Latest / Towing News Now / Worthy of a Replay, The Coalition for Transparent Towing
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast.
- 0:09Speaker 1: Remember this is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded towing and recovery industry.
- 0:23Speaker 1: I'm your co-host, dj Harrington, better known as the Tow Doctor, and my other host is Wes Wilburn, over 40-year towing industry veteran, the founder of American Towing Recovery Institute of Fayetteville, north Carolina.
- 0:40Speaker 1: He has produced and conducted training and certification programs for leading towing companies, equipment distributors, towing associations, dot, fire departments, rescue, as well as military installations across the United States.
- 0:59Speaker 1: Wes has been published over 100 times in major towing publications published over 100 times in major towing publications.
- 1:08Speaker 1: Wes has developed many courses, including the most recent awareness-level course for all responders that specialize in electric vehicles as well as hybrid, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles.
- 1:19Speaker 1: Wes has provided insight as the main speaker for over 30 years at more than 900 training classes and has been recognized as one of America's greatest towing trainers.
- 1:34Speaker 1: He is well known for his straightforward but down-to-earth teaching style.
- 1:40Speaker 1: West Wilbur and his American Storm Recovery staff have developed an electric vehicle phone app, wwwev-clevercom, with over 700 passenger vehicles and over 100 heavy-duty vehicles, bringing you a new level of convenience for information at your fingertips for all responders and their groups.
- 2:15Speaker 4: Without further ado, here's my dear friend and a great guy for our industry, Wes Wilber.
- 2:18Speaker 4: As always, DJ, you're way too kind with your words.
- 2:20Speaker 4: I sincerely appreciate your thoughts.
- 2:22Speaker 4: How are you doing today?
- 2:24Speaker 1: Buddy, I am doing phenomenal the weather's good, I'm walking good and everything's going great.
- 2:33Speaker 4: Yeah, the weather's good here too.
- 2:35Speaker 4: We just traveled home from the New York show back to North Carolina and summertime is here.
- 2:41Speaker 4: Hello, wes, the Lake George was good.
- 2:44Speaker 4: The Esther show at Lake George was excellent.
- 2:47Speaker 4: We were very thankful we got to participate in the auction.
- 2:51Speaker 4: Between the efforts we did Friday night and what the association did on Saturday with the continualization or with the silent auction, they did real good.
- 3:03Speaker 4: Over $10,000 was raised through the association.
- 3:06Speaker 4: We're glad to have played a small part in that.
- 3:08Speaker 4: It was a lot of fun too.
- 3:09Speaker 4: So yeah, dj, we just got back from the New York Toe Show.
- 3:13Speaker 4: We had a great time up there.
- 3:15Speaker 4: It was a good show.
- 3:16Speaker 4: We got to participate in their auction.
- 3:18Speaker 4: It was really exciting to be a part of it.
- 3:20Speaker 4: They ended up raising over $10,000, all of it going to Estra.
- 3:28Speaker 4: We did something that I've never done before, but I've been wanting to acknowledge several different individuals that I see around the country and this is just the beginning of it putting in a lot of volunteer hard work on behalf of their toe association.
- 3:40Speaker 4: And or the industry.
- 3:41Speaker 4: Different things, different people, a couple different categories that I had, so to speak, Not categories but a couple of different groupings, but a big part of it was different people that I've seen really do spend a lot of their time, volunteer and effort on behalf of the industry, not looking for anything in return.
- 3:56Speaker 4: So what we did was we made a simple little plaque and basically we have Emily down there in Texas that makes us those tow truck flats out of a license plate for a state.
- 4:07Speaker 4: She puts it on an old piece of barn wood.
- 4:09Speaker 4: It's a really nice piece.
- 4:11Speaker 4: We had to make it a little bit bigger.
- 4:12Speaker 4: We put a big silver star on it.
- 4:14Speaker 4: We recognized what we called shining star wood, just to shine some love and some attention to some folks that are doing the right thing for all the right reasons.
- 4:29Speaker 4: The first one we gave was to Tom Luciano, and it was a pleasure to see him there so shortly after his wife's passing.
- 4:32Speaker 4: He was in as good a spirit as could be expected.
- 4:35Speaker 4: The man is just a rock, he is just something else.
- 4:39Speaker 4: He was there.
- 4:41Speaker 4: They presented him with a Founders Day award that he did not receive the previous year.
- 4:45Speaker 4: He talked about the beginning of Estra.
- 4:47Speaker 4: The association talked about how it all began, with one of the members getting put in jail over a toe.
- 4:57Speaker 4: Several of the members are still with us.
- 5:02Speaker 4: None of them were there besides Tommy last night, although Warren Roosevelt's granddaughter was there.
- 5:08Speaker 4: He was one of the founders.
- 5:10Speaker 4: But then, as they turned it over to me to begin the auction, I just took a couple minutes and I presented the first award to Tom Luciano.
- 5:16Speaker 4: The reason I did that is he's always so willing to work with associations, provide training, work with the associations so they can participate in the program, help them with budgets et cetera.
- 5:28Speaker 4: He's done a lot for the industry in so many different ways, always been very good to me sharing information.
- 5:35Speaker 4: That was a privilege to give that to him.
- 5:37Speaker 4: Then I presented a whole group of them to Brian and Brianna Wiernowalski for their efforts, helping me and helping the association, scott and Melissa Perlow, founding members of my organization, but more importantly, melissa is the backbone to that Toe Show we got.
- 5:53Speaker 4: Chuck Schmidt, bob Gorman presented them for their efforts.
- 5:57Speaker 4: They volunteer.
- 5:58Speaker 4: Jimmy and William Hefner, members of the association I really didn't meet them until a year or two ago and they're right there in Lake George and they're the ones that provide.
- 6:10Speaker 4: If you want to do a demo, they provide you what you need and, as I've done shows around the country, dj.
- 6:17Speaker 4: Sometimes that happens Whoever's helping from the training aspect of things demo might have a favorite.
