Towing companies benefit from chill weather conditions

While the winter weather can make for unsafe driving, it also means big business for some towing companies, such as towing businesses, which are seeing more work this season than entire years in recent history. 

The team at Express Towing and Recovery spent Saturday morning, January 25th dragging cars out of ditch and towing vehicles from accident scenes.

The roads were terrible. Even the other storms we have had, this morning, for some reason, even the tow trucks, we could not stop, said owner Jim Welland. We most likely made more in the last 2 months that we did all year for the last 3 or 4 winters.

Conditions in Waukesha County Saturday morning resulted in Twenty five vehicles in ditches, 13 accidents resulting in property damage and 9 injuries.

All of which was a result of just not giving sufficient distance between the vehicles, not taking your time, speed too high due to the weather, said Lt. Anthony Kasta with the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department.

Towing companies busy in wake up of storm

These temperatures are not just dangerous for us; they have been downright brutal to our vehicles. Towing companies told us they have never had so many calls for people in need of a jump.

With temperatures this cold, there was a common sound heard throughout the streets.

Cars just aren't starting, they are sitting outside, its 25 below and the battery are too low," said Virgil’s Auto and Towing manager Bruce Nelson. Virgil’s Auto and Towing has been beyond bust jumping and towing service cars.

We are 4 hours behind and we have all truck we have got out there starting cars right now," said Nelson. We spoke with one driver who had to wait more than 4 hours for a towing truck. The problem is, it's so cold it's taking much longer to jump the cars.

I went out to start my car and it wouldn't start, so I tried to jump it and it still would not start, said Anthony Liss. For Anthony Liss is clear jumper cables weren’t going to do the job. I had one of my co-workers take me to get a new battery, said Anthony Liss.

And he's not alone.

We have definitely had issues keeping batteries stocked, I have a couple pallets in the back, said AutoZone’s store manager Daniel Rosas.Rosas says a new battery is key. If they are older the vapor has leaked out or they even freeze up because temperature is that cold," said Rosas.

It seems parking in a garage is the only safe bet to making sure your car will start, because with weather this cold no vehicle is resistant. We have not seen weather like this in 20 years, we just have to try and keep those cars warm, said Nelson.

Many of the auto parts stores that do not have garages are not doing their characteristic battery installs right now because it is just too cold. AutoZone told us they will do the installs as long as they aren't too hard.