once I realized that
(27:57):
they can pay the 15.
Take the vehicle.
Who should be responsible forthat remaining balance?
You entered into an agreementwith the property owner, right
Like.
This agreement was not enteredinto.
This is not the case of Ontario,where you are getting called by
police to to remove somethingfrom a highway with no guarantee
of payment and letting that 15%slide.
(28:19):
This is not NBCs.
These are not excessive.
I don't want to say excessivebecause it's a bad word, but
these are not towing invoicesthat are going to be on the
higher scale of things.
These are hook and booksprivate property removal.
Should the registered owner notpay more than the 15%?
A hundred percent.
The property owner in which youentered into the agreement to
(28:42):
should be responsible.
He is the one that they are, Ishouldn't say he.
They are the ones thatrequested that you remove
vehicles from their property andentered into an agreement with
you right now.
That's the trick.
Nobody's going to start thattrend.
No, because the first towingcompany that does that is going
to lose their private parkingcontracts.
And what are they going to do?
(29:02):
They're going to move to thenext company who's not going to
do it.
That is where it should be right, like it should be that, and we
used to do something similar.
So we don't do private parkinganymore at all.
Even and it hurts me sometimesbecause sometimes it's our good
commercial customers who have avehicle parked on their property
and we won't remove it.
(29:23):
We will only remove a vehiclefrom private property at the
request of the bylaw or thepolice.
What's ironic is they'll callthe police, ask them if they can
have the vehicle removed.
They will go, yes, and theywill say call this company, call
us, and we're like, yeah, wedon't do that.
Yeah, the reason is is becauseof the bad, you know, public
image, and I think we'd spokeabout that before the bad public
(29:44):
image.
So we won't do it.
But there is a need for it,right, and I know the states.
It is a big business, the us,and especially in the cities and
I'm sure even in the city, bigcities here in Canada, it is a
you know, a need to have, butit's such a shitty side of the
(30:04):
industry to be in and I don't,you know, I'm not shitting on
the operators that operatewithin it, I'm just saying, like
, as a tow operator, for themost part, you know again, we
show up and we help people.
I mean, you could take thatsame approach with with PPIs,
right?
That's what we call PPIs isthat they're helping, they're
helping the property owners,they are still helping us, but
you are literally.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Well, they're also helping the fire department if
that car's parked on a firelight, yeah, I'd say 99% of their
calls aren't that.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, they'll get that one cool one.
Yeah, um, right, like they'llget those cool calls.
But at the same time you arepretty much just pissing off
every vehicle owner that youtouch their vehicle.
Nobody is happy to have a ppi.
Um, I've never been towed forit.
I've done towing for it anddon't get me wrong, sometimes
(30:51):
it's fun.
Yeah, get a bit of a complexgetting that thing, getting it
out of there, right, like it'scool, um, but it's a shitty side
of the industry to be in.
It's a necessity, but it's ashitty side.
So, um, you know, looking at,there's still like this colorado
state telling me that I can dothat.
I get it.
It was probably to avoidcharges.
(31:11):
You know, they had to controlit because people were charging
what we would charge for anaccident to do private property
removal.
They weren't notifying people,the car would sit there forever.
They'd run the invoices up,like there's all that kind of
stuff.
So I get it.
I do in a sense, given thenature of that section, I get it
, but as long as it doesn'tapply to regular towing because,
like, if, so, if, if these lawsstart coming in in different
(31:35):
areas, um, you know, we talkedabout the us and and all their
fights they're having, similarto ontario.
Um, you know, I think we got tostart going after the
government for predatorypractices because, god damn, you
cannot control private industry.
That as hard as you want tocontrol it, right.
But um, also thanks, joe, andfuck you for taking up half of
(31:58):
our podcast length that was, uh,nowhere near the intent of
today's show, but I'm I'm gladwe could get into it.
That's that's some of the mostorganic conversations we'll have
on.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The show is based on, you know, stuff that pops up
and ideas so if you want to takeup half of our show next week,
feel free to comment in thecomments down below with an
interesting topic.
Hit us up, send us an emailtowinglifegmailcom, or find us
on Facebook.
Do a little bleep bloop on oneof our posts or send us a
message on messenger.
There's plenty of ways to getahold of us.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Now we know why I do those reads.
My Lord, you kind of just justjust reach out to us.
Okay, guys, go find the, findthe.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
You know there's been there's been studies to show if
you tell people to do one thing, they're more likely to do it.
If you ramble off a bunch ofthings that you want them to do,
they'll do none of them.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Really yeah.
Is that why I do nothing whenmy wife gives me a list of seven
things?
But if she just asked me to doone thing, I'll go do it.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, yeah.
Because you feel justoverwhelmed, like it's a
daunting task, when they saythese are the 18 things you got
to do to get to your goal andyou're like, wow, that's a lot
of things.
But if you just break yourgoals down into a lot smaller
steps, like oh, make your bed inthe morning, okay, well, I
achieved that goal, right, andyou get a little dopamine hit
(33:25):
because you achieved somethingand you completed something.
You set your goals small toslowly work towards your bigger
overarching goal.
So if I say please like thisvideo today, and then next week
I say please subscribe to myYouTube channel, it might
actually, you know, count up tosomething like this video today
and then next week I say pleasesubscribe to my youtube channel,
it might actually, you know,count up to something we're
doomed as a society if we needto break hitting your goals into
(33:45):
small little chunks that thesesensitive little generation can
can swallow without you knowchoking no, it's not that at all
.
fuck you for that.
No, it's the human condition.
No, it's the human fuckingcondition.
If you do smaller things,they're easier to obtain.
Like if I say to you I want youto go from nothing, you
(34:11):
probably have, like, let's justsay, five thousand dollars in
your uh bank account.
I want you to go up and start a10 million dollar towing
company with nothing else.
That's a daunting task evenwith your knowledge.
But if I say I want you to goout and get your towing
equipment for doing servicecalls and start doing service
(34:33):
calls, well, that's a lot easierattainable goal, right Aside
from starting up the actualbusiness and all the paperwork
stuff.
You can go out and you can buysome of the equipment and then
you can get the ball rolling andyou can snowball.
It's always that snowball effectwhen people say I'll use me as
an example I want to start up afarm.
I've got 105 acres.
Okay, I want 35 head of cattle.
(34:55):
I want to be able to stay athome and raise a family on my
farm.
That's a great goal.
But that's a long-term goal.
I can do it on a year-to-yearbasis to where I can see cause
and effect over that course ofthe year.
Okay, I want to build a chickentractor so I can get 30
chickens and start selling themand then I can start eating some
of my own meat.
Well, that's a more attainablegoal.
(35:15):
Okay, next year I want to startputting up some fences.
Okay, and I start putting upthese fences and I get fencing
done, okay.
Well, now that's open theopportunity for me to start
getting cattle Right and it's itjust snowballs.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I agree with you on that.
Where I was was the referenceof set yourself like, make your
bed today like well, if you'veever listened to jordan peterson
it's a good way.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
If you are in a slump and a lot of people are, you're
like oh, day-to-day is verymundane, just bullshit.
You're just going through lifeas you're just floating by right
.
If you wake up in the morningand you make your bed and you
can actually say I've donesomething within your first 10
minutes of being awake, it setsyourself up as a better mood for
(36:00):
the rest of the day becauseyou've already accomplished
something.
You know you should dosomething.
You've accomplished that goaland it's easier to start
accomplishing other things.
Because when you wake up inyour day and you're like OK,
well, I got to do the dishes, Igot to do laundry, I got to do
this and you gotta do that andyou gotta do the whole laundry
list of things, of generichumans gotta do in the day, a
(36:21):
lot of people new people, oldpeople can get overwhelmed with
that list of seven things, likeyou said.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
But I think a lot of newer people.
We'll call them newer people.
Like younger people, get newerpeople and get a little
overwhelmed.
A little quicker on it.
Like I said, I'm not trying toshit on your strategy for
setting goals.
I think goals in life, goals inbusiness goals are absolutely
important and achieving yourgoals are one thing.
Right, like you know, that ishow you get forward in life.
(36:49):
I 100% agree.
Like I said, I was just shittingon the softer generation that's
got broken up into so small oftasks, right, how many, how many
of these, these youngergenerations, younger operators
that you have to like, literallyfocus on one tiny little thing
at a time because they getoverwhelmed.