- 6:25Speaker 4: Whoever's helping from the training aspect of things right yeah, I might have a favorite might really stack the deck towards that favorite.
- 6:30Speaker 4: And this has been exactly the opposite here in New York and I would have been the last couple of years in a row.
- 6:36Speaker 4: But then I was here years ago and the same thing back then If you did whatever you asked for to work with, as long as you were somewhat reasonable, they broke their back to get it for you and they were fair to everybody.
- 6:46Speaker 4: It didn't matter what training company you were, what organization et cetera.
- 6:52Speaker 4: So I recognized them as well.
- 6:53Speaker 4: And I also recognized Joe C from All County there and just outside of New York City.
- 7:00Speaker 4: He really stepped up with the auction this year.
- 7:03Speaker 4: I'll talk about it a little bit.
- 7:04Speaker 4: He really stepped up with the auction this year.
- 7:07Speaker 4: I'll talk about it in a little bit.
- 7:10Speaker 4: We also recognized Eric from Big Wheel and Devin from Haas Alert as well Eric and Devin.
- 7:13Speaker 4: I said openly to the group when I first started seeing what Eric was doing years ago and then when Devin came on I was a little bit suspicious of both of them and their intentions.
- 7:23Speaker 4: But both of them proved they got a real heart for this industry and tried to do the right thing to help the industry.
- 7:31Speaker 4: So that was the group of awards we gave out just before the auction and was pretty exciting to do that.
- 7:34Speaker 4: So we did that before the uh auction, that we did the live auction.
- 7:40Speaker 4: It went really well we had a lot of good biz on stuff.
- 7:44Speaker 4: Joe c out of long island knew some people through a business, through an acquaintance, I don't know how he knows them exactly.
- 7:52Speaker 4: With all joe, with all county towing had made arrangements with a company that's a professional auction company that works charity events.
- 7:59Speaker 4: They're right there in the new york city area.
- 8:01Speaker 4: So they donated some stuff and they sent some stuff up that they actually collected a little bit of money back on.
- 8:08Speaker 4: But they brought some different memorabilia, brought some, uh, all kinds of stuff.
- 8:13Speaker 4: They had some New York City memorabilia sports team stuff at um, something from the Rangers assigned puck that was a real nice piece at a Lawrence Taylor football jersey that was signed by Lawrence Taylor and a couple other things like that.
- 8:29Speaker 4: They also had some movie stuff and they had all kinds of different stuff.
- 8:35Speaker 4: They had a Taylor Swift piece there, that was signed, autographed CD.
- 8:41Speaker 4: It's kind of like a shadow box.
- 8:42Speaker 4: It was probably 30 by 40 inches, let's say so it was something big to go up on the wall.
- 8:47Speaker 4: Had a starting bid of $800.
- 8:50Speaker 4: Ended up selling for over $1,000.
- 8:51Speaker 4: Uncle Chucky Schmidt took it home for his granddaughter.
- 8:54Speaker 4: Hopefully she's not listening because I think it was going to be a surprise, but I can't imagine she hasn't gotten it by now.
- 9:00Speaker 4: But all kinds of neat stuff.
- 9:02Speaker 4: They had a a picture of from goodfellas with the four goodfellas.
- 9:07Speaker 4: I think it might have been signed.
- 9:08Speaker 4: You know, replica sign, not sign sign.
- 9:11Speaker 4: It was a real nice piece on the wall and that went for several hundred dollars.
- 9:15Speaker 4: And then a picture of ray leota, one of the actors of goodfellas and it's a very specific picture of him in a very specific scene that if you don't know the movie frontwards or backwards you don't even really know what's going on.
- 9:28Speaker 4: Him walking across the street to confront somebody that had said something rude to his girlfriend or been rude with her or something, and the picture is just a close-up of him.
- 9:39Speaker 4: If you don't know the movie and not a real fan of the movie, it doesn't say much.
- 9:43Speaker 4: It was over 500 bucks and I don't know what it ended up at.
- 9:46Speaker 4: The auction wasn't over when I saw that.
- 9:48Speaker 4: So Joe C is to be commended.
- 9:51Speaker 4: He did it from all.
- 9:52Speaker 4: County Cohen he did an excellent job.
- 9:53Speaker 4: Eric Big Wheel donated free seat.
- 9:56Speaker 4: All kinds of people donated stuff.
- 9:57Speaker 4: Chuckie Smith donated a bunch of stuff.
- 10:05Speaker 4: The Renwalskis donated a really cool pedal car pink pedal car.
- 10:07Speaker 4: I had it all labeled up for the 40th anniversary.
- 10:08Speaker 4: Like I say, over $10,000 was raised, all going to the Estre, the state telling association.
- 10:12Speaker 4: So we had a lot of fun doing it, made a couple bucks for the association and I was proud to be a small small part of it.
- 10:19Speaker 1: Well, you named off some great people, boy, and of course Chuck Smith is a dear friend of mine.
- 10:24Speaker 1: I was so glad to hear Tommy Luciano was there after the passing of his wife.
- 10:29Speaker 1: I think that's wonderful.
- 10:30Speaker 4: Yeah, he was there and it was as good as could be expected.
- 10:33Speaker 4: Spirits had a breakfast with him Monday morning before we left.
- 10:36Speaker 4: He brought up in the room, as a matter of fact, the whole auction.
- 10:40Speaker 4: We did Facebook Live.
- 10:41Speaker 4: So if you went on American talent recovery institute you could see the whole evening.
- 10:45Speaker 4: Uh, we that facebook live.
- 10:48Speaker 4: We went for over an hour, I'm pretty sure.
- 10:50Speaker 4: I think almost an hour and a half is what it ended up being.
- 10:53Speaker 4: The time he gives a really nice talk, talked about me and him doing training and the school that we've done in carolina years ago and we loosely made plans that next year it'll be 2025 me and him are going to teach together, going to do some kind of ultimate heavy winching school that he's doing, you know, with the, what he's learned from the army and the tracked vehicles and whatnot.
