Towing Truck Drivers Reflect on Highway Turnings

Tow truck drivers daily find themselves in the same risky situations that state troopers do when responding to accident scenes.

Darkness, busy highways, bad weather and dangerous driving are regular pressure faced by tow drivers, troopers and other emergency personnel at accident scenes.

A state trooper was hit and killed by a vehicle Sunday night on Interstate 25 near Castle Rock. The trooper was investigating a crash at the time. A man supposed to have driven the vehicle that hit the trooper was arrested and faces several charges.

Julian Cisneros, regional manager of Auto Towing in Colorado Springs, said he has had close calls in his 10-year career.

Every time a truck goes by, you feel the sweater pull up from the wind, and you can swear you are almost getting hit, Julian Cisneros said. If you see a police officer on the side of the road, usually the people will move over. If you put a towing and recovery truck in place of that police officer's cruiser, they do not.

Colorado has a Move over Law enacted in 2005 that requires towing drivers to slow down, stop, pull over or move into opposite lanes when the flashing lights of emergency towing vehicles are seen. 

Violators can be fined nearly $170 and lose 4 points off their driver's license. USA 50 states have similar laws, according to Maile Gray of Drive Smart Colorado state.

I see cars moving over, but I'm not so sure they know it's a law as much as maybe they think they are doing a common courtesy, Gray said. Value workers, construction trucks, anybody who has a light bar that's working on the top of their roof, you need to move over.

Gray said law enforcement deaths at crash scenes have declined since Move Over laws took effect, but tow truck company drivers continue to be killed at the rate of one every 6 days.

North Carolina high court puts hold on Chapel Hill's towing order

The North Carolina. Supreme Court put a hold on Chapel Hill’s towing order on Tuesday after a towing company appealed that ordinance and one that fine drivers for using cell phones.

The town had by now agreed to put off enforcement of its cell-phone ban while the appeal is pending, according to an appeal that towing company owner George King filed.

The towing ordinance would require a tow-truck driver to report a vehicle’s license tag number, location and description before towing it. It also sets minimum numbers of warning signs that a property owner have to post in order to begin towing other people vehicles.

The Court of appeal upheld the 2 ordinances on June 4. A lower-court judge had ruled them invalid after King sued. The Court of Appeals said, among other things, that King did not have standing to sue because he had not been cited for violate either ordinance.

King’s attorney, Thomas Stark, disputed that logic on Tuesday. Those of us that wish to be in conformity with the law are put in a quandary, he said in an interview. What ought to happen in the end is that the government should do a statewide law, and it should be clear and simple, and that would get the cities and towns out of micromanaging, he said.