Right, like I'm, I'm shittingon that side of it.
(37:11):
I'm shitting on the, the newergeneration, you know, and the
same as my generation was incomparison to my father's and
his generation was in comparisonto his father, right, this is a
trend, um, I had this debatewith him and actually I probably
have this debate again aftertoday's show about him with him.
Um, tonight for father's day,when I see him, you should have
it.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You're not too fun.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Nah, you don't know about me and my father's
relationship.
Okay, it's already broken.
Let's um, let's just beat it upa little bit more.
Um, but uh, but no, I was likeI said the how small of pieces
they have to be cut up into toyou know, not affect their
fragile um thought process orfeelings behind it on how small
(37:53):
you got to break up some of the,the, the goals.
Goals are important, but let'sbe honest, like we are very
softer to a lot of things.
Back in the day, it was figuredout right, I had, I had this
conversation with my generalmanager not long ago where, um,
it was like, has this operatorbeen shown how to do this?
(38:14):
And I don't remember what itwas.
It was something fairly simpleof a task, like it wasn't a, it
wasn't like a sea can it was?
I don't remember what it was.
And he goes have they beenshown how to do that?
And I said, no, not that Iremember.
I'm sure they can figure it out.
Well, that is not fair to puton somebody to expect them to
(38:37):
figure it out without beingshown, and that hit a nerve with
me because as much as, yes,training is a valuable, you know
, as valuable as ever.
Like, training is required.
You cannot hold hands throughevery type of scenario, meaning
if I've shown you how to do ascissor lift, you should be able
to shown you how to do ascissor lift.
You should be able to figureout how to do a forklift.
(38:58):
You know what I mean.
Like, if I've given you thosebasics, you should be able to
figure out that situation.
Ironically, the next day I hadto go, do?
I think we talked about themotorcycle in the quarry and
when we recovered it, westrapped it down to the wheel,
lift sideways, hung it off theboom, like we've done bikes
before.
And I remember I sent thepicture to my general manager
(39:19):
and he goes oh nice.
I said, yeah, you know whotaught me that?
Nobody, we figured it out likeyou.
The towing industry, as much asyou know.
I think we go too far to theone side on it where we don't
train people at all and justsend them out and get them to
figure it out.
There has to be that balance.
Right, these new guys, youliterally need to hold their
(39:42):
hands to a lot of stuff, right?
Is that for the better or forthe worst?
Like is it?
Yes, they're getting moretraining, so you could view that
as a positive.
But at the same time they'renot figuring anything out on
themselves because they've hadtheir handheld, I believe,
through everything and I've gota couple operators that are
(40:02):
still the exception to thatright.
I had a kid not long ago.
He's a couple months in.
I'm at a body shop checking outa call or picking up something,
and I happen to see one of ourtrucks in the backyard.
So I'm like I'm going to goover and check them out, see how
he's doing Right.
I go into the back, it's alittle pickup truck missing a
whole wheel right.
The whole right front assemblyis gone.
(40:23):
And this guy's a couple monthsin, so still fairly green, I
think we can agree.
And he's got this thing jackedup, put up on blocks, skate, put
under it like textbook hookupfor a new guy, and did it all
without asking any questions.
Now he was shown it once.
He was shown it once on a rearwheel right, or he was shown
once on a, you know, justplaying around in the yard, but
(40:44):
he was not shown in thatspecific scenario.
He had the mind to take it andgo.
I've learned this beforesomething similar.
How do I apply it in thissituation and I think that you
know that's what makes a goodoperator, that's what makes
these new guys.
You look distracted.
(41:04):
You were reading something.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I swear to God, if it's more motivational videos,
I'm cutting your feet off.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
No, but it's going back to how you're saying
everything's got to be brokendown into small, attainable
goals, so, no.
So the average house price in1980, this is just a quick
little.
I got four tabs open in Canada,right, the graphs are
approximately $75,000 for astarter home in 1980.
(41:34):
And in 1989, the average houseprice was $150,000.
Right, okay.
So double, then you go.
Okay, right.
The average salary householdsalary in 1980 was $55,000 and
61 cents For an individual.
It was $23,018.
Right, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Because dual income.
So I mean you can have Wait,18.
Okay, because dual income.
I mean how many dual Wait?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What year was this?
1980.
How many dual income householdswere there in the 80s?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Well, it was becoming more prevalent after World War.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
II.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
After World War II, because they brought all the
females into the factories, itbecame more prevalent.
You got into the suburbanlifestyle.
Yadaada, yada, it's just so nottowing related I know it's not
towing related, but it kind ofsheds a bit of a light on a
nerve anyways.
So we average house prices 75000.
Average income dual incomehousehold 55 000.
(42:31):
You could have that house paidoff in like 10 years, five years
, if you wanted to.
Yada yada, yada.
Right, easy math, okay, 2024average selling price of a home
in ontario uh, eight hundredninety three thousand two
hundred dollars right, it's notfair.
Toronto blows everything up okay, even around me in smaller
(42:51):
areas a new new townhouse $600,$700, right, it's not cheap, I
think so.
Average household income inCanada an average annual salary
in Canada in 2023 was $64,850.
That's going to take you a lotlonger.
So in the average house pricewas two years of your salary
1980, $55,000.
(43:12):
Average house price two yearsof your salary 1980, 55,000.
Average house price 75,000 lessthan two years, you make more
right.
In less than two years, you hadenough money to fully pay off
that house without your livingexpenses.
Yeah, in 2024, you're making$64,850.
Well, let's, I'm going to dosome quick math.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
If you want to know.
Tomangia is doing math.
Lord, save us all, man.
I have definitely hit a nervewith this one, with you.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Hmm, that you have divided by 64, 850.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So, like I get what you're saying, it's going to be
like 10, 12 years, so yeah it'salmost 14 years.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
If all your income went straight to the house,
which isn't possible, no, ofcourse.
So the goals have gotten a lotlarger.
Right.
To own a home Now you got tohave a lot of wealth behind you,
a lot of savings, or you'regoing to be paying for it for
the rest of your life, right, so?
Or you're going to be payingfor it for the rest of your life
(44:15):
, right, so the goals have justlooked so unattainable, right?
When you look at home ownership, which is just a big idea in
this, it's very hard to motivateyourself because that goal just
seems so far off To where.
If you break things down okay,well, this year I want to save
$5,000.
I want to put $5,000 into a401k, I want to put $5,000 into
(44:37):
a retirement fund, I want to dowhatever In a year to save
$5,000, it's a lot easier thansaying I want to buy a house
this year, right, so it's easierto motivate yourself because
it's a more attainable goal.
Right, that's the saying ofkeep your expectations low to
avoid disappointment.
That's the saying of keep yourexpectations low to avoid
disappointment.
That's a good thing and a badthing at the same time, because
(44:58):
if you say I want to be amillionaire next year.
It's very hard to attain that,but if you've broken, okay, well
, instead I want to be amillionaire.
How am I going to get there?
Okay, well, there's a 10 step.
I can see myself doing it in 10different steps.
So you break that down and everytime you hit a step in that
goal, you're still working forthat million dollars.
(45:19):
But you can say, okay, well, Imade $5,000.
Or I saved $5,000 this month,or this year and next year.
Okay, well, I was able to save$5,000 last year.
What if I save $10,000 thisyear?
Right, and then you save$10,000 that year and year?
What if I save 10 this year?
Right, and then you save 10that year?
Speaker 2 (45:38):
it just makes it easier to once again snowball
yourself into that end goal,right, okay, so the only way
that I can save this so that youunderstand that we can keep the
show related towards towingbecause anyways it is um is no,
the towing industry has facedthe same problem, right?
Average price of a tow truckback in the 1980s, 1970s, um
versus basic rate of a tow was alot closer of a margin.
(45:59):
You look at price of tows nowcompared to 1980s, they haven't
increased much, they've barelyincreased.
We've seen some guys with ratesheets from back when, when you
go, we're like $20 more and atow truck will cost north of you
know, 200.
Yep, you know, a tow truck pricehas increased 100%, multiple
(46:23):
times, like threefold, and yetthe price of tows have increased
40%, 30%, all that kind ofstuff.
