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Towing Forum’s

A recent article dealing with some towing forums has created a bit of a controversy among the forums. Fall out is ongoing. But what about the real information about the towing forums which are available online.


First and foremost in the towing forums is TOW411.net who is the leader among boards with 1900 members. They cover a wide range of topics, and they have lots of information available for everyone. It was started in March of 2001, by a tow truck driver who works for the city of Louisville as the owner, and has the assistance of several other managers and administrators. It has grown into a group of good and talented tow truck drivers and towing company owners. They also have affiliate members and paid sponsors who support the costs of the forum operations. Board members also support the International Towing and Recovery Museum and Hall of Fame and the Survivor Fund with fund raising drives.

But before that time we had a few other places to talk and discuss towing issues. Tow Times magazine and American Towman both had web sites where there was also a chat room styled discussion area. That and an area to post comments and stories. But both of these forums had a problem with it and finally closed down and transferred their chats to other places. Tow411 got most of the members..


Now there is also Towtalk.net, which was started in 2004. It has about 350 members now, and was started by a tow company owner in Golden Colorado. It has lots of different areas for discussions and it also contains a lot of information on business costs and determining costs of operations. It also has a lot of areas for towing information and posting recovery stories.

Next up is ITOW.org, which is the home of the Independent Towers of Washington. It started out as a local state association website and has grown into one with 900 members registered. It covers a lot of information including recovery reviews and motor clubs like all the others.
It was started I believe in 2003 by several towing company owners.


Just as you thought there were enough chats about towing, you can go over to yahoo groups and check out towing, I got 18 results after a search. Now lots of these are forums for specific towing companies, or areas like Michigan and Illinois. There are a few which are a personal place for operators to post their pictures of work then have done like an online resume. There is also a site for WreckMaster’s to network.
Some of the groups are truly active sites and then there are a few of them which have very little activity.

Now Ezboard which is also the home of Tow411.net has several towing forums listed. They are a site which can host any kind of forum. There are 8 of them listed during my search. Some are specific for certain kinds of towing information like the one dealing with Price Per Pound billing methods, which is located at p086.ezboard.com/bppphdbilling.
It was started by a tow truck driver who is promoting the Price Per Pound billing method for Heavy Duty truck wrecks. Oh did I mention it is my own site ? It also has several areas for discussion of recoveries and other towing news.

And My Space, we will see that there are several sites for towing there. Some are by drivers, and then some of them were started by people who had there vehicles towed for several reasons.

Now we also have several other sites for towing information, such as Stormins.com. This one is owned by “ Stormin “ Norman Horton who is a equipment dealer and former tow company owner till he sold his towing business. Now this site has lots of information about tow trucks for sale and other information on the main site. It also has a discussion forum area called “the impound yard” Just about any information can be discussed there. It also has a bit of business information for owners available on it.
He has had a towing forum type area for at least 6 years that I know of. I worked for him for several years and some of his articles and subjects he discusses are designed to get peoples attention and to open their eyes and make them think.

There is also www.towtruck.org , which appears to just have started up recently. www.recoveryphotos.com is also a site where there is some discussion forums and loads of recovery pictures. www.wreckerdriver.com is one where you will find a few tons of photos of tow trucks and recoveries. It was started by an operator for a major tower in the Tampa Florida area
For those of you who do repo’s there is the website of Professional Collateral Recovery Agents located at www.procra.com or www.repoman.com for discussion forums.

There are also several towing association websites but not many of them seem to have a chat style discussion area.
The Michigan Towing association has the closest to a towing forum, but they have been undergoing some reworking recently.
Illinois Tow Association has a discussion page for information. There are some things there but not much.
The Provincial Towing Association of Ontario has a nice discussion area on its website www.ptao.org .
Then there is the Towing and Recovery Professionals of Colorado which has a chat and forums also. Their website is www.trpc-online.org.


And lest we forget our overseas friends, there is www.towie.com from Australia who has done a nice job of getting information out, and www.theivr.com which is The Institute of Vehicle Recovery from England. They have a lot of information and its interesting to read as the motor clubs play a huge role in the towing industry by controlling about 90% of all the calls. Also available is another English group located at www.recoveryegroup.com. It how ever is one of the few sites I found which requires you to pay to belong to the group. They used to be over on yahoo and I was a member for along time but about 3 years ago they moved to there own website.



Now I know that I might of missed a few sites and I know I did not mention every website there is. I just was trying to show that there are a lot of towing information forum websites out there.