Question for LEOs

[talltex]

...excellent...common courtesy and good sense...in such short supply these days that a law had to be passed...to protect those who have to make a living taking those risks...I'd be for amending it...making it cover any roadside breakdown/hazard...citizens have been killed changing flats and helping...sad but things we used to take for granted now have to be legislated and a penalty attached...

The problem, as I see it, is that you can pass all the well intentioned laws you want, but except for the situation discussed earlier in the thread, where you have a LEO sitting at the scene running his radar/lidar, it's almost impossible to enforce, so what's the point of making it a law? If John Q. Public is on the side of the road fixing his flat tire and people fail to move over or slow down, expanding the law to cover them doesn't help... there's nothing that can be done and no one who is authorized to do it. You can't have individuals chasing and stopping someone that failed to obey the law....no one but a LEO has the authority to do so or issue a citation. Even in the case of a single LEO stopped on the shoulder it would be almost impossible to prove a violation without radar evidence on the speed issue...as for moving over, the driver claims "I tried to, but there was a car in the other lane" or "my view was obstructed by (hill, semi truck, billboard, etc.) and there was no time to react". Unless you have a second LEO, or video evidence proving otherwise, how do you make it stick? Tow Trucks & Fire Engines...how are they going to prove anything unless they have an LEO on site set up to do it for them? As you stated, I think it just comes down to "common courtesy and good sense"...BUT...either you have it or you don't and passing a law won't change that. As Ron White says: "You can't fix stupid".

[speedsix]

...I agree with the logistical part...but having an "or else" always made me mind Mama a little bit better'n I would if she didn't say the "or else" part...the law and the penalty it might bring if broken IS a deterrant to a lot of folks...same like murder laws and that death penalty hangin' out there...it don't stop 'em all, but it does stop a lot of 'em...

[tomtexan]

tow truck drivers should get some courtesy on the road?yea right. they all drive like maniacs and practically cause more trouble getting there then what already happened. Even the police dont drive that aggressivly. I give them no respect what so ever and will never move out of their way for any reason.

and those superbright strobes and such on cop cars really help people to see better at night too.

Not quite sure where you live but that is not the way they drive in the area I live in. They are courteous, safe drivers. Mainly because they see on a daily basis what causes accidents. Usually makes them a far better driver than people like yourself. It's drivers like you and your kind of attitude and thinking that make some roads a danger zone.

[srothstein]

TomTexan,

One of the differences in the way tow truck drivers drive is how the police work in the area. In cities that use a specific contract wrecker company, or maintain a rotation list, the drivers usually are fairly good about obeying traffic laws. They do not feel the competition pressure to get to a police call to get the job. In cities where the police put out a call and the first driver who gets there gets the tow, they can drive like crazy. There is an incentive to get there more quickly which translates into pressure to drive crazy.

I did not like the single contract wrecker system in San Antonio because of the corruption that goes along with a contract like that. But I don't think I could work in Houston where it is a free for all (or was last time I talked with an officer from there about this). The best compromise I have worked with was a rotation system. Each company was put on the list and the next one up got the call. Seemed like a fair way to split the police tows among the companies. But that was Caldwell County and Luling, rural areas with few jobs (maybe one a day or sometimes less) and only a few companies (4 in the Luling area for the rotation).

[WildBill]

But I don't think I could work in Houston where it is a free for all (or was last time I talked with an officer from there about this).

I think this has changed. I believe that only companies with contracts are allowed to tow vehicles when there is a wreck.

The reason I believe this is that there was a wreck a couple months ago near my workplace. About fifteen minutes after the crash, the tow trucks were circling like vultures over a fresh kill. Finally the HPD officer asked which drivers had a contract with the city. He then told the others to get the heck out of there.

[talltex]

TomTexan,

One of the differences in the way tow truck drivers drive is how the police work in the area. In cities that use a specific contract wrecker company, or maintain a rotation list, the drivers usually are fairly good about obeying traffic laws. They do not feel the competition pressure to get to a police call to get the job. In cities where the police put out a call and the first driver who gets there gets the tow, they can drive like crazy. There is an incentive to get there more quickly which translates into pressure to drive crazy.