So you know, and it's inflationis real, yep, right, and the
market can't keep up, but then,at the same time, you can't go.
Well, tow trucks need to makemore money, like what is like.
What is your point on this,though?
That people should make moremoney or that things should cost
less money?
(46:44):
No, because there's no nicesolution to this.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
This is.
This is kind of calling back towhat we're what I was talking
about earlier on in the show ofwhy financing small purchases
have become so prevalent, right,right uh, because and people
are stupid though.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
People are like I can't afford 60, but I can
afford five dollars a month withinterest, for you know what I
mean eight months and end uppaying exactly well it's eight
months.
There would be like 12, butthat's the thing.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Is everything with the same day or next day
shipping.
Everything's instantgratification.
I go to McDonald's, I buybullshit.
I get that reward.
I buy bullshit.
Well, that's what it is.
You stop in a convenience store, you get gas and you go inside
and you get bullshit with you.
It's sunflower seeds.
That's bullshit.
Yeah, I'm a sucker for sunflowerseeds Exactly.
(47:32):
Well, how much money could yousave if you didn't get your
sunflower seeds?
It's going to be natural likenot that much money over the
course of a year.
But if you do that with thatsnickers that you got, or you do
that with whatever bullshitthat you don't really need and
live more minimalistically,you'd be able to have a savings
and you'd be able to cash rollyourself instead of going into
(47:52):
debt to get new things that youneed.
Right if, instead, if you had acouple thousand dollars set
aside for emergencies and youget your car impounded or you
need a new set of brakes, rightinstead of well, I need my car
to get to work, and if I don'thave brakes on my car, then I
can't work, and then it's just adownward spiral.
You're like, well, I guess Igot to put it on credit.
(48:13):
Well, that's only settingyourself up for failure because
you're going to have to pay thatback with interest.
You know what we're going to do?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I have a solution.
Okay, we are going to send G tothe great state of Colorado.
He can become an officialColoradan which is new
information to me today and hewill come around to your towing
companies and give his lifelessons to any customer who
decides to 15% pay and financethe rest of their vehicle out
and explain to them why it is abad idea, so that you cannot end
(48:40):
up like why it's towing.
You can offer them the servicesyou can say, you know what.
You can pay 15% of your invoiceand pay the rest later minutes
and listen to him explain to youwhy, why you are making bad
life decisions and need tosmarten up that.
(49:01):
That is what we are going to do.
So if there is any towingcompany in the great state of
colorado that would like to havemr toman g as their 15 um
refuser, we we call them or orum, uh, you know, negotiator.
Yeah, that'll be the deal 15%finance the recipe.
You got to sit 45 minutes withthis guy so that he can explain
(49:23):
to you George Peterson orwhoever the hell he talked about
and and and the, the economicsof the working class and how it
directly affects you.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I will make a one simple plug.
If you are interested infinances and you do want to
better yourself.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Caleb Hammer, you're not selling a help book.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I'm not selling a help book Well, he does offer
shit but just his free videos onYouTube.
Caleb Hammer he does financialaudits.
He's out of Austin, texas.
If you want to be on a show,you can be on a show.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
And he just goes through people's shitty fucking
life.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Uh situation, this guy they go like yeah I've got a
car payment of this I make thismuch money and he breaks out a
white haired guy.
Yeah well, he's not an oldwhite haired guy, he's a young
kid, he's like 30 oh, maybe I'veseen some other version, some
other guy, yeah, yeah caliphammer on youtube.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Look him up, he's funny, funny fucking shit well,
this episode absolutely got awayfrom us and I apologize to our
listeners.
We didn't touch on anythingthat we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
We got if it fits, it ships for next week.
Road etiquette We've got aFacebook post that's probably
three months old at this pointif we actually touch to it.
We've got your stupid lifedecisions of doing 3,000
kilometers in three days.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Uh yeah, we got a lot of shit that we got to talk
about next week so be sure totune in next week for another
episode of the towing lifepodcast, where we aim to go
three for three in three weeksin a row.
Um, without issue.
On behalf of myself and mywonderful co-host, mr tomanji,
we thank you for coming out foranother episode and we cannot
wait to see you again next week.
Take care, toodles.
(50:58):
The dumbest episode we've everdone.
I liked it.
It was good.
Of course you did, because itdoesn't do anything about towing
.
Yeah, it's fine.
No, it's not.
(51:20):
I would like to make you pointyour eyes to the top of the
screen here, sir.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
And what's behind me, but we've done a lot of videos
that have all focused around thetowing industry, which is good
and bad in a way, because that'swhat our fucking show is about.
I know it's what our fuckingshow is about, but it's good to
get off topic.
Sometimes.
Some of our best performingshows have been off topic shows
because, as much as our fan baselikes towing, they're also here
(51:46):
for us I think my joke at theend absolutely wrapped that
fucking perfectly which one thecolorado thing, like we're gonna
send you to Colorado and like,yeah, you can take the 15%, but
you gotta sit with thismotherfucker for 45 minutes and
listen to this bullshit.
Hey everyone.
I'm Brad from Calgary.
This is Sean from Cambridge,ontario.
I'm Terry from Cornwall,ontario.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, this is Larry from Pit Metals, British
Columbia, and you're listeningto the Towing Life Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Welcome to the Towing Life Podcast, where the ditches
are deep, the trucks are loaded, but the drivers are not.
I am your host, Towing man G,and, as usual, I'm joined by my
co-host, friend and formerco-worker, the man with very
strong opinions, Mr Plane Guy.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
What is going on?
G.
What is going on?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Two weeks in a row we're uploading a podcast.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Surprisingly what's going on?
G what?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
is going on Two weeks in a row.
We're uploading a podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yes, absolutely Surprisingly, with the chaos
that has gone on and everythingelse in the business that we've
had, we've still managed to dothis.
So it is nice to be back onsomewhat of a routine.
You have gotten me up extremelybright and early on a Sunday,
where I could still be sleeping,relaxing and enjoying a bit of
my weekend in order to do this.
But, as usual, I will work toaccommodate your fragile state
(01:12):
of mind.
Well, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I got things planned for the rest of the day.
I got my dad coming over forFather's Day because we're
recording this on Father's Day.
So happy Father's Day to any ofyou fathers out there.
Absolutely, we're makinghomemade burgers.
It's day to any of you fathersout there.
We're making homemade burgersand it's going to be good.
Uh, I moved all his shit intomy cold room last weekend so
that was his father's daypresent.
So he got out of a 400 every 28day storage unit because they
(01:38):
do it every 28 days.
Just, people probably shouldbleep that out because we're
still fairly early on in theepisode.
But whatever, um and yeah, soit's going to be a good day.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So hence why we have to record at currently 8 53 in
the morning as g said, welcomeback to another episode of the
tone life podcast, episode 140.
Um, as we continue to countupwards and onwards, moving
forward with the show, it is agreat time to mess mention your
comments.
Questions, concerns opinions,lack of opinions or just pure
(02:14):
stupidity is always welcome onthis show.
So where can you reach out tous and how can you find us?
It is pretty simple.
You can head over to ourwebsite at wwwtowinglifeca.
You can find us on facebook atthe towing life podcast, or you
can email us directly at thetowing life at gmailcom.
Don't forget, if you'rewatching over on the youtube
(02:35):
side, you can always hit thelike and subscribe and comment
down below.
Um, I haven't checked overrecently to see any of the
youtube comments.
G could maybe, uh, let us knowif there's been some negative,
positive and all of those goodthings.
By the way that he's laughing,I'm assuming there's some
comments that um might not like.
So, um, yeah, that being said,we've got a lot of good stuff to
(02:58):
cover.
This week.
We're going to go over, uh,some stories from G, some road
trip trip stories from myselfand a couple stupid photos that
we tend to find on the interwebs, as we like to call it.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So the YouTube comments are filled by Joe.
He is taking it upon himself tomake sure we have an abundance
of comments.
We've had five comments fromJoe over the past 11 days.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
No one else has commented so joe's just having a
straight up monologue in thecomments he said wow, meaning to
the toe world again.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I'm assuming that's when he first started watching
the video.
Um, they're back.
Was a separate, separatecomment.
I think those could be onecomment, joe, but I appreciate
you.
Thanks for the engagement.
