Arkansas Trucking Association

Report Examines Excessive Towing Rates Faced by Trucking Companies

LITTLE ROCK, ARK. – Trucking companies are increasingly encountering excessive towing rates and predatory practices by providers. A new report released by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) examines the causes and countermeasures of predatory heavy-duty towing, with the goal of improving the relationship between the towing and trucking industries.

According to the report, the most common types of predatory towing were excessive rates, experienced by 82.7% of trucking companies, and unwarranted extra service charges, experienced by 81.8% of carriers. Most carriers also encountered additional issues such as truck release or access delays, cargo release delays, truck seizure without cause and tows misreported as consensual.

“Trucking companies doing business in Arkansas are often faced with the conundrum of overpaying for services provided or disappointing their customers and disrupting the supply chain,” Shannon Newton, president, Arkansas Trucking Association said. “The vulnerability of a company when they need services and the lack of accountability for providers leads to excessive, unexpected costs to trucking companies.”

The ATRI report offers strategies that trucking companies can use to avoid, identify or address predatory towing, such as how to review invoices for predatory billing and how to gather data to dispute towing companies’ incident accounts when necessary.

“In the face of inflation, fuel prices and other rising expenses, the cost of operating a trucking company is at an all-time high. These unpredictable and unfair towing rates are unnecessarily contributing to those costs,” Newton said. “People are going to continue to need goods and trucks are going to continue to deliver them, which means these excessive towing fees are going to be passed along to consumers. Ensuring fair towing practices benefits carriers, shippers and consumers alike.”

ATRI is the trucking industry’s 501c3 not-for-profit research organization. It is engaged in critical research relating to freight transportation’s essential role in maintaining a safe, secure and efficient transportation system.