plat stooopid games, win stooopid prizes... 
Posted on 11/06/2015 8:17:12 PM PST by Cowman
Joel Ramer and his girlfriend got stuck off-roading this old Jeep Cherokee on a powerline road in Walpole, Massachusetts last week. Seems egregious that he was arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace, but the $48,000 recovery charge is downright offensive.
It’s unclear whether Ramer got slapped with a trespassing charge after calling for help, or if somebody spotted and busted him while he was screwing around in the mud. And yeah, you can be jailed for that in Massachusetts.
But after Walpole PD rolled up on him Fox25 says the cops called what is presumably their go-to recovery outfit, Assured Collision, to pull the mired vehicle out. After spending twelve hours on the job, Assured Collision lugged the Jeep XJ to their facility. Ramer went to collect it and was given a bill for $48,000 instead.
How the person behind their desk told him that with a straight face we’ll never know, but Fox detailed what Ramer was being charged for:
“Assured Collision billed him $16,000 for an on-scene supervisor at $1,250 an hour. He is being charged more than $10,000 for an off-road recovery incident response unit. There is also a $5,000 fee for dangerous condition liability insurance. All the equipment and manpower totaled $48,835 for the 12 hour job.â€
There was also talk of “hazardous material†conditions and proximity to powerlines adding to the danger of the scene.
Before we start tearing into the ridiculousness of all that I can tell you Massachusetts’ Statewide Towing Association has already responded to the Fox report; “some of the line items in the bill exceed industry standards and some of those line items they’d never even heard of.â€
“Some of the items†They say? Everything about Mr. Ramer’s situation seems excessive.
I could see it taking two drunk teenagers 12 hours to get a Jeep XJ out of a bog, but a professional recovery crew? Maybe if you count the time they must have spent going out to buy a new truck they effectively billed Ramer for.
Ten grand for an “off-road recovery incident response unit?†You could buy another Jeep about ten times nicer than the one we’re seing here for that.
But this “dangerous conditions liability†line might be the most ridiculous. Proximity to powerlines does not make conditions dangerous. You’re in proximity to powerlines every time you go on the sidewalk.
Yes, operating aerial ladders and cranes near such lines could collide with a line and cause a problem. Nothing like that would have been needed to yank this old Jeep out of a mud pit.
Though now that I think about it, maybe they really did spend $10,000 on a “recovery unit†and rented a skyscraper-building crane for the task. But that would not have made a whole lot of sense, when a Jeep like this only weighs about 3,000 pounds and could probably have been pulled out with a John Deere tractor and a little determination.
It seems clear that something hinky is going on here either with the tow company or the police Or the shop just really needed a Jeep Cherokee for parts
All you needed to know is the company is the go-to for police. You absolutely know they’re taking a large cut of the cost for that.
I’m thinking there could be a wee bit of collusion and kickback going on between two of the parties in this story.
Just maybe. I’ve been stuck worse and gotten out with the help of a Suzuki Samurai, a rope and a come-along. We were back killing snail-darters in three hours.
Hi, East Coast!
I can tell you where to go, but I don’t have to!
plat stooopid games, win stooopid prizes...
Patrol Cops get fired or jail time for calling a tow driver pal to the scene of accidents.
But I guess its okay if the Mayor and Chief do it and get their cut.
I get the trespassing charge. I had acreage in New Hampshire with a powerline road on it. I wasn’t too happy about people driving on it now and then, thinking it was an old public road.
[I get the trespassing charge. I had acreage in New Hampshire with a powerline road on it. I wasn’t too happy about people driving on it now and then,]
Better than mountain bikers cutting fences to get to trails on a cattle ranch. I used to work on a ranch that had that problem.
Tow companies are always skeevy to say the least. When Sandy hit, I remember a tow company got the job to tow vehicles that were legally parked off the streets and the company was bilking people $1,500 per car. They even went into private driveways and towed those cars as well. Doing whatever they could to get a bigger pay day.
Yeah, friend of mine.
I had a trespasser today who claimed he was a mechanic and was road testing a vehicle for a client, he was off roading in a Smart car, on my private acreage. He had to been on some sort of drugs.....
If I wasn’t so busy today and had the backhoe out, I really wanted to see how flat I could have gotten his “car” to be...
I won't even ask why they did that. Did you find out under whose authority they did that?
I drove a hook while I was in school and learned quite a lot about how things are done in MA. I got the call to come down to one of the many dirt roads in our area for a police recovery. The dispatcher told me the police were doing their accident investigation so I’d need to wait a little while until they were done but the shop owner, who was a retired cop himself, wanted everybody on scene ASAP. I spent four hours of overtime in the truck watching the boys in blue run surveyor’s wheels.
I found out later that the town was charged double overtime for three tow trucks and a flatbed, Hazard pay because it was snowing a little, and storage for the two cars that I could have had in the pen by myself in about 45 minutes.
The shop cleared about six grand and we drivers each got an extra hundred bucks for the overtime.
Assured Collision billed him $16,000 for an on-scene supervisor at $1,250 an hour. He is being charged more than $10,000 for an off-road recovery incident response unit. There is also a $5,000 fee for dangerous condition liability insurance. All the equipment and manpower totaled $48,835 for the 12 hour job.
...
That right there folks is a company that makes the right political contributions.
I once lived in San Francisco during Diane F’s mayorship. I spoke to a tow company owner. He told me he had bid on the city tow business. In the contract was the requirement to base their operations from a specific parking garage. He inspected the garage for such use, and told me it was unsuitable and unsafe. He tried to get a variance for that requirement and was strongly denied.
The owner of said garage???? Dear Diane’s husband!
Collusion and kickback? Anytime a government has such a relationship with any private business, you can count on c&k.
So how much is the vehicle worth?
I could have gotten that out with a comealong and a couple of bottle jacks.
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