Johnny Five was a comment.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yes, johnny Five is going back to Short Circuit, the
movie reference we were makingthat you didn't understand.
The laser lips comment Laserlips, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Okay, perfect, up to speed.
And four days ago, he says, thepredatory towing on the tractor
trailers, I believe was inKentucky or Tennessee and had a
lot of truckers and a lot oftruckers are not driving there
anymore they would park in truckstop where they were told to
(04:19):
park, and the towing companywould tell him why they were
sleeping in the rigs.
You need some commas in there,joe.
That is according to the newsarticle that I read.
As far as I followed throughwith Okay, that is now, joe.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
that is a different thing.
Okay, so that is a.
There was an issue where I wantto say, um I'm going to look it
up quickly that not, uh,tennessee or Kentucky, as he
said um can't had to come outwith a law that you could not
boot or tow a vehicle with aperson inside of it or something
(05:02):
.
And there was a lot of laughson that, that like as if this
actually has to be written thatas a law.
But it was true, because whathappened was there was a story
out of somewhere some southernstate, I don't know where
exactly where they were towingprivate parking vehicles with
truckers sleeping in them.
Um, which obviously is a no-no,how do you not wake up while
(05:24):
your truck's getting hooked up?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
But, besides the fact , well, they probably just be
like okay, I'll just sit in here, because then it's a lawsuit, I
can sue you for moving.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
No, either that or they had the really good sleep,
sleep right Like they were.
They were deep into Dodo landand didn't feel getting tilted
up in the air or anything.
It up in the air or anything.
But yeah.
So that was like, yeah, you canpark here.
And then they were telling themthere was some controversy over
that.
That wasn't so much to do withthe predatory towing fees we
were talking about Um.
This was a problem with, like Iknow, in the state of Georgia
(05:54):
they'd ran into some um where itwas again charging.
The government felt that theywere charging rates for
emergency response to removevehicles from the highways that
have been involved in this, youknow, that were disabled, have
been involved in an accident,all those kinds of things that
weren't justified.
So your your story that youread in the news article on the
private parking removal withpeople.
(06:14):
That was a whole other category.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
He has another comment here saying there was
another news article last weekor two weeks ago about a towing
company in colorado called wattstowing service something like
that where where they areovercharging for impound out of
private property like anapartment complex.
Look into that was veryinteresting that the state of
(06:37):
colorado changed the laws onthat because of what they were
doing allegedly it's wyatt'stowing.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Wyatt um, yeah, why it's towing?
Colorado attorney generalannounces one.
Um, I got a pop-up thing that Ican't get rid of.
Uh, one million dollarsettlement with wyatt towing
must change unfair, deceptivebusiness practices.
Um, the investigation foundthat since 2019, the company
(07:07):
towed thousands of vehicleswithout a valid permit or proper
authorization, charge unlawfulfees and illegally kept customer
funds and engaged in deceptiveand unfair business practices to
discourage Coloradans Didn'tknow, that's what you called
them from exercising the rightsunder the state's towing law.
So they were doing privateparking without a permit.
You know they obviously weren'tfollowing the rule, following
(07:27):
the rules of private parking.
Um, the towing bill of rightsalso allows customers to
retrieve their vehicle if theypay 15 percent of the towing
fees, up to a maximum of 60dollars.
The unpaid portion is a debtowed to the towing carrier and
the consumer must sign a pucform affirming that they live.
Wait what?
Okay Breaking news Colorado isscrewed.
(07:53):
So, according to this, the AG'soffice has also said that Watts
continued to violate the newtow law and also instituted
practices to keep more fundsfrom vehicle sales and reduce
the amount of return to vehicleowners or the state, such as
driving up storage fees on morevaluable services.
(08:15):
Okay, so I think I've kind ofwrapped my head around this
quickly in this very articlethat we have read live, thanks
Joe, thanks Joe.
Have read live, thanks joe,thanks joe.
So my understanding to thiswould be in colorado, if a
vehicle is impounded and I don'tknow if this classifies as all
or or just for private parkingscenarios um, that you are
(08:40):
supposed to accept they canretrieve their vehicle if they
pay 15% of the towing fees up toa maximum of $60.
Wow, okay, 15% of the towingfees up to a maximum of $16.
The unpaid portion is a debtowed to the towing carrier and
(09:00):
the consumer must sign a PUCform I feel like this is an IOU
form, is what they should havecalled this Affirming that they
owe the payment.
Okay, that, and it sounds likeafter it's been towed, kind of
(09:21):
like with lien holders, if youhave to dispose of the vehicle,
you pay your bill off first andthen whatever money is left off
goes to either the owner of thevehicle or the state, and they
were running up their bills tomake their amount higher so that
the state or the customerwouldn't get the difference
(09:41):
Right, like that way they wouldget, all of you know whatever,
whatever auction price they got,whatever.
Um, that is crazy.
Yeah, that, the 15 is mine,that is mine, that is like that
gets me.
Like what do you mean?
50 like if I were to releasevehicles in my area with 15% of
(10:04):
the invoice paid.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You go out of business within a month.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Nobody is coming back .
No, like I know the U Sfinancial laws are a little
different.
My camera keeps shifting.
I know the U?
S laws are a little bitdifferent, meaning that you know
financially there's morepenalties if you don't stay true
to your financial obligations,right, like I know they're a lot
stricter down there.
But, like I would say, 60% ofmy customers, even 80% of the
(10:29):
people in which I released thatvehicle at 15%, are not coming
back.
They are taking the vehicle.
They are leaving me with thatIOU.
So, unless the state is goingto look, there's got to be a
backup plan that if you end upbeing owed and they don't come
good for it, that the state mustcover that.
Like there has to be.
You cannot force a company torelease it at a fraction of
(10:54):
their invoice without guaranteeof compensation if they do
everything right and it doesn't.
You you know what I mean.
Like that, that seems.
That seems excessive, do you?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
think so, especially in Ontario.
Here, with all the regulationsthat have come out, they're
trying to our capitalisticsociety is.
It's what we got.
I don't care if you are forcapitalism or against it, it's
what we got, it's what we areworking with.
And the problem with the towingindustry as a whole, from the
(11:31):
eyes of the government and theconsumers, is that we have to
charge our customers accordinglybecause we are for profit
businesses, businesses.
With that being said, do youthink in the next 20 to 30 years
that you're going to see moretowing companies no longer
(11:51):
becoming companies per se butbecome part of the government,
to where it's a governmentprovided service and they work
that into taxes somehow.
And the government just dealswith all the accidents on the
side of the road to cut out allthese inflated prices per se,
because they're just sick of usdoing our job and wanting to get
(12:11):
compensated accordingly for it?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I don't think so, because the reason I say that is
you have other problems, likeyou already have.
Like who does the highwaymaintenance?
They're for-profit companies.
Yeah, right, already have.
Like who does the highwaymaintenance?
They're for-profit companies.
No, right in in the province ofontario, fun fact, um, the, the
provincial police at one pointhad their own tow truck.
Okay, it was a, like a rolltight flatbed that they could
(12:40):
for sensitive um, you know, forfor fatals.
Were possibly those peopletrapped inside?
Whatever the case may be, theprovince had their own tow truck
and they would send out to go,and a lot of times this stuff
would end up going to toronto orsomething like that.
Right, they recently got rid ofit.
Their reason, the reasoning wasand this is all hearsay, of
(13:01):
course yeah, um, the reasoning,to my understanding, allegedly,
was that they did not like umexposing their civilian members
because that's who would operate, it would be a civilian unit
member of the police to thehorrors in which they were
seeing.
Because, don't forget, thisroll tarp tight truck doesn't go
(13:24):
out for a two car NBC, thefender bender, right, this thing
is going out to a where avehicle caught fire and the guy
was trapped inside and and theyneed to get it back to be able
to identify him.
The worst of the worst they didnot want to expose their
civilian members who areoperating these trucks to that
that kind of thing.
(13:44):
So they say send the towingcompany, because they're
slightly slow already.
We will just keep exposing themto it it was ironic the
reasoning they gave thatallegedly that's.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
The big issue, though , is the police, fire, ems.
They all have these resourcesavailable to them to deal with
PTSD and the appropriateprocedures in place for those
traumatic events.
Now, I'm not saying that thetowing industry shouldn't have
something like that, but mostplaces don't.
