Life in the Fast Lane

In this picture I am moving a small building for a friend using my first tow truck.


I knew the owner of a tow truck company through working on his trucks at a muffler shop I ran. At this time 'chasing' wrecks was legal and thats how this company did most of their business. I rode around a few Friday nights with him and enjoyed the excitement of the chase and the mangled metal of the accident was a different experience.

This pic shows me loading a large air compressor into the back of a truck that would soon be my 3rd tow truck.

 I soon found myself in need of a tow for one of my cars so I called up my friend and asked him for a favor to which he replied that he would teach me how to do it and I would tow it myself. I was thrilled! Being a 'car guy' this was really cool, I got to do something with my car that I had never done before.

My first tow truck that is actually more of a conglomerate piece of equipment.

I drove over to his storage yard/office and he and I went to retrieve my dead car. He had me drive to the car and talked about what I needed to do and why I needed to tow this car in this way. If you have ever noticed when some cars are towed they are towed backwards. In the days before every company had flatbed tow trucks, called rollbacks, you needed to lift the drive wheels. Hondas where towed from the front and novas from the rear. He showed me how to drop the 'sling' the part that you hook to the car and helped me with where to put the J hooks. The J hooks are long steel hooks snapped like a J, hence the name, these are on the end of a length of chain that is used to attach to the bottom of the sling. This type of hookup is rare today because the modern tow truck uses equipment that lifts directly from the cars wheels, or puts the whole car on the back of the truck.

 This is my first real tow truck and I didn't even have to buy it! 


On the way to drop off my car I talked with the owner of the company about working for him part time as I thought this a interesting learning experience. He said I should come by friday evening and see how the business of getting tows work. This is how it all started. We sat in a parking lot near the highway and a busy intersection. He said this was part of his "area", the sector of a large metro city that his company had operated for years. He thought of this as his territory, no other tow companies should try and chase wrecks here or risk bodily injury! We sat in the truck listing to 5 police scanners at one time, and a C.B. radio. It was very difficult to listen to this chatter and actually hear what was going on! I learned as time went on to focus on just the auto accident parts. The culture of the tow truck at this time in this city was a study in counter culture. Tow trucks are universally hated by the police and driving public. But just like the police everyone wants one near when there in trouble! I also learned to master my emotions in the area of death and injury that you get to see every day when involved in auto accidents. I remember the first time I watched someone die vividly like it was yesterday. A big rig truck, with no trailer, had rear ended another semi truck with a end dump trailer carrying gravel. The truck hitting the back of the other was a conventional rig or CEO, meaning it was a flat nose one where you sit over the engine. It hit the back of the other truck, which was stopped on the highway because of a traffic backup,  going at high speed and it looked like it exploded! Large pieces of the cab littered the road and most everything that was in the sleeping area of the truck was laying about. The man driving the truck was alive and talking even though he was pinned under the steering wheel part with the truck floor and seat wrapped around him. Chasing wrecks you often reach the accident sight before the police, fire truck and ambulance. When I approached the truck it had a crowd of people around it and I could hear the people talking to him and his responses, a motorist walking towards me looked me in the eyes and shook his head and said "don't go up there, he is not going to make it" I still went. I heard him saying he messed up he was going too fast to stop and he was sorry, he also said there was a pistol in his truck and to be sure the cops got it so some kid didn't find it. He knew he was going to die and said all the things one says about his love his mom and everything like in the movies. The fire truck made it to the scene first and the crew ran up with there bags of rescue gear. This was a crew I would get to know well through the years. They knew I was the new guy and helped me deal with this trauma I felt a few times before I learned to deal with it. I looked for the gun in the wreckage that was strewn about the highway, never did find it. I came back to tell the cop that showed up about the gun and witnessed the man passing away as the cop was getting the phone number of his wife from the guy as he just stopped talking and
died.
                                      
My back yard always had a revolving inventory of parts, projects and good stuff!


Doing this job gave me insight to things I would never have gotten from a unique perspective. The police mostly didn't like us but needed us to clear the roadways and get traffic going again and for many other things I would soon learn. Some even became friendly to me because I was not like most tow operators, I was willing to do things and not get payed! Some cops openly hated us to the point of harassment! 2 come to mind as cops to avoid if a chase driver, both very interesting in their own right. One enjoyed using his cars loudspeaker to say stuff like "hey you, stupid tow truck driver hurry up and move that damn car!" The other was a motorcycle cop that liked to wear his motorcycle gear when he had to drive a police car, even the helmet! This I found later wasn't actually a bad idea.

