True Stories From A Tow Truck Driver - The Podcast

"SteveLehto" (stevelehto)
06/23/2016 at 09:00 • Filed to: None

Before I went to college, I drove a tow truck in Birmingham (Michigan) for a while. We had the police contract so I got to see all kinds of stuff. Those tales are the subject of this week’s podcast.

We got calls during the day and anyone at the station would take those. But overnight, when the station was closed, I would get the calls. 3 AM and the phone rings? Sure, get dressed, go get the wrecker and see what the drunks have gotten themselves into this time.

Telephone poles, houses, buildings, ditches, you name it. No matter how large or out of the roadway, a drunk could hit it. And there were accidents too. The weirdest were one-car accidents. How does someone roll a car on flat ground and dry pavement in the summer?

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! once, and even done a podcast a long time ago about it. But I realized that I had more stories, so here they are:

The audio:

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And the video:

And the truck at the top is not a tow truck but it was the closest thing I could find in my personal archives of stuff I saw alongside the road as I rambled around the state.

Follow me on Twitter: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Hear my podcast on iTunes: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Steve Lehto has been practicing law for 24 years, almost exclusively in consumer protection and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! He wrote !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

This website may supply general information about the law but it is for informational purposes only. This does not create an attorney-client relationship and is not meant to constitute legal advice, so the good news is we’re not billing you by the hour for reading this. The bad news is that you shouldn’t act upon any of the information without consulting a qualified professional attorney who will, probably, bill you by the hour.

DISCUSSION (57)

BmcG > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 09:19

a well rig is about as far away from a tow truck as you can get... That being said, Ive had to have our well rigs towed many many times out of mud... so I guess its actual not that far after all.. sorry

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 09:25

The rig in your picture is a well drilling rig of some kind, I think, but I don’t recognize it exactly. I’m only familiar with the Bucyrus Erie 20W and 22W, which are larger cable drills with a full mast instead of that dinky little post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drilling_…

Kinja'd!!!

A company called Buckeye still makes the 20W and 22W, but I don’t know about that little guy. There are probably parts available regardless.

Doug > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 09:25

The wires in a gas tank I seem to recall as a scene in a movie. Wires went from the taillights to the gas tank so that when the driver put their foot on the brake, the electrical spark would ignite the flames in the gas tank. At least that was how I remember the movie scene.

SteveLehto > BmcG
06/23/2016 at 09:26

I was just looking for a truck of some sort. This one had some gizmos on the back. Close enough for my purposes.

SteveLehto > Doug
06/23/2016 at 09:29

These were nichrome wires, like the ones for model rockets. They were not hooked up to anything (as far as I could tell) but I suspect he was going to hook them up to something like that and hope they caused an explosion. I just don’t know if they were all there was or if they were attached to something. I imagine a model rocket engine in the gas tank could have caused issues if it had ignited and launched into the tank.

Doug > Doug
06/23/2016 at 09:30

Found it: -In Bad Influence, Rob Lowe tries to blow up James Spader by running a

wire from the leads of a broken taillight into the car’s gas tank--an idea inspired by a terrorist practice, says director Curtis Hanson. But he deliberately omitted an important step, which of course we won’t reveal. According to Robert Goulding, training and education director for the Automotive Parts and Rebuilders Association, gasoline explodes only when met with a strong flame, and the depiction seen in Bad Influence would fall short. The odds of it working are “one in a million,” Goulding says. “But I sure wouldn’t want to try it to see what would happen.”

BmcG > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 09:31

those rigs can be used for just about anything if you put your mind to it. My father used one to lower a piano into a basement and to raise I beams for a smaller airplane hanger ... and to drill wells on week days

QwalityCommentary > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 09:33

Old cars like that didn’t have a lot of the safety features that cars do today. Anecdotally, many newer gas tanks have been encased in explosion resistant materials that make the turn-car-into-bomb processes much less likely. Ancient gas tanks like that, all you would have to do is generate a large enough spark since you already have your accelerant and sufficient confinement to generate a decent explosion.

damnthisburnershitsux > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 09:50

disappointed none of these end with you getting laid

SteveLehto > damnthisburnershitsux
06/23/2016 at 09:51

You are thinking of the Pizza Delivery Guy. Gas Station Guys have zero cache in the eyes of American women.

Wil Haginen > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 09:56

I know Quarton Lake, and the area you’re talking about. I don’t recall seeing a berm anywhere, BUT then again, I also never hooned my car over private property at night in that area.

SteveLehto > Wil Haginen
06/23/2016 at 10:06

It’s still there. Imagine driving south on that street. As you get to the end of the lake you start veering to the left (or you could go straight into a cul-de-sac by the dam). If you do not veer hard enough, you will hit the berm. The house itself is not on the lake but it is probably less than a hundred yards from its south end.

