BONNYVILLE – Exceptionally cold temperatures kept local towing companies on their toes with a spike in the number of people needing assistance with their vehicles.
Jody Oliver, owner of Big Time Towing and Recovery Ltd. in Bonnyville, noted their phones were ringing off the hook during some of the area’s coldest temperatures so far this season. The weather dropped to around -40 C, a significant change from -15 C seen in January 2019.
“We were extremely busy from first thing in the morning to the end of the day. We had five drivers out all week long in our Bonnyville location… We were just trying to keep up with the calls,” he recalled.
While Oliver doesn’t keep track of how many requests they receive, he noted there was a jump from what they typically get this time of year.
In Cold Lake, Straightline Towing and Auto Centre also saw an upswing in the amount of customers asking for help.
“We average about one or two a day normally, and then it went up to probably 20 or 30 a day (from Jan. 13 to 18),” noted Arica Beaman, administrative assistant for Straightline.
During the week of Jan. 12, the Alberta Motor Association (AMA) said they received 45,000 calls for service across the province, a significant change from the 1,700 per week they normally see.
A majority of the issues from drivers were vehicles not starting and needing a boost.
“The first two days was mostly that, and after that was when everybody’s vehicles decided they really didn’t want to start. That’s when we got all the tows,” Beaman said.
Oliver added, “There were lots of people leaving their car running and locking their keys inside of them… There were a few tire changes too, because they went flat due to the cold.”
AMA was quoting people 72-hour wait times until someone could offer them assistance.
Both Straightline and Big Time Towing are local AMA partners, and they worked diligently to respond to all of the inquiries in a timely manner.
“It went anywhere from half an hour to the next day,” explained Beaman. “We try to prioritize things, so if it’s just a boost and somebody’s waiting on the side of the road we try to bump those ahead of those who need their vehicles towed because at least the boosts… send people on their way to work, or to drop-off their kids, or whatever they’re doing.”
Oliver said they sent their employees out as quickly as they could.
“We could actually respond with a half an hour. Some of them got up to two or three hours once-in-a-while, depending on how many calls were coming in at once,” he detailed. “We actually managed to stay on top of things. We had enough trucks to keep up, and we managed not to do too bad in the long run… A lot of the calls worked together with timing. We had extra staff during the cold snap, and it all came together at the right time.”
The demand was so high that Big Time Towing was still catching up the following week.
“It was steady, although it did slow down by Wednesday (Jan. 22)… I think people were trying to catch up from the week before and dealing with stuff. There were also some customers we had to put off just because it wasn’t a priority and it didn’t need to be done at the time.”
If a driver is faced with a long wait time for a tow in colder weather, Beaman suggested calling a friend to pick them up so they’re not left out in the cold.
“It’s hard if somebody is waiting in their vehicle, and we can’t get to them right away when it’s -40 C. It puts stress on us, because we might have 40 calls waiting, but now there’s somebody on the side of the road. We have a system usually, and when that happens it messes things up a bit.”
