Filed under: Winter Driving

Shaun de Jager, Founder of RoadAwareness.org and tow truck driver for CAA, blogs about the crazy, weird, and downright scary things he sees on our roads.

It was a reasonably good night for me in that I didn’t have any especially difficult calls to deal with or unruly traffic to test my patience but others weren’t so fortunate. Traffic was indeed hellish across the city but I only had to deal with it for a short section.

I logged in at 3pm and within 30 minutes I got my first call, which was up in Brampton. Not exactly nearby but that’s ok. Eventually I found myself heading north on the 410 and just as I approached Steeles a high priority call came in that I was asked to deal first since this fellow was stranded on the highway. I stopped on the shoulder to check the details of the call and it was on the very same highway I was on, heading in the same direction and apparently just one kilometre north of me. So onward I went but nothing. I called the client and found out he was actually two kilometres south of me when I first got the call! Sigh…ok, turn around, head south and double back to below where he was and head north again. Traffic was flowing nicely so it really didn’t take all that long for me to find the stranded motorist that I was looking for. Although while loading his truck on my flatbed, we observed no less than six police cruisers flying northbound past us. Umm…well something interesting was going on ahead and it didn’t take long to figure it out.

Right at Steeles, right where I had pulled over not 20 minutes earlier, a tractor-trailer rolled over into the ditch on the southbound ramp. Whatever he was hauling never escaped the confines of his trailer but his cab was messed up badly and if the driver escaped without some injuries, I would be surprised. Traffic slowed to an instant crawl in both directions as the southbound traffic not only dealt with some lane closures but also quite the visual distraction. Of course northbound traffic came to a crawl too as everyone gazed at the wreckage. I couldn’t help but take a moment to take a picture as I waited, dead stopped for nearly a minute, as traffic ahead of me was sorting itself out. I didn’t even have to look at the crash to snap a pic…I just pointed the camera out my window, kept pressing the button while I watched the cars ahead of me. I didn’t think I actually got a pic of the truck at all until I checked later. It was many hours before the mess was cleaned up but luckily I didn’t have to travel that stretch of highway again all night.

Once I finally finished with this call, I returned my attention to the first call who was apparently still waiting for a tow. I was still the only driver in the area so I headed off to pick him up from his parking lot. By the time I arrived at 5p.m., he had been waiting for four hours! Huh? I got his call originally at 3:30p.m. and nobody had been able to pick him up yet? Yikes. Luckily he was a great guy and we got along well.

Later in the evening I was called to go pick up a Harley Davidson that supposedly wouldn’t start. Well that wasn’t terribly surprising since it was -10 degrees Celsius at this point. Turns out it was a friend of mine who had just bought the bike used and wanted it transported home. The only problem was that the bike was too heavy for my comfort level considering the little straps I was provided with. Another flatbed driver may have taken the bike using their puny straps but I told Adrian it wasn’t worth the risk. I gave my old boss Rod a call from MotoLimo.com to come and get the bike to make sure it was handled properly.

I would have loved to hang around and catch up with Adrian a bit more but I got another call right away – Some Mercedes Benz with a broken suspension. When I arrived I was greeted by a father and his son and it took about two seconds to guess what happened. “So who hit the curb?” I asked and sheepishly the young man raised his hand. He was a new driver and had his first encounter with driving in the snow. It took some time to get the car loaded and while I worked in what was becoming a very cold night with the windchill factor, I took the opportunity to refer both father and son to the ILR Winter Car Control School that I will be instructing at in a couple months. He obviously didn’t have the required skill for winter driving and he had better learn fast before something worse happens. This time he got lucky.

By the end of the night I had responded to seven calls. Some were easier than the others – the easiest being a battery boost and the toughest being the Benz with the busted suspension – and seeing that truck rolled over into the ditch was a stern reminder of what happens if you take a ramp too quickly. Drive safely people. Our roads aren’t forgiving but sometimes people just get lucky.

Tow to Tow with Drivers: Bitter Sweet Night and Bitter Cold originally appeared on AOL Autos Canada on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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