I did not like the single contract wrecker system in San Antonio because of the corruption that goes along with a contract like that. But I don't think I could work in Houston where it is a free for all (or was last time I talked with an officer from there about this). The best compromise I have worked with was a rotation system. Each company was put on the list and the next one up got the call. Seemed like a fair way to split the police tows among the companies. But that was Caldwell County and Luling, rural areas with few jobs (maybe one a day or sometimes less) and only a few companies (4 in the Luling area for the rotation).

Being in the car business, I've had experience with both contract towing and rotation and there are problems with both systems. As srothstein said, in a metro area with thousands of wrecker calls per month at stake, the opportunities for corruption are rampant. Whoever gets the contract literally has a license to print money with a monopoly on all police initiated tows. They get to pretty much set the rate for hookups, per mile fees and storage under the oversight of the county commissioners who usually go along with what the contractor tells them is fair and reasonable fees...(not to mention the possibilty of collusion with the commissioners on county contracts, as the current John Wiley Price scandal in Dallas shows.) In the late 90's, a new bill establishing a regulatory agency to oversee tow operators in Texas was presented by state reps from Dallas and Houston, which flew under the radar and passed before anyone really knew what it did. The bill was pushed thru the legislature by a small group of large tow companies and overnight they became the only ones who could operate pretty much statewide. The new bill required special applications to operate from one municipality to another, or within a particular county or counties specifically listed on the license. The companies that had sponsored the bill had their license applications prepared by attorneys and in hand as soon as the new law took effect, and were the first licenses granted. Every single tow truck in the state had to apply for a new license requesting specific areas of operation and it took many months and lots of legal legwork before the new licenses could be issued due to the backlog. In the meantime, those big tow companies locked up the metro area contracts because they were the only ones who could cross from one incorporated area into another with a vehicle on the hook. What the statute said was unless you held a new multi-jurisdictional license, you could not cross incorporated city limits other than the one where the tow company was located...so if someone needed to have a car towed from Ft. Worth to Waco you either had to use one of the multi area licensees, or you had to have one truck haul it from Ft. Worth to Burleson, have it dropped and picked up by a Burleson tow company and do the same thing at Hillsboro, West, at every incorporated city limits, all the way to Waco. Of course, in the metro areas, there were only one or two companies that had that license in hand, so they were the only ones that could even be considered for the contracts. (Just another example proving the wisdom of my legislative uncle who said "there's never been a bill passed that wasn't going to make someone alot of money"). It took several years before they got all the problems ironed out. I live in a small rural area, that uses a county wide rotation system among 6 or 7 wrecker services, which seems to be the fairest setup...any tow company that wants to particpate can be put in the rotation after meeting the guidelines for equipment, insurance, bonding and licensing and filling out the forms. While I don't have horse in that race, I do enough business with all of them to hear constant complaints about dispatchers who play favorites, or certain officers who request the call go to a particular wrecker service ,and human nature being what it is, I don't doubt that it occurs.

[stealthfightrf17]

So I finely got a response back and basiccly sounds like they are not to concerned. Here was the response.

"Thank you for keeping an eye out for our officers and for voicing your safety concerns. Safety is always a priority in this line of business and we try to minimize our risk as much as possible. The officers making a traffic stop usually have a pretty good idea of where a citizen violator will stop when engaging the emergency lights to make the stop. However, the citizen doesn't always cooperate or think of the officer's safety when yielding to the officer. When this happens the officer is often left as you described, out in traffic or blocking a driveway. The situation dictates whether the officer will have the violator move to a different location or to quickly investigate and return to service.

The feeder roads' recent opening has caused a serious speeding issue within the city limits. One of the problems curtailing our enforcement effort is that there are no shoulders. The violator must stop on the feeder (in a moving lane of traffic) or in a business parking lot (or driveway). Despite our efforts to make the roadway in front of their business safer, some businesses complain that we stop drivers in their place of business or that the mere presence of an officer 'scares away' customers.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention and we'll do our best to keep Conroe's citizens safe in a manner that allows our officers to go home safely at the end of their shift."

[gigag04]

Seems like they spoke to all of the issues you raised, and explained the conflict between business owners, officers, and violators.

[stealthfightrf17]

Seems like an "we know there are some issues here, but we are doing the best we can with out trying to make people mad"