- 11:14Speaker 4: We're going to try to pull one off and carolina's here probably close might be close here to where I'm at, or wilmington, something like that.
- 11:23Speaker 4: We haven't got the final destination yet.
- 11:25Speaker 4: And then also talking about doing something in the middle of the country.
- 11:28Speaker 4: So me and him are planning that for 2025, working on that.
- 11:32Speaker 4: So while we're talking about trading and stuff, as this thing drops, we'll be headed out to St Louis.
- 11:39Speaker 4: I won't even talk about that, because it lets you listen to it Thursday and make action for Friday.
- 11:44Speaker 4: I won't even talk about that unless you listen to it Thursday and make action for Friday.
- 11:48Speaker 4: So after that we take a little short travel break With the Fourth of July.
- 11:51Speaker 4: You just can't get schools together.
- 11:56Speaker 4: Don't even want to try to July 18th we are doing a South Carolina Tele Association free electric vehicle course Lexington, south Carolina.
- 12:06Speaker 4: Contact us 910-747-99000 or visit our website for more information on that, and we have some other dates coming up August 2nd and 3rd train recovery class Madgeo's in Rockford Illinois.
- 12:16Speaker 4: Things got a little bit over half filled up so there are seats left, but if you're going to be involved you need to get your seat registered and get your hotel room as important as anything.
- 12:26Speaker 4: We've got a private class will be in the Northeast in September.
- 12:30Speaker 4: Really don't have another because we're also going out to Oregon, but that's a private class in October.
- 12:36Speaker 4: Next open to the public class will be October 18th, 19th and 20th.
- 12:42Speaker 4: On the 18th we'll be doing that free electric vehicle class.
- 12:45Speaker 4: That'll be Lake Station, indiana, just next to Gary, indiana.
- 12:49Speaker 4: Wafco Towing is the host, one of the founding members of the Institute great organization.
- 12:55Speaker 4: Saturday Sunday we're doing a two-day heavy-duty towing recovery with some rotator work.
- 13:00Speaker 4: That's October the 19th and 20th.
- 13:03Speaker 4: That's at Wasco, lake Station, right next to Gary, indiana.
- 13:07Speaker 4: Wasco will also be doing their famous Out of the Sky demo and we always provide a great hands-on.
- 13:14Speaker 4: November 1st, 2nd and 3rd we're in Kansas City.
- 13:19Speaker 4: We're friends with Santa Fe.
- 13:22Speaker 4: Friday, november the 1st a one-day light duty Saturday, sunday, the 2nd and the 3rd a two-day heavy duty towing recovery with some rotator, and then it looks like we're in the last open class of the year.
- 13:34Speaker 4: September 17th two-day fire tow or cross training.
- 13:38Speaker 4: That's going to be Sumner, South Carolina, with Sumner Record Service.
- 13:42Speaker 4: Some of you folks might recognize the name.
- 13:44Speaker 4: They're very popular on YouTube.
- 13:46Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, speaking of YouTube, we're working on putting content on our YouTube channel.
- 13:51Speaker 4: Make sure you go and check us out.
- 13:53Speaker 4: I want to thank all our listeners.
- 13:56Speaker 4: Appreciate you continuing to subscribe and share us.
- 13:59Speaker 4: Dj.
- 13:59Speaker 4: I think that's about all I got today.
- 14:01Speaker 4: We're going to do a Best Of episode.
- 14:04Speaker 4: We did one last week, if you're listening, listening to Bill Johnson from TRAA talking about some of the stuff going on.
- 14:10Speaker 4: It was a repeat because it was an important episode and there's some more information on the same subject from another group, coalition, so we're going to listen to them so we give an equal play time to both groups.
- 14:23Speaker 1: We'll take a break, folks, and after the break you'll hear the best stuff.
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- 15:51Speaker 1: Welcome back listeners.
- 15:52Speaker 1: You have been listening to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast with Wes Wilburn, dj Harrington and our special guests, but I want to remind all of you that we're available on Spotify, itunes, pandora, stitcher, iheartmedia, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts, and I can't thank you for making this the number one listened to podcast in the total recovery industry and I thank you very much for sharing.
- 16:24Speaker 1: So let me go without further ado.
- 16:27Speaker 1: Let me go right to Wes, and Wes introduce our guest for today.
- 16:34Speaker 2: Well, as we talked about in last week's podcast and in the first session, there's a big issue in the towing industry and there's I don't know it's two different sides and maybe just slightly different perspectives.
- 16:45Speaker 2: So the last episode we had Bill Johnson from TRA.
- 16:51Speaker 2: This episode we have two officers I guess, I'm not sure National Open Commerce and Safer Highways Coalition we have Glenn and Ron.
- 17:03Speaker 2: I don't know who wants to go first.
- 17:05Speaker 2: Introduce yourself to the group.
- 17:08Speaker 6: I'm Ron Myers and I have Pine Tree Towing and Recovery in southeast Ohio and I sit on the board of the Association of Professional Towers of Ohio Towers of Ohio and currently I'm involved with the coalition and trying to respond to what happened from Sioux.
- 17:33Speaker 2: Lawless Okay, great happy to have you here.
- 17:37Speaker 2: Quinn, would you mind introducing yourself?
- 17:40Speaker 7: Sure Wes.
- 17:41Speaker 7: Thank you, quinn Pining.
- 17:42Speaker 7: I am the chairman of the National Open Commerce and Safer Highways Coalition.
- 17:50Speaker 2: Okay, which one of you wants to talk first about what's going on and then talk about what your folks' views on things are?
- 18:00Speaker 6: Ron CRI report that basically was telling truckers how to deal with predatory towing things they can do.
- 18:07Speaker 6: And obviously when that report came out it was very, very biased.
- 18:27Speaker 6: They had a little confusion and crossed some numbers over between consensual and non-consensual and there was a group that was not necessarily formed or had done anything that was trying to address that.
