I had an experience with a big Connecticut State Trooper once that involved a tow truck...my wife and I were driving up 95 North near Bridgeport, middle of a workday, no breakdown lane, elevated highway, traffic was bumper to bumper doing about 70mph.
I was driving my wife’s 1985 Toyota Corolla, and had all my attention on the road in front of me. All of a sudden, the car in front of me swerved, and before I could even open my mouth to utter an oath, we ran over a 4x4 post and a cinderblock just sitting in the middle of the highway.
I smashed my head on the roof of the car (even though I was belted in) and the car began to vibrate violently. I had blown the left front and the left rear tire in this thick, 70mph scrum of cars.
Needless to say, I managed to get into the right lane, but there was no breakdown. Worse, there was a high retaining wall that limited both my visibility back and those cars in the right lane coming around it could not see me until they were right on me.
Trying to steer that car was like trying to hold onto a panicked cat, and I wasn’t even looking at the road in front of me. My eyes were glued to my rear-view mirror seeing an 18 wheeler come bearing down on me at twice my speed while cars were swerving to avoid me.
My wife, who was looking at my face as my eyes were glued to the mirror kept asking “What’s wrong? What is it?”
Thankfully, we came to a ramp, took it, and immediately pulled onto the grass median at the top of the ramp as we exited and stopped the car.
Fortunately (and most suspiciously) there was an auto tire place within a few hundred yards of the bottom of the exit, so my wife and I walked there, and they agreed to send a truck up to get the car. Funny that. How convenient to have a tire place right within view of where there was some “random” debris in the road. Not that I am accusing them of drumming up business or anything like that...
Anyway, while we waited, I decided to go back to the car to get something out of it. When I walked back up to the car, there was a Connecticut State Trooper vehicle there and a tow truck hooking up to the car! This was probably less than fifteen minutes after my wife and I had left the car!
I ran up, and there was this big, black state trooper there. I said “Whoa! I have a truck coming for this right now! You can’t take this car!”
He said: “Sorry sir, once it is hooked up, we can’t unhook it” or something like that.
I began saying things like “NO F******* WAY YOU ARE TAKING THIS CAR! I AM GOING TO LAY DOWN IN FRONT OF IT AND YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN MY G********* ASS OVER TO TAKE IT!” (and began walking over to lay down between the car and the tow truck)
The trooper put up his hand and said in a loud voice: “SIR. WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE.”
And I said: “THERE IS NO WAY YOU ARE TAKING THIS CAR!” (still trying to get around him while he kept moving to stand in my way)
After another minute of me having a fit, the other truck showed up, and the trooper told the guy to unhook the car.
If I had arrived back at the car a minute or two later, it would have been gone and I would have had no idea what to do or where it would have gone!
I'm not a lawyer but it seems likely that,strictly speaking,the Trooper was within his rights to proceed as he did.Of course he could have cut you a bit of a break by saying something like "OK,if your truck is here within 5 minutes they can take it.Otherwise,this truck takes it".