What You Need To Know Before Calling For A Tow
Posted on: 19 December 2014
When calling for an automotive tow, you will need to have several pieces of information readily available to ensure a tow truck is quickly dispatched to your location. Unfortunately, many people fail to collect this information prior to contacting a local towing company and will often experience significant delays in getting the help they need as a result. To ensure this doesn't happen to you, be sure to always have the following information ready when calling for a tow truck.
Information Regarding Your Vehicle
It is vital for tow truck drivers to ensure they are towing the correct vehicle. In order to accomplish this task, the towing company will need to collect some basic information from you that can be used to identify your vehicle once they arrive onsite. This information includes:
- the make of your vehicle
- the model name and year of your vehicle
- your license plate number
- the color of your vehicle
- any customized features or identifying damage present on your vehicle
To help save time in an emergency, you may wish to create a cheat sheet that includes all of this information. That cheat sheet can then be stored in your glove box, wallet, or purse so that you can easily access the information you need in an emergency.
Information Regarding Your Location
It goes without saying that a tow truck driver cannot help you if they cannot find you. While providing an exact location may be easy if you breakdown in a familiar area, this task can become increasingly difficult if you were to breakdown in a rural location or on a long stretch of highway. The good news is, there are some ways that you can go about determining your exact location even if you are initially unsure of where you are.
Using your smartphone or other mobile device, you may be able to pinpoint your exact location using your navigation software.
In the event that you are still unable to determine your exact location, you may wish to consider the use of a car service app rather than simply calling a tow company. Using these apps, the towing company will be able to track the location of your phone using its GPS signal.
Information Regarding Payment
You must pay for towing services before these services are provided. Typically, the easiest way to do this is to provide cash to the driver when the show up to collect your car. However, if you do not have cash on you or do not plan to wait with your vehicle, you will need to make payment arrangements before the tow truck driver arrives.
In some cases, you may be able to pay for your services over the phone using a credit or debit card. In other cases, you may need to leave payment for these services inside your vehicle in the form of cash or check. When leaving payment for the driver to collect, be sure to choose a secure location for this payment, such as under a floor mat or inside the glove box. This location should then be shared with the dispatcher so that they can relay the information to the tow truck driver.
Having these things ready before you make a call to a towing company, such as A1 Towing & Repair, will speed up your towing process.
Share