(14:17):
Why?
Because it costs money, and afair few towing companies are
already running on fairly thinmargins, and probably even
thinner margins now that allthese practices have been thrown
on the towing industry.
So there just isn't that budgetto hire a counselor full-time
to be able to counsel yourdrivers when stuff like this
(14:39):
happens.
Our outlook on that is darkhumor and camaraderie between
co-workers.
That's how we normally getthrough it, and if you're in a
place that you're not superclose with your co-workers or
your management or whatever, youmight slip through the cracks
and not have a support systemper se to deal with that kind of
shit, and it's unfortunatelythe truth right.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So the the group with our government, funded
resources, yeah, to help dealwith these terrible accidents
and these things that you see inthe, the smell of burnt flesh
and and whatnot and so forth.
Like every.
I don't think I'm hurtinganyone's feelings by talking
about that.
I mean, we've all encounteredat one point or another.
If we haven't, if you haven'tyet and you're listening, I'm
(15:24):
sorry it does happen.
Please seek help if you need it, right, but it's, it's the
truth, it's.
You know, they went well, wedon't want to subject our
members to this right becausethey were civilian members, they
were not frontline officersdriving the you know these tow
trucks.
So they gave it off to thegroup, who doesn't have those
resources, and and it'd saypretty much, deal with it, right
(15:47):
, um, so no, going back to youroriginal question about do you
see the province just coming, oryou know the province or
federal level, however they wantto do it just coming out and
saying we are going to to do itall as a, a government entity?
I don't think so.
I'm not saying it's notpossible way, way, way in the
future.
I'm just saying we will not seeit in our lifetimes or our
(16:09):
future kids lifetimes.
I don't think it is somethingthat I could see, but that'd be
like, you know, the thegovernment taking over farming
and saying we're gonna run allthe farms.
I mean, they kind of do it theway that they they regulate and
price everything but at the sametime, um, they are still
for-profit businesses.
Um, it's a false for-profitidea.
I think.
Um, it's a very controlledfor-profit.
(16:29):
Uh, the same way that thetowing industry and other
industries are slowly becoming,um, but to say that they will
take over and I don't think theywant it, I I mean because, yeah
, I don't think they want it, Idon't think my tax dollars can
handle what the government wouldpay tow operators.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's.
The other issue, though, is ifthey do bring out these like if
they do go ahead with doing thatfor the highway accidents and
the local police departmenttowing needs you're going to
leave the few towing companiesthat are left to do all the
private tows, I'm assuming thedisabled, the.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, the government locked my keys in my car that
kind of bullshit.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah well, the rates are going to have to get
inflated even more on theremaining services that these
towing companies can provideunder the capitalistic society,
because they lost a good revenuestream of doing accident tows
right.
So I think it would be a verydouble-edged sword, because if
they're trying to curve therates and the absorbent,
(17:37):
absorbent fees that we charge inquotations for the audio
listeners, I think it would dothe opposite really.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, no, you'd need different equipment.
No, I don't think it wouldnecessarily drive those rates up
to compensate on that stuff.
It's just your businessstructure would be different
based on the units that you'dprovide.
If you were just doing moreservice calls and actual tows,
you would look at more servicevehicles.
You would do that kind of thingright.
So it's a different.
Yeah, I, I can't say it's not.
(18:08):
You're gonna up the rate of anunlock by a hundred dollars to
offset because you're notgetting this.
You'd restructure your businessin a way um, that, uh, you know
, accommodates what your volumeis like.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Under state law, towing carriers can only charge
a notification fee and storagefees if they've notified the
owner of a vehicle about anon-consensual tow by certified
mail.
This makes sense.
The investigation found about2,000 owners of vehicles were
charged a notification fee of atleast $75 without any
documentation by Wyatts that thestatutory requirement of
(18:43):
notification had been met.
In other words, they didn'thave records of sending out the
certified mail notifications andcharge it anyways.
If a tow vehicle was found tobe abandoned at a tow lot, a
towing carrier can sell thevehicle to recover the cost of
the tow and any other feesincurred by the towing operator.
State law previously requiredthe towing carriers pay any
(19:05):
proceeds to the sale, of thesale to the Colorado Department
of Revenue, which would dispersethe money to the owner of the
vehicle.
Why?
Why should the owner whoabandoned the vehicle in the
towing yard receive any sort ofthat money?
Yeah, like, what is your?
Your justification?
I got illegally towed.
I said I don't have the moneyfor the.
(19:27):
I guess it's a finite.
It is colorado like.
It's colorado very likeprogressive in the sense of
bleeding heart, are they I?
I feel like this kind of givesme the idea, on this section at
least.
But yeah, the investigationalso alleged why it withheld
information from people who hadtheir cars towed about the law
(19:47):
that allowed them to pay only aportion.
I would too.
That allowed them to pay aportion of the fees up front and
get their vehicle and, for awhile, required customers to
enter into a loan agreement toutilize the towing bill of
rights and for a while requiredcustomers to enter into a loan
agreement to utilize the towingbill of rights.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Um I colorado has been trending uh democrat in the
last years due to the risingpercentage of young college
educated, suburban andunaffiliated voters leaning to
the democrat side, so I don'twant to get into the whole
geopolitical of the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I just kind of, you know, I wasn't sure where
Colorado Colorado wasn't, youknow, a Texas um wasn't a fair
enough Um, yeah, so the companywas accused of not telling
customers they could pay aportion of their bill to get
their vehicle out.
Uh, like, would you willingly,if you had that law?
(20:41):
I would, you know, do like, Iwould have it posted, I would
meet the government requirementminimum to a T.
Right, because that's how youstay out of trouble.
Let's be honest, trouble let's.
(21:02):
Let's be honest.
Towing and governmentrequirements are all about
finding the minimum on certainthings that hurt you and and
applying the minimums.
So I would, but I would not be.
Hey, I'm here to get my car.
Okay, the bill's two hundreddollars, right, okay, well, I
don't have two hundred dollars,oh's, okay, like, you can just
pay the 15%, which is $30, andget your car out of here, no
(21:24):
problem, let me, let me help youwith that.
Let me, let me fill out thisform that you need to fill.
Let me, like, go suck it.
Yeah, I am not, unless the lawmay mandate that I have to,
which I don't know what the lawactually states they have to do.
But a hundred percent, I'm nottelling people if I don't have
to.
Like, imagine that a twohundred dollar, because it's
(21:47):
capped.
It's at sixty dollars, yep,which is four hundred dollar
invoice, right, anything overfour hundred dollars.
You are.
You know, your percentage pointstarts going down.
Yep, so does the state ofcolorado.
But, like, what is the offset?
How do they get the rest of itIf the customer doesn't pay?
And why should the towingcompany be out of pocket?
(22:10):
And now my understanding isthere is an interest they can
charge on that.
Okay, so, but it's still you'refinancing a release of a car.
That's what you're doing.
You're financing the release ofa car with an interest rate.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Well, I think we're seeing this a lot more in
today's society, where credit isbecoming more prevalent and
things like Affirm and Apple Pay, where you can break things
down into installments, isbecoming like a norm for a lot
of people, because not too manypeople save everyone's living
(22:48):
paycheck to paycheck, with thehigher cost of living and
bullshit like that, and there isreasons why people stay broke.
I'm not saying that there isn't, but there is.
Like people don't have safetynets anymore and if you are in
debt, I would highly recommendgetting a safety net of at least
a month or two of your livingexpenses put aside and then
(23:13):
start tackling more on your debtso you can take care of
yourself.
Something happens.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
And if you're stupid and your car?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
gets impounded, then at least you have some money to
get your car back out of theimpound lot.
But that's not the world welive in.
So I think the next step for usas towing companies is to offer
payment plans with interest ata stupid interest rate like 32.5
.
So it's on par with creditcards to say hey you, you got a
(23:43):
thousand dollar towing bill.
We can break that down into atwo-year payment plan.
Um, there's 32 percent interest.
You're going to end up payinglike 12, 13, 1400 by the time
everything's all said and done.
Hell, it could even be closerto two grand by the time
everything's all said and done.
And if you stop paying, thenwe'll put it to collections and
done.
Hell, it could even be closerto two grand by the time
everything's all said and done.
And if you stop paying, thenwe'll put it to collections and
(24:04):
then someone will buy it off ofus for whatever.