- 18:41Speaker 6: There's a couple of states that are in the process of rate regulation and we absolutely know where the flaws are in that ATRI report and we also wasn't sure what the plan was Like.
- 18:59Speaker 6: They put this out there.
- 18:59Speaker 6: We knew there had to be a purpose for it, but you know, and so there we were.
- 19:05Speaker 6: And then Sue Lawless came out and then Booty Jag at the same time and basically said that predatory towingwing is a problem and that you have to address this to the FTC.
- 19:19Speaker 6: And if you go back a little bit further, in July of 23, there was an oversight hearing in Washington DC and in that oversight hearing basically it was calling out the FTC for what they felt was politicized rulemaking.
- 19:34Speaker 6: But in their testimony, their written testimony, there's a link.
- 19:38Speaker 6: We're going to be sharing that information directly.
- 19:41Speaker 6: We just, you know, like I said, we've been moving at warp speed.
- 19:45Speaker 6: It says in there all the things about junk fees and different terms and terminologies, and it was crafted as that being their goal.
- 19:59Speaker 6: As chairman of the FTC Federal Trade.
- 20:03Speaker 2: Commission Real quick Ron.
- 20:05Speaker 6: A lot of acronyms.
- 20:06Speaker 2: I give you a lot of credit for keeping up with them so far and, if you don't mind, as you're giving acronyms, if we could just share what they are to all the listeners now.
- 20:16Speaker 6: Okay, I'm sorry to interrupt you with that.
- 20:19Speaker 2: You're doing great.
- 20:21Speaker 6: So, as we know, the report they put out.
- 20:23Speaker 6: It's been widely circulated.
- 20:25Speaker 6: We have been full steam ahead in trying to figure out what our response is going to be and it becomes obvious that the comment period is closed.
- 20:35Speaker 6: It was extended and at the very last minute, that's when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration forwarded their comments and says hey, we have a problem with predatory towing and we think you're the right guys to fix this, and so it's very open-ended.
- 20:53Speaker 6: I don't think anyone can honestly say for sure exactly how it impacts us or it's going to impact us, because we're in the rule process, we're halfway through the process.
- 21:06Speaker 6: We, in essence, have just entered the game at halftime.
- 21:11Speaker 3: We have.
- 21:12Speaker 6: I'll let Quinn go into that.
- 21:13Speaker 6: But we actually reached out and tried to figure out what was going on, what the plan was, and we didn't get any response.
- 21:23Speaker 2: We reached out to who.
- 21:25Speaker 6: We reached out to TRA and we asked them Apto did?
- 21:29Speaker 6: And we just asked them hey, are you aware of this when it first happened?
- 21:32Speaker 6: And we were told they did.
- 21:33Speaker 6: And we just asked them hey, are you aware of this when it first happened?
- 21:34Speaker 6: And we were told they were.
- 21:35Speaker 6: And we were told that they were having a meeting last Wednesday to discuss it.
- 21:44Speaker 6: And then, after that meeting Wednesday, we reached back out on Thursday morning and said hope, meeting went well.
- 21:54Speaker 6: Can you give us any insight?
- 21:56Speaker 6: Are you willing to get on a call with the Ohio Towers and explain to us what exactly is happening?
- 22:03Speaker 6: And we got no response.
- 22:05Speaker 6: Then we started forming the coalition immediately, just because we don't.
- 22:10Speaker 6: We just didn't feel we could stand flat footed.
- 22:12Speaker 6: And then we talked to on.
- 22:16Speaker 2: Hang on a second.
- 22:17Speaker 2: Hang on a second, Just as a programming note.
- 22:19Speaker 2: We have reached out to our Secretary of Transportation, Pete.
- 22:25Speaker 2: Somebody help me with the last name.
- 22:28Speaker 1: Rudy Jackson.
- 22:29Speaker 2: Thank you, am I good?
- 22:31Speaker 2: We've also reached out to the author of the letter from Federal Trade Commission and also reached out to ATRI for comment.
- 22:41Speaker 2: As of the point of recording this, we have not heard any response would be a concerned effort.
- 22:53Speaker 6: Obviously, we have people from Texas, we have people from the original call involved, people from Wisconsin, oklahoma, arkansas, georgia, of course, ohio, and now we have Pennsylvania.
- 23:11Speaker 6: So we decided that we needed a car to drive, because we didn't have any car to drive In our correspondence to be open.
- 23:20Speaker 6: When we asked CRA, we had our call Thursday.
- 23:24Speaker 6: I don't know if you made that call or not.
- 23:26Speaker 6: We had 70-some people on the call and we just said something's got to happen Thursday.
- 23:35Speaker 6: Well, friday morning we launched with our Open Commerce Safer Highways Coalition and started building that out right away Bank account feed money.
- 23:51Speaker 6: The TRA put out their press release on Thursday night.
- 23:56Speaker 6: We contacted them again Friday morning and we actually were reaching out to the first vice president because he's from Ohio, and we asked him hey, we've seen the press release, said you're making comments or you made comments, can you share that with us?
- 24:09Speaker 6: What is taking place?
- 24:11Speaker 6: And as of this point in time of the show, we've not heard back.
- 24:15Speaker 6: So the other people on the call Texas is involved.
- 24:20Speaker 6: We just felt that we don't have time to wait days, weeks, months to figure out what the response could potentially be or is going to be, and so we went ahead and formed Quinn has engaged and you can tell him Quinn, who we've engaged.
- 24:37Speaker 6: We've already signed contracts with major firms in Washington DC to represent the coalition.
- 24:44Speaker 6: The coalition was created to bring people together in a concerted effort in order to combat potentially what's going to happen, and first order of business was the legal review.
- 24:59Speaker 2: Okay, we're at the point where we need to take a quick break.
- 25:02Speaker 2: After the break we'll come back and hear from Quinn about the organization.
- 25:06Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
- 25:08Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
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- 26:21Speaker 5: We look forward to serving you.
