Towing Issues: Time spent fee, state government public, straight truck

Question
I called a company to have a 32,000 pound straight truck winched from a muddy driveway.  My crew called me and told me to cancel the tow truck, because the customer we were helping was able to pull them out.  When I called the tow company to cancel they were in route only about 2 miles from my crew.  They said they would have to charge me for time spent.  The one-way mileage to call was 20 miles.  They charged me $255.00 plus tax to travel 20 miles one way and then turn around and go back to there shop. This price for time spent seems to be outrageously high. This is closer to what is charged for actually doing the work. Your thoughts?

Answer
Well I run a heavy duty tow truck and do recoveries (winch outs) like this all the time.

As a general rule, the rates which tow truck charge for this kind of work is based on an hourly rate from time out (leave the yard-office) to time in (back at the office or on to the next call)

This rate of 255.00 is not bad, in my mind as we have a 2 hour minimum on our rate sheet here (I am in Alabama) and the day time hourly rate is $175.00 per hour.

Now I have to say that in some states the rates are set by the state government (public utility commission) and as such the truck "HAS TO CHARGE" what the rate sheets are. Or they get big fines for illegal operations.


Hope this kind of helps, and if you have more questions, feel free to ask more.