Two tips to follow if you need to use a towing service after a car accident
If you ever need to use towing service after having a car accident, these tips might help.
Check your car's wheels before calling any towing companies
Before you start calling up towing companies and seeing which one has a tow truck available, you should check the condition of the car's wheels. If when you do this, you discover that the accident led to the wheels being damaged, then you should let the towing company know about this.
The reason for this is that normally, towing companies use winches that pull vehicles onto their trucks. However, if a tow truck driver were to use a winch to pull a vehicle whose wheels were not turning because they were broken, the tyres would scrape along the ground and get ruined. Because tow truck drivers understand how much damage doing this could cause, companies who provide towing services will not usually let their drivers attempt to load vehicles with this type of wheel issue onto their trucks unless the drivers have some extra equipment on hand that will allow them to do it safely.
By giving the towing company a heads-up about your wheels, they can then provide their driver with this equipment. In this situation, they might give them a car-towing dolly; this is a robust metal frame that sits on top of a set of wheels. The tow truck driver can put the car on this dolly, attach the vehicle to their winch system and then roll it onto their truck without doing any damage to the tyres.
Take all of the photos you need before you let the driver tow the car away
If you need to take photos of the damage the accident inflicted on your vehicle so that you can give them to your car insurance provider, then you should do this before it is towed away. The reason for this is you will probably have to get the driver to take your car straight to a mechanic to get it fixed or to a scrap yard if the vehicle cannot be repaired. As such, you might not get another chance to take photos of the car in its unrepaired condition again. If you don't have these photos, you might find that what should have been a simple insurance claim turns into a complicated battle with the car insurance company.
If the accident happened at night or on a foggy day and the lighting conditions are not great, you should take the photos after the tow truck arrives so that you can use the truck's lights to illuminate your vehicle; this will allow you to take clearer images of the damage.
For more information, reach out to a professional who provides towing services.