- 26:23Speaker 1: Welcome back listeners.
- 26:25Speaker 1: You're listening to a special edition of American Towing Recovering School podcast with Wes Wilburn, DJ Harrington.
- 26:31Speaker 1: Remember to like and review and share everywhere.
- 26:35Speaker 1: We can't thank you enough.
- 26:36Speaker 1: There is a hotline at the podcast center, so if you want to add to this conversation and you want to be part of this dialogue, just dial 706-409-5603.
- 26:50Speaker 1: And we'll do our best to have you as a representative with your views and your thoughts beyond this podcast.
- 26:57Speaker 1: So, Wes, without further ado.
- 26:59Speaker 1: Right before the break, we talked about Quinn, so I'll pass it on over to you.
- 27:04Speaker 2: So, Quinn, tell us about the organization.
- 27:06Speaker 2: Well back to what.
- 27:09Speaker 7: Ron was saying.
- 27:09Speaker 7: Back to what Ron was saying, there's a number of comments that were made to the Federal Trade Commission during that open comment period and that comment was 12,000 or more from our industry, from the towing industry, made any comments on that other than the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's letter and the report that they submitted at the 12th hour.
- 27:45Speaker 7: With all that being said and done and our coalition forming and getting a grassroots effort to go forward, the first thing we realized is we need to understand what the Federal Trade Commission can do, will do and how they could do it, because this is uncharted territory for us, could do it, because this is uncharted territory for us.
- 28:19Speaker 7: My background coming from California and being very politically involved when you're dealing with the legislature, it's a pretty complex system that you have to weed through and if you understand politics and how the world works in politics, you can achieve things and get things done.
- 28:41Speaker 7: With the Federal Trade Commission it's very uncharted.
- 28:47Speaker 7: Nobody in our industry has ever had to deal with them or understand.
- 28:53Speaker 7: But the more that we have dove into it, we understand the severity of how bad this could be for our industry, of a rule or regulation that we may have to comply with.
- 29:09Speaker 7: So we formed a group that is going to be very fast acting and be able to get boots on the ground.
- 29:20Speaker 7: We have retained Schumacher and Associates as our federal lobbyists.
- 29:27Speaker 7: They are in Washington DC.
- 29:29Speaker 7: We actually have had several meetings with them and they are already in the motions of doing things we have under retainer with a law firm I don't want to release the name as yet, but we have talked to a law firm and the first order of business, and probably the biggest thing, is a legal review on what can be done, what has been done and how they would go about this rule.
- 30:09Speaker 7: And then the second phase will be how can we get involved?
- 30:16Speaker 7: Because everybody can say they can make comments and you can do this and you can do that, but in reality nobody knows, because we've never been there before and what we are being told by attorneys today, by our attorneys, is it may be a very difficult process to be able to get any kind of comments or something into it.
- 30:49Speaker 7: Then the third bullet point that I wanted to point out that our coalition is doing is informing industry.
- 30:58Speaker 7: We are going to be very transparent.
- 31:02Speaker 7: We don't have members.
- 31:04Speaker 7: We're not a membership-based organization.
- 31:08Speaker 7: This is a coalition of towers for towers for the industry and betterment of the industry.
- 31:18Speaker 7: Who owns the coalition.
- 31:20Speaker 7: Nobody owns the coalition.
- 31:23Speaker 7: The coalition is a five-person board that is concerned towers throughout the United States Awesome.
- 31:36Speaker 2: Who are the five towers?
- 31:38Speaker 7: Myself as chairman, james Beard, from Beards Towing out of Texas Bennett.
- 31:46Speaker 1: Huh.
- 31:48Speaker 7: James Bennett.
- 31:49Speaker 7: James Bennett, I'm sorry, did I set it wrong.
- 31:53Speaker 7: I apologize, james.
- 31:55Speaker 7: And then Jeff Poquette with Southside Record out of Georgia.
- 32:01Speaker 7: He's the other co-chair with James Jordan Davis out of Ohio, am I correct?
- 32:11Speaker 7: Yes, and then Ryan McGann from McGann and Chester out of PA.
- 32:21Speaker 2: Okay, and it's a five-person.
- 32:24Speaker 2: What type of board is it?
- 32:28Speaker 7: It's a coalition and that is the executive board.
- 32:32Speaker 2: The executive board of the coalition Right.
- 32:34Speaker 7: Right.
- 32:35Speaker 7: And then we are going to increase the number of people that will be active as we need it.
- 32:42Speaker 7: We will reach out to individuals and bring them on to assist in whatever task needs to be done needs to be done.
- 32:56Speaker 7: I could tell you right now that we are on the search for some towers in specific states to be able to be available to our lobbyist to answer questions.
- 33:06Speaker 7: Some of those states just off the top of my head are Texas, Tennessee, DC.
- 33:17Speaker 7: There were several states that we are going to be looking out to get people to get involved.
- 33:27Speaker 6: Colorado, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Illinois, Arkansas, DC, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Missouri.
- 33:36Speaker 2: What's significant about these states that you're looking for interaction?
- 33:42Speaker 6: They have federal representation.
- 33:43Speaker 6: That's important to our movement.
- 33:46Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough.
- 33:48Speaker 3: You made the comment.
- 33:50Speaker 2: It's a very integral process with lobbying on a state level.
- 33:54Speaker 2: Isn't it going to be a whole different learning curve on a federal level?
- 33:59Speaker 7: It's a huge different level.
- 34:02Speaker 7: That's why we've engaged the Schumacher firm.
- 34:06Speaker 7: They are very involved in towing.
- 34:11Speaker 7: They have been working with the Ohio arm.
- 34:15Speaker 7: They have an arm in Ohio.
- 34:17Speaker 7: So they have knowledgeable people on staff in DC of the towing industry.
- 34:26Speaker 7: So we don't have to re-educate them over again.
- 34:29Speaker 7: The plus is just that we don't have to spend a lot of time educating our lobbyists on what we do and how we do it.
