Tow procedures or rules?

[Lean L]

Just out of curiosity, is anyone familiar with how tow truck operators are allowed to tow cars?

I was just thinking about a year or two back when I had my car towed.

It was a street in front of where I lived. They placed 'no parking' signs on the entire block for a timespan of about three months for construction. They didn't start work for about a month and never towed anyone so all of my neighbors and myself started parking in the street again.

One morning they decided to actually start work so they brought two tow trucks and moved all cars within a three block radius and even recorded where the cars were moved to so that anyone who walked out going 'oh shit' will be able to find their car.

I drive a fwd car but always engage my parking brakes. When I stepped out of my house I had that wtf moment until they told me where my car was. I didn't really have a problem with the car being towed 2 blocks since it's better than having it impounded.

The tow truck driver was pretty cool and commented on the strange predicament that all the cars were towed. In that brief conversation when he was telling me where he moved the car, he stated that he noticed the parking brake engaged, but before getting a dollie, he simply tied the car down at the front wheels and checked to see if it would roll without a dollie. It did, so it saved him some effort. He then revved his diesel F250 and joked that they had enough power to do it. In conversing a bit more, he stated that worse comes to worse if there were no dollies, he would get his door kit out and manually release the brake from the inside.

When I got to my car I did a thorough check including the front wheels, rear tires, bumpers, tow points, and paint job to make sure that nothing was damaged. It checked out. Two years later I am running fine. Nothing to really complain about.

I'm just interested in what the driver said about his towing methodologies however. Are tow drivers really able to break into cars to move them? I can somewhat understand brute forcing the emergency brakes since it was such a short tow but is breaking into a car standard procedure?

 

[Midwayman]

Tow truck drivers rarely concern themselves with the law in my experience.

 

[Kelvrick]

Tow truck drivers rarely concern themselves with the law in my experience.

That has been the majority of my experience. But then once I met a guy who was perfectly by the book. After that, I learned my lesson to always lie.

 

[jlee]

I've not seen a tow operator unlock a vehicle to release the parking brake...I have watched an SUV get winched onto a flatbed with its wheels locked. He's not joking when he says he has the power to move it anyway.

 

[Subyman]

I saw a car get pulled out of a parking lot in college that was squealing and smoking because the tow driver pulled it so fast. I would't be surprised in the tires were ruined.