Something that represents assistance and relief back home stands for the exact opposite here in Joburg.
Their unscrupulous, sleazy ways are deeply disturbing.
They park directly on grassy highway medians. Sit expectantly next to busy intersections. Cluster together next to roadways under shady trees on long weekends.
Seeing them skulk around roads makes my stomach turn. They are nothing more than opportunistic vultures.
They are Joburg tow trucks.
Classic scene: tow truck lurking midday at the side of a busy highway
If you read my post on mini bus taxis, then you'll remember my frustration with the fact that the taxi bosses set impossible daily quotas for their drivers to achieve.
Astonishingly enough, the tow trucks in Joburg work on the same shameful commission-based system.
They get paid in accordance with the amount of vehicles they service. This creates a dog-eat-dog, fiercely competitive atmosphere in an industry that should be rooted in community service.
The lengths that these tow truck drivers go to in order to get business is revolting. It will make you sick.
Not only do they unabashedly position themselves alongside high-risk roads in order to pounce on traffic accidents as quick as possible, but Didier has witnessed first-hand how they behave with car crash victims.
Patients will be bleeding, hurt, and barely conscious and yet the tow truck drivers will aggressively push contracts in their face, urging them to sign their vehicle over to their company.
They prey on those in states of trauma, who are panicky, confused, and clearly overwhelmed.
They take no care in making sure you have the means to pay your bill or are even clear-headed enough to be making the decision in the first place. They care about their bottom line and their bottom line only.
This truck was sitting in plain sight on a paved highway median. Sitting, waiting, watching.
An investigative program by Carte Blanch (SA's version of 20/20) discovered that 9 times out of ten, tow trucks consistently beat ambulances to accident scenes.
It was discovered that they were achieving this not only by advantageously perching themselves along highways, but also by illegally scanning police, traffic, and emergency services radio frequencies.
They also uncovered a disturbing trend of corruption in the industry, reporting that tow truck companies were paying off emergency dispatchers to call them before contacting ambulance and police units.
And just when I thought it couldn't get more disturbing, I have heard from several sources, both online and by word-of-mouth, that tow truck companies have been known to deliberately cause accidents to drum up business.
They pay people to break traffic lights and then sit nearby and wait for a collision.
Their own employees spill oil on the highway at night in hopes a speedy driver will aquaplane and crash.
Pardon my language, but how f*%#ing messed up is that?!! It is barbaric in every sense of the word.
This gem of an accident had -- count 'em -- FIVE tow trucks show up in a piranha-like feeding frenzy for business
Rivalry between companies is fierce enough that they speed and break traffic laws in an effort to get to scenes first. Essentially, they compete with emergency vehicles. This puts the public at such unnecessary risk.
Didier also told me that they are known to delay making a call to emergency services. They know that paramedics and police get in their way of doing business with traumatized people, and so try and scam the victims into signing their papers before calling for medical support.
It really is enough to make your blood boil.
There isn't a time of day that the trucks aren't skulking around highways. I see them scattered alongside roads like blood thirsty scavengers every time I get in a car. Some even have trailers already hitched to their rear ends, ready to tow any type of mangled vehicle they can get their crooked, unsavory paws on.
South Africans insurance companies even provide their customers with large stickers for their vehicles that state, "DO NOT TOW. CALL 555-5555".
Bottom line is: the whole towing industry in Joburg is shady, corrupt, and shameless.
I suppose it's just one more reason to buckle up and hope to high hell that you don't get into a car accident whilst visiting here.
3 comments:
wow very insightful I had no idea
Wow, that's really, really sad for the victims of accidents. Love Mom(heart)
you will never know what a life of towtruck driver is until you have lived a day in their shoes yes you get the bad ones but you get sour apples in every industry they are the 1st to stop at a accident and help yes the flee to the accident and ride dangerous but at the end of the day the type of work they do is what feeds their families dont you dare for 1 second think that sittting and waiting like they do is easy or that they are wishing it apon you or putting oil in the roads coz that is plain and uter bullshit you sad and pathetic people are so quick to judge others and their work which you know nothing about........ get ur facts together before you you open ur mouth and bad mouth them in EVERY indusrty in some way or another their is some sought of compettion in the towing its who gets to the scene of the accident 1st...... they have helped save many lives so before you only point out the bad look at the good they do 2............!
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