Prophet of hoon > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:06

I love hearing of stuff we all did to get through school. I fished in Alaska, fought forest fires, and worked in a homeless-to-housing project. The homeless project was the toughest because apparently you can’t care about other people and be a conservative.

Prophet of hoon > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:11

A human body has 1.5 gallons of blood.

Valve-Addiction > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:12

Wait. Did you really just say you don't think department stores still exist? JCPenny? Saks Fifth Avenue? Nordstroms? Lord&Taylor? Dillards? Bloomingdales? Macy's? Neiman Marcus? All of these department stores are still very widespread throughout the USA.

SteveLehto > Prophet of hoon
06/23/2016 at 10:17

I also worked in radio quite a bit. Which involved less heavy lifting.

SteveLehto > Prophet of hoon
06/23/2016 at 10:18

How many gallons of blood in an automatic tranny?

SteveLehto > Valve-Addiction
06/23/2016 at 10:19

“Ladies” department stores. I know that dept stores still exist but they have evolved from the ones they had in the 50s through the 70s.

ronmler3 > Prophet of hoon
06/23/2016 at 10:22

It would seem the “homeless-to-housing project” WAS “caring about people.” What would have been more “helpful?” Giving them a large house, two new cars every three years, and $100k per year for life?

ronmler3 > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:28

There’s no mistaking large volumes of blood running across the road for trans fluid.

ronmler3 > QwalityCommentary
06/23/2016 at 10:30

But you’ll have to get the gas outside the tank to get these effects, cause liquid gas and the dense vapor inside the tank ain’t gonna do anything, no matter what you spark in there.

SteveLehto > ronmler3
06/23/2016 at 10:32

You mean “By people who know what trans fluid looks like.” The average idiot in traffic today doesn’t even know whether their car even has a transmission or not.

npc58501 > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:33

Kinja'd!!!

“The weirdest were one-car accidents. How does someone roll a car on flat ground and dry pavement in the summer?...”

Steve, a man with extensive experience in the UK will tell you all the secrets of rolling a car on flat ground/dry pavement and will most likely bill you by the hour!

SteveLehto > npc58501
06/23/2016 at 10:35

That’s cheating. It only has three wheels!

ronmler3 > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:36

True, I suppose....

absurdum > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:37

How does someone roll a car on flat ground and dry pavement in the summer?

I know the answer to that one! Sudden flat tire while going 70mph on the highway in the middle of the night after one too many hours of driving. In your weary state overcorrect for the sudden drag and pull to one side of the pickup, then hold on as it rolls onto the other side... and over, and off the highway into the desert, through a fence, and over again maybe? Didn’t keep count...

Oh, and then Dukes of Hazard exit through the window because Hollywood has convinced the truck is now guaranteed to blow up (which it didn’t).

SteveLehto > absurdum
06/23/2016 at 10:39

Probably a lot like the one I was thinking of. Guy fell asleep at the wheel and hit a curb, woke up and jerked the wheel hard the other way and then got sideways. It was a VW Rabbit which I would never have thought of as such a roll over risk. But I guess you can roll anything if you try hard enough.

Wil Haginen > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:43

Well, I know what I’m doing next time I’m up in SE Michigan.

SteveLehto > Wil Haginen
06/23/2016 at 10:45

I could draw you a map of where all the worst accidents were. That stretch of Maple Rd (just south of the spot I described above) was where 4 or 5 of the memorable ones came from. I describe a Z28 hitting a tree for example - the tree is still there and is less than a 1/4 mile away.

Shiyal > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:47

Well, it’d be 1.5 gallons for a tranny, just the same as a straight right?

npc58501 > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:50

Kinja'd!!!

Picky Picky Picky, Those days you were towing flipped cars in ideal conditions, there were professional car crashers visiting from Germany specializing in flipping Indian cars (GIF borrowed from Orlove’s story last year).

Wil Haginen > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:50

Oh would you? That’d be amazing.

BTW, years and a different lifetime ago, we lived in an apartment complex that was on the corner of Telegraph and 14 mile road. I don’t suppose the bomb incident happened there? It’s been many years, but that’s the only complex that comes to mind... Of course, I don’t even know if that complex exists or not now.

SteveLehto > npc58501
06/23/2016 at 10:51

That right there is pretty much what happened in the one I towed. Although the Rabbit I towed veered from right to left.

SteveLehto > Wil Haginen
06/23/2016 at 10:53

No, this was on Lincoln, just west of Woodward (on the north side of the road). I am not sure if THAT one is still there. Birmingham is getting built up to the point where they will shoehorn a bigfoot house into any lot they can find.

Urambo Tauro > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:54

Big Beaver, aka Metro Parkway, aka Quarton, aka 16Mile...