And I think that's somethingthat the towing industry is
going to have to go through,because you can buy now and pay
later for furniture, cars, liketiny little purchases.
You can do it on Amazon forpurchases that are $40.
I'm sorry, if you don't have$40 to buy some bullshit off of
(24:25):
Amazon.
You don't need the bullshit offof Amazon.
I'm sorry that's my little bitof a rant, but finances, I think
, plays a big role in this, andjust people don't have the money
, and I'm sorry that peopledon't have the money.
A lot of people are in the sameboat, but at the end of the day
(24:48):
, the company providing theservice, regardless if you ask
for it or not, has to getcompensated.
And I think the buy now, paylater strategy as much as I hate
it, it's here to stay and itdoes have its uses for certain
things.
I think that's something thetowing companies are going to
have to start implementing totry to get paid, because that's
what Colorado's pretty much done, right?
They say, well, you pay 15%down, you put 15% down and then
(25:08):
they will charge you interest onthe remaining of your bill.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Well, you got to watch though, too, because part
of this complaint against thiswhy it's towing and one of the
ones I didn't read because Ididn't think at the time it was
going to be important asconversation was they were also
accused of charging the maximumrate of interest allowed without
going up into you know someother financial section that
they would require, so they arecapped on the amount of interest
(25:34):
that they are allowed to chargeas well.
No, I don't know.
I'm reading the bill nowquickly as we do it, so
obviously it's not going to bevery thorough and it might be
something we have to touch backon, um to try and see if I can
find what those are or what theum.
What happens to a vehicle thatyou know they take the 15 and
they don't pay it back does?
Does the state um cover that?
(25:57):
Um, I have not found anything,uh yet to justify that.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So well, that's, that's the other thing.
Okay, so you're saying that thestate should reimburse you, but
then you're saying here's daddygovernment coming to.
If we're going to be a privatefor-profit company, why don't we
do it the same way, as I know,banks get bailouts all the
fucking time and they're justlike another branch of the
government.
But if, let's say, I rack up athousand dollars of credit card
(26:25):
debt and I don't pay my monthly,monthly payments, or I don't
pay any of the interest, andthat interest is gained to a
fifteen hundred dollars, well,that credit card company, it's
not worth their time to try tofight me over the fifteen
hundred dollars.
So they'll just sell it to adebt collector for $1,200.
Right.
And then that debt collectorwill try to get you to pay the
(26:48):
$1,500, what it actually is,right.
So why don't us, as towingcompanies, say okay, government,
you screwed us enough.
We're not going to rely on youfor dealing with the mess that
you made.
We just going to deal with itourselves and go that route,
right.
So then you are at leastgetting paid because you're
dealing with another for-profitbusiness.
Is it shady sometimes?
(27:10):
Sure it is.
But if that's the route thatwe're going to go to get payment
, that's kind of what we shoulddo.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Well, I Well, I okay, so I want to um this bill in
Colorado that I'm reviewing andthis, this whole thing that we
were talking about, I think it'simportant to mention, only
applies to um concern the rightsof a person with ownership
interest in a vehicle that hasbeen towed from private property
(27:36):
without the person's consentand in connection there with
making an appropriation so thisis not no, no, no, don't just
say non-consensual to privateproperty removal.
Non-consensual toes is what thisapplies to.
So I kind of changed my tuneonce I, once I realized that
(27:57):
they can pay the 15.
Take the vehicle.
Who should be responsible forthat remaining balance?
You entered into an agreementwith the property owner, right
Like.
This agreement was not enteredinto.
This is not the case of Ontario,where you are getting called by
police to to remove somethingfrom a highway with no guarantee
of payment and letting that 15%slide.
(28:19):
This is not NBCs.
These are not excessive.
I don't want to say excessivebecause it's a bad word, but
these are not towing invoicesthat are going to be on the
higher scale of things.
These are hook and booksprivate property removal.
Should the registered owner notpay more than the 15%?
A hundred percent.
The property owner in which youentered into the agreement to
(28:42):
should be responsible.
He is the one that they are, Ishouldn't say he.
They are the ones thatrequested that you remove
vehicles from their property andentered into an agreement with
you right now.
That's the trick.
Nobody's going to start thattrend.
No, because the first towingcompany that does that is going
to lose their private parkingcontracts.
And what are they going to do?
(29:02):
They're going to move to thenext company who's not going to
do it.
That is where it should be right, like it should be that, and we
used to do something similar.
So we don't do private parkinganymore at all.
Even and it hurts me sometimesbecause sometimes it's our good
commercial customers who have avehicle parked on their property
and we won't remove it.
(29:23):
We will only remove a vehiclefrom private property at the
request of the bylaw or thepolice.
What's ironic is they'll callthe police, ask them if they can
have the vehicle removed.
They will go, yes, and theywill say call this company, call
us, and we're like, yeah, wedon't do that.
Yeah, the reason is is becauseof the bad, you know, public
image, and I think we'd spokeabout that before the bad public
(29:44):
image.
So we won't do it.
But there is a need for it,right, and I know the states.
It is a big business, the us,and especially in the cities and
I'm sure even in the city, bigcities here in Canada, it is a
you know, a need to have, butit's such a shitty side of the
(30:04):
industry to be in and I don't,you know, I'm not shitting on
the operators that operatewithin it, I'm just saying, like
, as a tow operator, for themost part, you know again, we
show up and we help people.
I mean, you could take thatsame approach with with PPIs,
right?
That's what we call PPIs isthat they're helping, they're
helping the property owners,they are still helping us, but
you are literally.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Well, they're also helping the fire department if
that car's parked on a firelight, yeah, I'd say 99% of their
calls aren't that.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, they'll get that one cool one.
Yeah, um, right, like they'llget those cool calls.
But at the same time you arepretty much just pissing off
every vehicle owner that youtouch their vehicle.
Nobody is happy to have a ppi.
Um, I've never been towed forit.
I've done towing for it anddon't get me wrong, sometimes
(30:51):
it's fun.
Yeah, get a bit of a complexgetting that thing, getting it
out of there, right, like it'scool, um, but it's a shitty side
of the industry to be in.
It's a necessity, but it's ashitty side.
So, um, you know, looking at,there's still like this colorado
state telling me that I can dothat.
I get it.
It was probably to avoidcharges.
(31:11):
You know, they had to controlit because people were charging
what we would charge for anaccident to do private property
removal.
They weren't notifying people,the car would sit there forever.
They'd run the invoices up,like there's all that kind of
stuff.
So I get it.
I do in a sense, given thenature of that section, I get it
, but as long as it doesn'tapply to regular towing because,
like, if, so, if, if these lawsstart coming in in different
(31:35):
areas, um, you know, we talkedabout the us and and all their
fights they're having, similarto ontario.
Um, you know, I think we got tostart going after the
government for predatorypractices because, god damn, you
cannot control private industry.
That as hard as you want tocontrol it, right.
But um, also thanks, joe, andfuck you for taking up half of
(31:58):
our podcast length that was, uh,nowhere near the intent of
today's show, but I'm I'm gladwe could get into it.
That's that's some of the mostorganic conversations we'll have
on.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The show is based on, you know, stuff that pops up
and ideas so if you want to takeup half of our show next week,
feel free to comment in thecomments down below with an
interesting topic.
Hit us up, send us an emailtowinglifegmailcom, or find us
on Facebook.
Do a little bleep bloop on oneof our posts or send us a
message on messenger.
There's plenty of ways to getahold of us.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Now we know why I do those reads.
My Lord, you kind of just justjust reach out to us.
Okay, guys, go find the, findthe.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
You know there's been there's been studies to show if
you tell people to do one thing, they're more likely to do it.
If you ramble off a bunch ofthings that you want them to do,
they'll do none of them.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Really yeah.
Is that why I do nothing whenmy wife gives me a list of seven
things?
But if she just asked me to doone thing, I'll go do it.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, yeah.
Because you feel justoverwhelmed, like it's a
daunting task, when they saythese are the 18 things you got
to do to get to your goal andyou're like, wow, that's a lot
of things.
But if you just break yourgoals down into a lot smaller
steps, like oh, make your bed inthe morning, okay, well, I
achieved that goal, right, andyou get a little dopamine hit
(33:25):
because you achieved somethingand you completed something.