One afternoon I chased a single car accident near where I had just dropped off a car I had towed and had a encounter with this cop. I pulled up to a el camino that had ran over a curb and ruined a tire and wheel, the driver I could see was busy changing the tire, probably no tow here. I got out and walked up to him to see if he was going to need my services or not and quickly found out he was drunk. He was a large framed country type guy and a little mad. I told him I would just block traffic so no one ran into him and do paperwork no charge, no worries. Walking back to my truck I glanced in his car and saw no less than 3 pistols and 4 rifles laying in plain view on the seat! Being a gun guy and a concerned citizen I ambled back to him and mentioned that if the cops showed up and saw that they would make his life very difficult. He roared that it was his right to have them and none of their business, and mentioned that he had been out shooting in the country and he was just going home not out to rob a store. I said "well your right you can have guns but you know how caps can be" and started towards my truck again. He mumbled a expletive and said he would at least unload them all. Unload them all! Great! I asked what kind of shooting does he like and he warmed up little and we talked about what sort of guns he had. He even let me help him unload them as he was drunk enough he was having trouble with his hands. Now I have loaded guns in my hands and I know the cops are coming I just didn't know what cop was coming because none had responded before I had arrived. I heard on the portable scanner on my belt that it was the motorcycle cop! Oh hell! I told the drunk guy that the cops where coming and to try and not breath on the officer. I did a very fast unload of all these guns and put them behind the seat, the guy was trying to put his spare tire on before the cop got there. I had just finished and a police car from the jurisdiction very near us stop and get out to see what was going on, he was one of the fattest cops I had ever seen! He was about to the drunk guys car when helmet wearing cop showed up driving a car, he exchanged pleasantries as I watched from my truck. They walked up to drunk guy and talked for a second before motorcycle cop started doing a roadside sobriety test on the drunk. This quickly turned into a shouting match and in the blink of an eye big drunk guy picked up little skinny motorcycle cop and body slammed him on the hood of his own patrol car! "This is going to be good" I thought as I watched from the safety of my tow truck! Fat cop went to skinny cops aid only to get a elbow right in the chin as drunk guy drew back to punch his captive in the face. Fat cop goes back and his head bounces off the pavement knocking him silly! "Well hell" I think as my mind tries to decide if I want to get involved in this mess or not and my body just reacts and opens the door and I run over trying to think of how I am going to handle this. I reach the fight and hear the emergency beacon that the cops have on their radio go off, this alerts the station that this cop needs help. Every time drunk guy throws a punch at skinny cop that he get a fist full of hard motorcycle helmet! Drunk guy takes a jab, cop turns his head and THUD, the helmet takes the brunt of the impact! This doesn't slow him down from trying to beat the hell out of that cop and only makes him madder! Soon I hear lots of other police responding that their on the way to help! As I pull drunk guy of the skinny cop the fat cop starts getting himself up off the tarmac to help with the struggle. I swing this drunk around and we fall to the ground, I let go and try and distance myself from the ass kicking I am sure drunk guy is going to now get! About this time is when several officers arrive with sirens howling and I try and slip back to my truck and make my escape. This isn't going to happen as they have blocked my truck in with what seems to be most of the cities patrol cars! I sit in my truck and talk with my boss and co-workers on the C.B. radio, not thinking about all the other people listening to all this, just wanting to get away from all this chaos! Soon the shift supervisor is asking me "did you see my officer act unprofessional or inappropriately in any manner?" I think about this for a second and remember them kicking and punching drunk guy while trying to cuff him and say with a strait face "no sir". He smiles and says "thank you for your help" and talks with skinny cop for a minute and keeps looking in my direction as I think I am some how going to get some more crap out of this some where! After the rest of the entire police force starts to depart and before I can get out of there skinny cop comes over to my truck and asks "why did you help me?", I just answer " seemed like the thing to do at the time." This is the first time I see him smile at any time I had been in front of him, ever! He says "get your ticket book and follow me", I am in shock because I know what he is going to do. He walks me over to the drunk guy in the back of his car and says " this guy will be towing your car you need to answer his questions so he can fill out the tow ticket and inform you of the charges for this service." and he walks over to fat cop to have a smoke. This is highly irregular, this car by all rights should go to the police impound lot! This tow should go to the city contracted tow company, not a private tow lot by a private tow truck! Remember this car is full of guns the cops haven't seen yet! I tell the guy quietly that I am really sorry for what happened and I will help him out by taking the car to his house and let his buddy or wife take care of the guns. He says to take it where it will be safe and to keep his guns until he bails out of jail in a few hours and he will make it worth my while! My boss shows up while I am hooking up the car and I tell him what the guy said. My boss at this time really doesn't like any police and says that we will all make sure his car and guns stay safe and out of the cops hands, at no charge! 2 days later the guy gets out of jail and calls my boss to arrange to get his car and drunk guy gives each of us a one hundred dollar bill, lots of money in the 80's. We take the whole crew of drivers out and get drunk!

more to come....