- 34:41Speaker 7: They are very engaged and already have that knowledge.
- 34:46Speaker 2: Okay.
- 34:49Speaker 6: And it's a team of lobbyists in the firm.
- 34:53Speaker 6: Our lead lobbyists in the firm, our lead lobbyists, and we need to let them speak for us.
- 34:58Speaker 6: But our lead lobbyists had about 15 years experience with the NRA.
- 35:03Speaker 6: The other ones had experience with Halliburton.
- 35:07Speaker 6: They left them a little bit ago and joined our uh, you know, our lobbyist firm that we have, but we have, uh I think it's four lobbyists that are DC based that's where they're at Um and we've we feel that from a legal standpoint and a lobbying firm that we've put the eight team together.
- 35:28Speaker 6: Uh, they're very diverse and we're we're leaning on them obviously heavily to guide us the right direction and make an impact on what we think is going to happen.
- 35:43Speaker 2: Okay, where would this coalition be based out of?
- 35:48Speaker 6: Our office currently is in Ohio at the Shoemaker firm.
- 35:51Speaker 6: So we don't we're not at this point, we're not using money or funds.
- 35:57Speaker 6: We don't want to spend money on bricks and mortars.
- 35:59Speaker 6: Our treasurer is based out of Ohio, our secretary is based out of Pennsylvania, our first vice chair is based out of Texas, our second vice chair is based out of Georgia and Quinn is based out of California.
- 36:14Speaker 2: Texas.
- 36:14Speaker 2: Our second vice chair is based out of Georgia and Quinn is based out of California.
- 36:19Speaker 7: And are these different individuals than the executive board?
- 36:21Speaker 7: Or is that the executive?
- 36:22Speaker 2: No, that is where the executive board is, wes Okay, so what else would you like to say about the organization and what's going on?
- 36:28Speaker 7: Well, I think that the biggest thing is, and one of the things that I want to point out, is, transparency.
- 36:35Speaker 7: We are going to be very transparent with the industry.
- 36:37Speaker 7: I think that the biggest thing is, and one of the things that I want to point out is, transparency.
- 36:40Speaker 7: We are going to be very transparent with the industry.
- 36:44Speaker 7: Like I said, we're going to be reaching out and asking for help and finding tellers that can work with our lobbyists.
- 36:49Speaker 7: More than that, this effort is going to be quite expensive.
- 36:53Speaker 7: We are looking at a cost factor of right around $200,000 to $300,000 in the first year, and that money is going to have to be raised by industry.
- 37:04Speaker 7: The nice thing about that is with the legal firm that we have retained and our lobbyist, the legal firm that we have retained and our lobbyists.
- 37:14Speaker 7: We hope to get some bang for our dollar that will be utilized not only in defending the industry in this effort, but starting to become proactive in the future.
- 37:29Speaker 2: Hopefully.
- 37:29Speaker 2: $200,000 to $300,000, that's a 33% difference.
- 37:33Speaker 2: What's the thought process?
- 37:35Speaker 2: What would be.
- 37:40Speaker 6: The difference of 33% of the total budget Depends on how quickly this ends.
- 37:43Speaker 6: So we're expecting a ruling, most likely in the fall.
- 37:52Speaker 6: So we're trying to navigate through that.
- 37:55Speaker 6: We believe that there's a possibility that they're going to want to do this before an administration change, if that potentially would happen.
- 38:04Speaker 6: That's not to say that Biden won't get reelected, but if we had a change of administration, this would all go away.
- 38:10Speaker 6: But if it doesn't, or if the rule gets implemented before the change of administration, then it's a whole different process to try to navigate it.
- 38:22Speaker 6: After the fact and again, we missed the comment period it's obvious this is a very well-coordinated effort to come after our industry unfairly.
- 38:36Speaker 6: On the surface it looks to be.
- 38:38Speaker 6: The report appears to honestly appears to be done by an independent author.
- 38:41Speaker 6: However, if you look at the board of the ATRI, which is the organization that paid for that report, obviously they haven't shared with us, but we think that kind of report was probably probably cost them $200,000 plus something that in depth of what they put together.
- 39:11Speaker 6: Now what we've done is, as we reached into that.
- 39:14Speaker 6: We've already had people look at that.
- 39:16Speaker 6: We have our own opinions on that.
- 39:18Speaker 6: A lot of the stuff in there is flawed.
- 39:20Speaker 6: There's a mix of consent, non-consensual rates.
- 39:23Speaker 6: There's a misunderstanding within that report.
- 39:26Speaker 6: Um, we've had people actually talk to the author of that report and he kind of acknowledges that he sees where they're.
- 39:34Speaker 6: Some of them numbers potentially could be flawed.
- 39:36Speaker 6: Whether or not we get them to admit that would be another whole story.
- 39:39Speaker 6: But, um, we, we have some ammunition to deal with that.
- 39:44Speaker 6: So that's something else the industry has to do.
- 39:47Speaker 6: If anyone has a report similar to that, please share it, because it's going to cost a lot of money to generate it.
- 39:57Speaker 6: One of the things our industry lacks and we're disappointed about it, we've known it for 10 years is we don't have our own data.
- 40:06Speaker 6: People outside the actual towers have the key to the data and they're not about to give us the data.
- 40:12Speaker 6: One of the things we talk about when we're talking about people and I'm going to mention some of the salvage people that pick up at your yard they will come in and give you a pickup order.
- 40:26Speaker 6: Generally they've called you ahead of time and they've asked you for your charges and so you'll give them a list of charges.
- 40:35Speaker 6: Let's say it's a Christmas list.
- 40:36Speaker 6: You've got 10 charges for different 10 line items, what they're doing.
- 40:41Speaker 6: If you look at that, when they pick it up and I urge every tower in the country to start copying that and attaching a copier bill to it and put it in the filing cabinet because we may need this obviously in the future they literally will have the amount of the pickup order to match your bill, but they only have five categories.
