ATRI Looks at Predatory Towing
You do not need to be a truck driver to know that towing companies can be pretty shady when it comes to its perfectly legal but otherwise questionable business practices, such as locking up a vehicle at 11:59 P.M. and charging for the full day. To that extent, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) has predatory towing within the trucking industry.
Details
ATRI surveyed 350 motor carriers and asked them what types of predatory practices they have experienced from a predetermined list of eight, and then rank them based on how negatively impactful they are on business operations, presumably in dollars and headaches.
In terms of how common they are, the eight were divided as follows:
- Excessive hourly or per-pound rates (82.7%).
- Unwarranted additional equipment or labor charges (81.8%).
- Excessive daily storage rate (77.7%)
- Vehicle release delays or access issues (71.7%).
- Cargo Release Delays (61.6%).
- Damage due to improper use of towing equipment (59.2%).
- Vehicle seizure without cause (55.7%).
- Tow operators misreporting non-consensual tows as consensual (53.5%).
The order by which they affect trucking businesses was very similar, only that damage from towing dropped two places to the bottom. Otherwise, there is a strong correlation between how often something happens and just how much impact it has on the business.
Conclusion
ATRI says that numerous states have already started taking action in curbing questionable business practices that towing companies levy against fleets, but that there is still a lot of progress to be made.
“Within the past few years Maryland, Arizona and Colorado have all passed statewide laws regulating the T&R industry. Maryland directly addressed the concerns of motor carriers when it passed House Bill 487 in 2022. For police-initiated towing, the bill outlawed per-pound billing, created guidelines to allow for the release of cargo, and established a committee that would recommend rates for heavy-duty T&R and handle invoice disputes.”
As more states take charge to tackle the issue, the odds that a federal implementation to make sure towing companies do their due diligence increases.
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