You set your goals small toslowly work towards your bigger
overarching goal.
So if I say please like thisvideo today, and then next week
I say please subscribe to myYouTube channel, it might
actually, you know, count up tosomething like this video today
and then next week I say pleasesubscribe to my youtube channel,
it might actually, you know,count up to something we're
doomed as a society if we needto break hitting your goals into
(33:45):
small little chunks that thesesensitive little generation can
can swallow without you knowchoking no, it's not that at all
.
fuck you for that.
No, it's the human condition.
No, it's the human fuckingcondition.
If you do smaller things,they're easier to obtain.
Like if I say to you I want youto go from nothing, you
(34:11):
probably have, like, let's justsay, five thousand dollars in
your uh bank account.
I want you to go up and start a10 million dollar towing
company with nothing else.
That's a daunting task evenwith your knowledge.
But if I say I want you to goout and get your towing
equipment for doing servicecalls and start doing service
(34:33):
calls, well, that's a lot easierattainable goal, right Aside
from starting up the actualbusiness and all the paperwork
stuff.
You can go out and you can buysome of the equipment and then
you can get the ball rolling andyou can snowball.
It's always that snowball effectwhen people say I'll use me as
an example I want to start up afarm.
I've got 105 acres.
Okay, I want 35 head of cattle.
(34:55):
I want to be able to stay athome and raise a family on my
farm.
That's a great goal.
But that's a long-term goal.
I can do it on a year-to-yearbasis to where I can see cause
and effect over that course ofthe year.
Okay, I want to build a chickentractor so I can get 30
chickens and start selling themand then I can start eating some
of my own meat.
Well, that's a more attainablegoal.
(35:15):
Okay, next year I want to startputting up some fences.
Okay, and I start putting upthese fences and I get fencing
done, okay.
Well, now that's open theopportunity for me to start
getting cattle Right and it's itjust snowballs.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I agree with you on that.
Where I was was the referenceof set yourself like, make your
bed today like well, if you'veever listened to jordan peterson
it's a good way.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
If you are in a slump and a lot of people are, you're
like oh, day-to-day is verymundane, just bullshit.
You're just going through lifeas you're just floating by right
.
If you wake up in the morningand you make your bed and you
can actually say I've donesomething within your first 10
minutes of being awake, it setsyourself up as a better mood for
(36:00):
the rest of the day becauseyou've already accomplished
something.
You know you should dosomething.
You've accomplished that goaland it's easier to start
accomplishing other things.
Because when you wake up inyour day and you're like OK,
well, I got to do the dishes, Igot to do laundry, I got to do
this and you gotta do that andyou gotta do the whole laundry
list of things, of generichumans gotta do in the day, a
(36:21):
lot of people new people, oldpeople can get overwhelmed with
that list of seven things, likeyou said.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
But I think a lot of newer people.
We'll call them newer people.
Like younger people, get newerpeople and get a little
overwhelmed.
A little quicker on it.
Like I said, I'm not trying toshit on your strategy for
setting goals.
I think goals in life, goals inbusiness goals are absolutely
important and achieving yourgoals are one thing.
Right, like you know, that ishow you get forward in life.
(36:49):
I 100% agree.
Like I said, I was just shittingon the softer generation that's
got broken up into so small oftasks, right, how many, how many
of these, these youngergenerations, younger operators
that you have to like, literallyfocus on one tiny little thing
at a time because they getoverwhelmed.
Right, like I'm, I'm shittingon that side of it.
(37:11):
I'm shitting on the, the newergeneration, you know, and the
same as my generation was incomparison to my father's and
his generation was in comparisonto his father, right, this is a
trend, um, I had this debatewith him and actually I probably
have this debate again aftertoday's show about him with him.
Um, tonight for father's day,when I see him, you should have
it.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You're not too fun.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Nah, you don't know about me and my father's
relationship.
Okay, it's already broken.
Let's um, let's just beat it upa little bit more.
Um, but uh, but no, I was likeI said the how small of pieces
they have to be cut up into toyou know, not affect their
fragile um thought process orfeelings behind it on how small
(37:53):
you got to break up some of the,the, the goals.
Goals are important, but let'sbe honest, like we are very
softer to a lot of things.
Back in the day, it was figuredout right, I had, I had this
conversation with my generalmanager not long ago where, um,
it was like, has this operatorbeen shown how to do this?
(38:14):
And I don't remember what itwas.
It was something fairly simpleof a task, like it wasn't a, it
wasn't like a sea can it was?
I don't remember what it was.
And he goes have they beenshown how to do that?
And I said, no, not that Iremember.
I'm sure they can figure it out.
Well, that is not fair to puton somebody to expect them to
(38:37):
figure it out without beingshown, and that hit a nerve with
me because as much as, yes,training is a valuable, you know
, as valuable as ever.
Like, training is required.
You cannot hold hands throughevery type of scenario, meaning
if I've shown you how to do ascissor lift, you should be able
to shown you how to do ascissor lift.
You should be able to figureout how to do a forklift.
(38:58):
You know what I mean.
Like, if I've given you thosebasics, you should be able to
figure out that situation.
Ironically, the next day I hadto go, do?
I think we talked about themotorcycle in the quarry and
when we recovered it, westrapped it down to the wheel,
lift sideways, hung it off theboom, like we've done bikes
before.
And I remember I sent thepicture to my general manager
(39:19):
and he goes oh nice.
I said, yeah, you know whotaught me that?
Nobody, we figured it out likeyou.
The towing industry, as much asyou know.
I think we go too far to theone side on it where we don't
train people at all and justsend them out and get them to
figure it out.
There has to be that balance.
Right, these new guys, youliterally need to hold their
(39:42):
hands to a lot of stuff, right?
Is that for the better or forthe worst?
Like is it?
Yes, they're getting moretraining, so you could view that
as a positive.
But at the same time they'renot figuring anything out on
themselves because they've hadtheir handheld, I believe,
through everything and I've gota couple operators that are
(40:02):
still the exception to thatright.
I had a kid not long ago.
He's a couple months in.
I'm at a body shop checking outa call or picking up something,
and I happen to see one of ourtrucks in the backyard.
So I'm like I'm going to goover and check them out, see how
he's doing Right.
I go into the back, it's alittle pickup truck missing a
whole wheel right.
The whole right front assemblyis gone.
(40:23):
And this guy's a couple monthsin, so still fairly green, I
think we can agree.
And he's got this thing jackedup, put up on blocks, skate, put
under it like textbook hookupfor a new guy, and did it all
without asking any questions.
Now he was shown it once.
He was shown it once on a rearwheel right, or he was shown
once on a, you know, justplaying around in the yard, but
(40:44):
he was not shown in thatspecific scenario.
He had the mind to take it andgo.
I've learned this beforesomething similar.
How do I apply it in thissituation and I think that you
know that's what makes a goodoperator, that's what makes
these new guys.
You look distracted.
(41:04):
You were reading something.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I swear to God, if it's more motivational videos,
I'm cutting your feet off.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
No, but it's going back to how you're saying
everything's got to be brokendown into small, attainable
goals, so, no.
So the average house price in1980, this is just a quick
little.
I got four tabs open in Canada,right, the graphs are
approximately $75,000 for astarter home in 1980.
(41:34):
And in 1989, the average houseprice was $150,000.
Right, okay.
So double, then you go.
Okay, right.
The average salary householdsalary in 1980 was $55,000 and
61 cents For an individual.
It was $23,018.
Right, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Because dual income.
So I mean you can have Wait,18.
Okay, because dual income.
I mean how many dual Wait?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What year was this?
1980.
How many dual income householdswere there in the 80s?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Well, it was becoming more prevalent after World War.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
II.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
After World War II, because they brought all the
females into the factories, itbecame more prevalent.
You got into the suburbanlifestyle.
Yadaada, yada, it's just so nottowing related I know it's not
towing related, but it kind ofsheds a bit of a light on a
nerve anyways.
So we average house prices 75000.
Average income dual incomehousehold 55 000.
(42:31):
You could have that house paidoff in like 10 years, five years
, if you wanted to.
Yada yada, yada.
Right, easy math, okay, 2024average selling price of a home
in ontario uh, eight hundredninety three thousand two
hundred dollars right, it's notfair.