- 41:00Speaker 6: They're randomly merging our charges to fit categories that they're collecting data on.
- 41:08Speaker 6: For example, if you're charging a generic admin fee on a light duty tow of $35, they may have it on their bill of $25, but they've added it somewhere else in your invoice so that you get the right amount.
- 41:23Speaker 6: But they're generating a database that is not criminal but it's corrupt.
- 41:28Speaker 6: It's corrupted information.
- 41:30Speaker 6: It's not accurate.
- 41:31Speaker 6: They'll shift storage charges on you.
- 41:35Speaker 6: If you look at that and start paying attention.
- 41:37Speaker 6: They've been building a database based on skewed numbers, so when they come out they have this data and they're saying, look, we handled, you know you don't think about it.
- 41:50Speaker 6: We handled 30,000 wrecks last year.
- 41:52Speaker 6: The company did, and then 30,000 wrecks.
- 41:55Speaker 6: We never paid.
- 41:56Speaker 6: We never paid more than $10 for cleanup or we never paid.
- 42:00Speaker 6: You know, the average cleanup list is $75,.
- 42:02Speaker 6: Whatever the number is, the issue is they're going to present this data as paying the bill, but their data is corrupt like a virus because it's not accurate data.
- 42:14Speaker 6: But we have nothing to counter it.
- 42:16Speaker 6: We have nothing to counter it.
- 42:18Speaker 2: I understand your point about the industry's done a horrible job about collecting data.
- 42:23Speaker 2: I agree it's been really longer than 10 years.
- 42:26Speaker 2: I think the industry's been talking about it.
- 42:28Speaker 2: I'm not trying to correct you.
- 42:29Speaker 2: Are you saying that some of the information from the ATRI report came from some of the salad schools?
- 42:46Speaker 6: I do not.
- 42:46Speaker 6: I can't say that because I wasn't on the inside, but I can tell you.
- 42:50Speaker 6: We dug into that report in depth and their information of some of the numbers they've used in averages from the standpoint.
- 42:59Speaker 6: I'm not saying they did anything illegal it's like a virus.
- 43:02Speaker 6: The data that they used was data that was provided to them, and that data that was provided to them and that data that was provided them was completely one sided and unfortunately that's the only record that got submitted into the Federal Trade Commission under the Federal Safety Administration, and our side wasn't hurt.
- 43:20Speaker 6: Just simply it wasn't hurt and there was a strategy to do that.
- 43:26Speaker 7: You know Wes the report on face value.
- 43:30Speaker 7: Our industry can pick it apart pretty good, without a doubt, with factual data.
- 43:37Speaker 7: The issue comes down to is and I think that we have to stop fooling ourselves a lot of this information in this report came from the insurance industry.
- 43:52Speaker 7: We know that the insurance industry, along with the trucking associations, is behind this and in saying that, I think it's time that our industry find an avenue to sit down at the table with them and try to resolve some of these issues.
- 44:17Speaker 7: They talk about the predatory towing.
- 44:21Speaker 2: Hang on a second, but you do not believe the group that already has a relationship established with the federal government is the right group to do it.
- 44:29Speaker 2: It has to be this new group.
- 44:31Speaker 2: Is that what you're telling us?
- 44:33Speaker 7: I'm thinking that, yeah, I'll say it.
- 44:36Speaker 7: I'll say it, yes, I think that it takes a new group.
- 44:39Speaker 7: I think that you need to have somebody in there that is willing to spend the hours and time that it takes to do this, and and I, I personally myself, haven't seen anything from the other group.
- 44:58Speaker 2: Well, like I said, they did a podcast just before, before this one or before this one.
- 45:04Speaker 2: I encourage, highly encourage you to listen to that.
- 45:07Speaker 2: It's like we're going to highly encourage everybody to listen to this one.
- 45:11Speaker 2: Sure, there's some differences of opinion and I'm not going to try to break them down, because I'm not trying to be on one side or the other of this.
- 45:20Speaker 2: I'm trying to give everybody the opportunity to get their piece, their words, out.
- 45:26Speaker 7: Well, what I will say to Wes, and I'll say it in very open form at some point I hope to be able to sit down with TRA and have a conversation, an open conversation, about what they're doing and how they're doing it, because what they have put out to the public, is not much.
- 45:49Speaker 7: Telling us that they're on top of it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy as a businessman.
- 45:59Speaker 2: Okay, again, I encourage everybody to listen both sides to the previous podcast and this podcast.
- 46:05Speaker 2: What else would you, gentlemen, like to talk about with the?
- 46:09Speaker 2: What's going on with your organization?
- 46:13Speaker 6: in the group that they'll obviously be transparent.
- 46:16Speaker 6: Like I said, we're moving pretty fast.
- 46:19Speaker 6: We're you know.
- 46:37Speaker 6: So we're still figuring out as far as where we need to be, but our goal objective, which I'm sure we'll obtain, is to be flexible and inclusive of everybody and not exclude anyone's voice.
- 46:49Speaker 6: In other words, we're going to have conversations with everyone.
- 46:53Speaker 6: We're in the process of reaching out to everyone that had joined on the calls.
- 46:58Speaker 6: At one point, the one call, I think we have had 80-some people on it.
- 47:01Speaker 6: It was just a generic call call.
- 47:15Speaker 6: We had an opportunity there to.
- 47:16Speaker 6: We've been contacted by several people other state associations that want to be involved in the coalition.
- 47:19Speaker 6: Also, by being a coalition and not a basic member based with textbooks of bylaws where you can exclude people because they don't fit the bylaw rule, we're going to allow people to sponsor the coalition, get involved in the coalition, convince them they're getting value.
- 47:40Speaker 6: They're going to see the value of being in the coalition and can actually attract other people from outside the towing industry.
- 47:46Speaker 6: So when you look at the FTC and what Susan Lawless submitted, they've also somewhat attacked the hazmat industry, the cleanup industry.