Wil Haginen > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:54

I recall seeing a row of two story apartment buildings just west of Woodward, off of Old Woodward, near Maple. Bah, years have eroded and faded my memory of that area.

As always, I enjoyed your podcast. This time, for the nostalgia and memories it evoked.

SteveLehto > Urambo Tauro
06/23/2016 at 10:55

You got it.

SteveLehto > Wil Haginen
06/23/2016 at 10:57

What years were you there? These stories from the tow truck and gas station are from 1979 - 1981. But I have lived in the area, more or less, since 1966.

Wil Haginen > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 10:59

In the Bloomfield / Birmingham area? 95 - 01. SE Michigan? 87 - 01. I didn’t really miss it until 06, and have been trying to find my way back with serious effort since 12. Had a few interviews, but unfortunately nothing panned out.

Urambo Tauro > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 11:01

LOL Memorizing all the “Mile” roads and their other names really comes in handy sometimes. I even kept counting where they left off, too. (I’ve spent a lot of time commuting to work from my home on what could be considered “53 Mile Rd” haha.)

Bill Goodman > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 11:03

I have a fantasy....where a tow truck driver comes out....and their tow truck has been towed. :) There is a sign, hidden by a tree, that advises them not to park there.

Doesn’t sound like you were “that tow truck guy” though. :)

xyzabc > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 11:24

...think your photo is a water well-drilling rig / Truck.

SteveLehto > Bill Goodman
06/23/2016 at 11:24

I don’t recall ever towing a vehicle for being parked wrong. Mine were all accidents or arrests.

SteveLehto > xyzabc
06/23/2016 at 11:25

Yes. I noted at the bottom of the piece that it was not a tow truck. But for my pieces here, I prefer to use my own photos when I can.

Prophet of hoon > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 11:40

it really depends, but somewhere between a gallon and three gallons. One thing about spilling, it’s amazingly hard to believe how much it spreads out. What was silly, though, for that kind of bleed-out on a person it would be arterial blood - meaning, it’d be oxygenated so a bright red....

Prophet of hoon > ronmler3
06/23/2016 at 11:41

Don’t know, you’d have to ask the liberals who didn’t want me there.

Prophet of hoon > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 11:41

I have the face for radio, but I don’t like people - so there’s that.

tinyhands > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 11:54

I’m glad you noted that you were a tow truck driver a long time ago. Drivers today (especially in my city, Houston) are all (no exceptions) asshats who speed, weaving in and out of traffic, jump medians, and cut people off by fractions of an inch with impunity, all in the supposed name of clearing accidents. Somewhere along the line they confused “wrecker driver” with “drive (w)recklessly.”

8x10 > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 12:34

I have a friend who works for a vault company. Not the bank kind. The in the ground kind. He digs graves. Oh, my. Some of his stories are epic! Biker funerals! Funerals way back in the boonies in Arkansas, where you do not want to be after dark!

LocalSP > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 13:21

I remember the bomb story when it happened. I think the guy that did it was a friend of a friend. Also how many cars did you pull out of the house on 14 mile where Greenfield ends?

Bob Adam’s Shell?

AMCJeff > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 13:39

I used to run a hook for the body shop I worked at. It’s true that people can manage to do the damndest things with automobiles, especially at 3AM when it’s cold and raining.

StuntmanDan > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 14:11

This reminds me of a friend’s dad who had a body shop and tow service when I was younger. He had a lot of weird stories, but the one I remember vividly was a mid-90's Camaro that ended up on its roof in the turning lane in the middle of a 4-lane road. There was no sign that it had hit anything and no weird tire marks. Of course it was at night and we went back the next day to try to figure out what had happened. Last I heard we couldn’t figure it out,neither could the cops, and the driver was sober.

SteveLehto > LocalSP
06/23/2016 at 16:27

Adams shared the account with Tillard’s. And I did tow one car from that intersection. The woman avoided the big rock but hit the house next door.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 19:16

I’ve been listening in via Soundcloud the past few weeks. It’s really interesting to hear where your listeners come from, which I suppose is data coming from the podcasts.

I’m too lazy to use anything else since T-mobile isn’t counting data streaming against its customers on the major music apps. Soundcloud is the best for me, so thanks for uploading there!

SteveLehto > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
06/23/2016 at 20:50

This morning I got emails from listeners in Lithuania and Switzerland, I kid you not.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > SteveLehto
06/23/2016 at 21:22

Wow. Didn’t think folks would find it entertaining and/or helpful in places that far out!

jalopwarg > SteveLehto
06/28/2016 at 03:59

Good stuff, Steve! This is what I do for a living and these days it’s fun to share these kinds of experiences on Facebook along with photos and video!