Toronto blows everything up okay, even around me in smaller
(42:51):
areas a new new townhouse $600,$700, right, it's not cheap, I
think so.
Average household income inCanada an average annual salary
in Canada in 2023 was $64,850.
That's going to take you a lotlonger.
So in the average house pricewas two years of your salary
1980, $55,000.
(43:12):
Average house price two yearsof your salary 1980, 55,000.
Average house price 75,000 lessthan two years, you make more
right.
In less than two years, you hadenough money to fully pay off
that house without your livingexpenses.
Yeah, in 2024, you're making$64,850.
Well, let's, I'm going to dosome quick math.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
If you want to know.
Tomangia is doing math.
Lord, save us all, man.
I have definitely hit a nervewith this one, with you.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Hmm, that you have divided by 64, 850.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So, like I get what you're saying, it's going to be
like 10, 12 years, so yeah it'salmost 14 years.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
If all your income went straight to the house,
which isn't possible, no, ofcourse.
So the goals have gotten a lotlarger.
Right.
To own a home Now you got tohave a lot of wealth behind you,
a lot of savings, or you'regoing to be paying for it for
the rest of your life, right, so?
Or you're going to be payingfor it for the rest of your life
(44:15):
, right, so the goals have justlooked so unattainable, right?
When you look at home ownership, which is just a big idea in
this, it's very hard to motivateyourself because that goal just
seems so far off To where.
If you break things down okay,well, this year I want to save
$5,000.
I want to put $5,000 into a401k, I want to put $5,000 into
(44:37):
a retirement fund, I want to dowhatever In a year to save
$5,000, it's a lot easier thansaying I want to buy a house
this year, right, so it's easierto motivate yourself because
it's a more attainable goal.
Right, that's the saying ofkeep your expectations low to
avoid disappointment.
That's the saying of keep yourexpectations low to avoid
disappointment.
That's a good thing and a badthing at the same time, because
(44:58):
if you say I want to be amillionaire next year.
It's very hard to attain that,but if you've broken, okay, well
, instead I want to be amillionaire.
How am I going to get there?
Okay, well, there's a 10 step.
I can see myself doing it in 10different steps.
So you break that down and everytime you hit a step in that
goal, you're still working forthat million dollars.
(45:19):
But you can say, okay, well, Imade $5,000.
Or I saved $5,000 this month,or this year and next year.
Okay, well, I was able to save$5,000 last year.
What if I save $10,000 thisyear?
Right, and then you save$10,000 that year and year?
What if I save 10 this year?
Right, and then you save 10that year?
Speaker 2 (45:38):
it just makes it easier to once again snowball
yourself into that end goal,right, okay, so the only way
that I can save this so that youunderstand that we can keep the
show related towards towingbecause anyways it is um is no,
the towing industry has facedthe same problem, right?
Average price of a tow truckback in the 1980s, 1970s, um
versus basic rate of a tow was alot closer of a margin.
(45:59):
You look at price of tows nowcompared to 1980s, they haven't
increased much, they've barelyincreased.
We've seen some guys with ratesheets from back when, when you
go, we're like $20 more and atow truck will cost north of you
know, 200.
Yep, you know, a tow truck pricehas increased 100%, multiple
(46:23):
times, like threefold, and yetthe price of tows have increased
40%, 30%, all that kind ofstuff.
So you know, and it's inflationis real, yep, right, and the
market can't keep up, but then,at the same time, you can't go.
Well, tow trucks need to makemore money, like what is like.
What is your point on this,though?
That people should make moremoney or that things should cost
less money?
(46:44):
No, because there's no nicesolution to this.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
This is.
This is kind of calling back towhat we're what I was talking
about earlier on in the show ofwhy financing small purchases
have become so prevalent, right,right uh, because and people
are stupid though.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
People are like I can't afford 60, but I can
afford five dollars a month withinterest, for you know what I
mean eight months and end uppaying exactly well it's eight
months.
There would be like 12, butthat's the thing.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Is everything with the same day or next day
shipping.
Everything's instantgratification.
I go to McDonald's, I buybullshit.
I get that reward.
I buy bullshit.
Well, that's what it is.
You stop in a convenience store, you get gas and you go inside
and you get bullshit with you.
It's sunflower seeds.
That's bullshit.
Yeah, I'm a sucker for sunflowerseeds Exactly.
(47:32):
Well, how much money could yousave if you didn't get your
sunflower seeds?
It's going to be natural likenot that much money over the
course of a year.
But if you do that with thatsnickers that you got, or you do
that with whatever bullshitthat you don't really need and
live more minimalistically,you'd be able to have a savings
and you'd be able to cash rollyourself instead of going into
(47:52):
debt to get new things that youneed.
Right if, instead, if you had acouple thousand dollars set
aside for emergencies and youget your car impounded or you
need a new set of brakes, rightinstead of well, I need my car
to get to work, and if I don'thave brakes on my car, then I
can't work, and then it's just adownward spiral.
You're like, well, I guess Igot to put it on credit.
(48:13):
Well, that's only settingyourself up for failure because
you're going to have to pay thatback with interest.
You know what we're going to do?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I have a solution.
Okay, we are going to send G tothe great state of Colorado.
He can become an officialColoradan which is new
information to me today and hewill come around to your towing
companies and give his lifelessons to any customer who
decides to 15% pay and financethe rest of their vehicle out
and explain to them why it is abad idea, so that you cannot end
(48:40):
up like why it's towing.
You can offer them the servicesyou can say, you know what.
You can pay 15% of your invoiceand pay the rest later minutes
and listen to him explain to youwhy, why you are making bad
life decisions and need tosmarten up that.
(49:01):
That is what we are going to do.
So if there is any towingcompany in the great state of
colorado that would like to havemr toman g as their 15 um
refuser, we we call them or orum, uh, you know, negotiator.
Yeah, that'll be the deal 15%finance the recipe.
You got to sit 45 minutes withthis guy so that he can explain
(49:23):
to you George Peterson orwhoever the hell he talked about
and and and the, the economicsof the working class and how it
directly affects you.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I will make a one simple plug.
If you are interested infinances and you do want to
better yourself.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Caleb Hammer, you're not selling a help book.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I'm not selling a help book Well, he does offer
shit but just his free videos onYouTube.
Caleb Hammer he does financialaudits.
He's out of Austin, texas.
If you want to be on a show,you can be on a show.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
And he just goes through people's shitty fucking
life.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Uh situation, this guy they go like yeah I've got a
car payment of this I make thismuch money and he breaks out a
white haired guy.
Yeah well, he's not an oldwhite haired guy, he's a young
kid, he's like 30 oh, maybe I'veseen some other version, some
other guy, yeah, yeah caliphammer on youtube.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Look him up, he's funny, funny fucking shit well,
this episode absolutely got awayfrom us and I apologize to our
listeners.
We didn't touch on anythingthat we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
We got if it fits, it ships for next week.
Road etiquette We've got aFacebook post that's probably
three months old at this pointif we actually touch to it.
We've got your stupid lifedecisions of doing 3,000
kilometers in three days.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Uh yeah, we got a lot of shit that we got to talk
about next week so be sure totune in next week for another
episode of the towing lifepodcast, where we aim to go
three for three in three weeksin a row.
Um, without issue.
On behalf of myself and mywonderful co-host, mr tomanji,
we thank you for coming out foranother episode and we cannot
wait to see you again next week.
Take care, toodles.
(50:58):
The dumbest episode we've everdone.
I liked it.
It was good.
Of course you did, because itdoesn't do anything about towing
.
Yeah, it's fine.
No, it's not.
(51:20):
I would like to make you pointyour eyes to the top of the
screen here, sir.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
And what's behind me, but we've done a lot of videos
that have all focused around thetowing industry, which is good
and bad in a way, because that'swhat our fucking show is about.
I know it's what our fuckingshow is about, but it's good to
get off topic.
Sometimes.
Some of our best performingshows have been off topic shows
because, as much as our fan baselikes towing, they're also here
(51:46):
for us I think my joke at theend absolutely wrapped that
fucking perfectly which one thecolorado thing, like we're gonna
send you to Colorado and like,yeah, you can take the 15%, but
you gotta sit with thismotherfucker for 45 minutes and
listen to this bullshit.
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