The towing business is growing steadily due to increasing vehicles and automobiles on the road in modern days. Heavy traffic and busy roads imply high chances of vehicle breakdowns, therefore requiring roadside assistance, towing recovery or rescue from tow trucks. Although people may expect that handling vehicle breakdowns are very straightforward, this may not be always true. On the contrary, there are many difficulties that are faced by these tow truck drivers and towing industry in general.
Each time a towing operator is carrying out work on the road, there is certain level of danger and hazard they need to take precautions for. This is because without taking precautions, this can be a dangerous work. It is also a unique type of profession where not anyone can just join in and do the required works immediately.
Poor Weather and Road Conditions
Weather conditions can affect driving conditions on the road. It can affect every one driving in the traffic. Poor weather not only hampers navigation and vision but also affects the vehicle control. If one finds driving in a poor weather is challenging, you can imagine the difficulty to drive a towing vehicle with another vehicle either towed behind or mounted on the flatbed.
Navigation on the Road
Driving a vehicle can be easy. However, driving a vehicle with a load or trailer pulling behind requires knowledge and skills. Towing needs more than just driving skills in order to navigate safely on the roads. The danger is increased with the presence of potholes, floods, slippery roads, debris or roaming animals. To tackle such hazards, towing drivers need to have good awareness and preparedness for surroundings and situations.
Not only towing operators need alertness, skills, and discipline when driving tow trucks, they also need to watch out for other careless drivers who will pose danger to them. Although the elements of skills and discipline come from tow truck drivers themselves, other road users may not possess the same virtues. Roads with lesser traffic may have lower risks, however, when the traffic gets heavier, the risks go up exponentially. Careless drivers may either knock over the towing operators when they are carrying out duties and rendering roadside assistance or hit the tow truck from behind, causing the tow truck driver to swerve off from the lane.
Driving a tow truck and carrying out roadside assistance can be physically demanding. Fatigue will set in a certain point of time if the tow truck driver has been working for long hours during that day. Fatigue is what indirectly cause the driver to encounter accidents, hazards or other physical health related difficulties when on duties.