- 47:57Speaker 6: They threw them into the bucket with us.
- 47:59Speaker 6: This could have a huge impact on them.
- 48:02Speaker 6: There's entities out there that can join our coalition to make a bigger, louder voice.
- 48:09Speaker 6: Now I will tell you APTO had done it, other towers, I believe TRA did too.
- 48:16Speaker 6: We have some common ground with some of the other entities that are involved in this that potentially would be perceived as being on the other side.
- 48:25Speaker 6: I think we took positions with people including OIDA at one point that we didn't want speed limiters on trucks.
- 48:32Speaker 6: Now, when you look at their side, ata and OIDA are an opposite of opinions.
- 48:38Speaker 6: The ATA last time they supported speed limiters.
- 48:41Speaker 6: So even within the trucking industry, they have differences of opinion, but when it comes to this predatory towing, this perception, as I call it, they're lockstep together, and that's what I keep telling people that we talk to on the phone Me, quinn, several other people have been on the phone 16, 18 hours a day working this, and we hear everyone's concerns.
- 49:10Speaker 6: And what I remind everybody is that back in World War II, russia and the United States worked together to defeat Germany, and that's where this industry is at right now.
- 49:21Speaker 6: So we're willing to work with anyone that can work with us or will work with us to obtain the objective of making sure that we don't get harmful regulation and legislation out of DC.
- 49:37Speaker 6: The other thing that the coalition is looking at is this is forefront, this is the front line, this potential FTC.
- 49:44Speaker 6: But part of the reason we're here is because we have not addressed the lack of payment that we get from commercial motor carriers.
- 49:54Speaker 1: Absolutely A lot of good.
- 49:56Speaker 6: Absolutely.
- 49:57Speaker 6: That's right.
- 49:58Speaker 6: A lot of great trucking companies out there.
- 50:00Speaker 6: They pay their bill.
- 50:01Speaker 6: Some of them are unhappy because they have to pay so much.
- 50:04Speaker 6: But one of the analogies we give people and that when I've had conversations of half the people that walked into Walmart pay so much, but one of the analogies we give people and that when I've had conversations of half the people that walked into Walmart walked out without paying.
- 50:13Speaker 6: The people that's paying their bill has to pay more.
- 50:16Speaker 6: Is it fair to the trucking industry that they have to do that?
- 50:21Speaker 6: I don't know if it's fair, but it's the only way our community stays healthy enough to open the highways, way our community stays healthy enough to open the highways.
- 50:30Speaker 6: We clearly have not had a good dialogue with them to work jointly to correct it.
- 50:33Speaker 6: The reason we're here is because my opinion and a lot of the people within the coalition is we've not been proactive in addressing the issues that impact us with the other players.
- 50:45Speaker 6: We need to be paid.
- 50:47Speaker 6: If we were paid, the bills would go down and they have to understand that.
- 50:51Speaker 6: I mean, that's my belief.
- 50:52Speaker 6: Do we have bad actors?
- 50:53Speaker 6: Hell, yeah.
- 50:53Speaker 6: Do we have bad police officers?
- 50:56Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 50:56Speaker 6: Do we have bad lawyers?
- 50:57Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 50:58Speaker 6: Do we have bad congresspeople and senators?
- 51:00Speaker 6: Yes, they're all out there, but what they're trying to come at us with, basically an atom bomb or a nuke, is a very small in my humble opinion a very small portion of the industry.
- 51:15Speaker 6: We've not done a good job in getting our message out there.
- 51:20Speaker 6: We have this in every state I've talked to.
- 51:24Speaker 6: I can mention Oklahoma.
- 51:27Speaker 6: They literally had a bill pass out a committee.
- 51:30Speaker 6: It's not law yet and we're you know, as Apto, has helped other state associations with issues.
- 51:38Speaker 6: They've contacted us.
- 51:39Speaker 6: We've done everything we can to help the other states.
- 51:41Speaker 6: We want the coalition to be that type of format.
- 51:45Speaker 6: But again, first and foremost is to deal with the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, and how that's going to impact us.
- 51:52Speaker 6: But Arkansas was fighting a horrible bill about free cargo.
- 51:59Speaker 6: We were painted as disrupting the supply chain.
- 52:02Speaker 6: Some of the nonsense that's in the report.
- 52:04Speaker 6: But what really holds up the supply chain is when a truck's laying across I-70 or I-95, that's what disrupts the supply chain.
- 52:14Speaker 6: That's what's costing them hundreds of millions of dollars.
- 52:18Speaker 6: It's not the guy that uprighted it and charged them 50K.
- 52:21Speaker 6: That's not the problem.
- 52:22Speaker 6: The problem's getting the road open and that the fact that we lack the communication and standards and we have a gross number that's got worse, literally worse than the last five years, of trucking companies that either way the Federal Motor Carrier Administration gives operating authority to, that doesn't have the proper insurance.
- 52:43Speaker 6: We've never.
- 52:44Speaker 6: We're not conveying that message.
- 52:46Speaker 6: I'd like to see it, for it's been said it anywhere.
- 52:49Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely I agree with that thought.
- 52:51Speaker 2: Well, we definitely appreciate you guys being on.
- 52:53Speaker 2: We're way over time.
- 52:55Speaker 2: I don't mean to cut you off, we'd love to have you back again, especially as things progress.
- 52:58Speaker 2: We're dead out of time at this point.
- 53:02Speaker 6: I really appreciate you having me on.
- 53:06Speaker 7: Yes, thank you, Wes.
- 53:08Speaker 2: Thank you all for being here and we appreciate your thoughts, and again, we'd like to have you back when things progress.
- 53:16Speaker 7: Well, we'll be back in touch with you and we'll keep you in the loop.
- 53:20Speaker 2: Okay, thank you for your time today, gentlemen.
- 53:23Speaker 7: You guys got it All right.
- 53:25Speaker 7: Talk to you all later.
- 53:26Speaker 6: Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye.