The Arkansas Trucking Association, which represents more than 330 trucking and service companies, has pointed to a new report by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) as evidence of excessive towing rates and predatory practices by providers.
The report notes that the towing and recovery (T&R) industry is an essential partner to the trucking industry, keeping supply chains stable and reliable to get critical goods where they need to go despite crashes and breakdowns. Yet conflicting priorities and objectives, as well as the difficulty of communication can create opportunities for miscommunication, disagreement and predatory practices.
According to the report, the most common types of predatory towing were excessive rates, experienced by 82.7% of trucking companies, and unwarranted extra service charges, experienced by 81.8% of carriers. Most carriers also encountered additional issues such as truck release or access delays, cargo release delays, truck seizure without cause and tows misreported as consensual.
“Trucking companies doing business in Arkansas are often faced with the conundrum of overpaying for services provided or disappointing their customers and disrupting the supply chain,” Shannon Newton, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association, said. “The vulnerability of a company when they need services and the lack of accountability for providers leads to excessive, unexpected costs to trucking companies.”
On one notable occasion, a motor carrier received a $202,000 invoice in Virginia for recovering and towing a truck involved in a single-vehicle accident. When motor carriers or their insurance providers contest a potentially predatory incident, T&R companies frequently hold equipment and cargo until payment is finalized, causing further damage to supply chains and especially small fleets or owner-operators.
The ATRI report offers strategies that trucking companies can use to avoid, identify or address predatory towing, such as how to review invoices for predatory billing and how to gather data to dispute towing companies’ incident accounts when necessary.
“In the face of inflation, fuel prices and other rising expenses, the cost of operating a trucking company is at an all-time high. These unpredictable and unfair towing rates are unnecessarily contributing to those costs,” Newton said. “People are going to continue to need goods and trucks are going to continue to deliver them, which means these excessive towing fees are going to be passed along to consumers. Ensuring fair towing practices benefits carriers, shippers and consumers alike.”
To find the full report and learn more, click here.
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