Recovering a heavy-duty vehicles requires advanced math skills, proper training, and great communication skills. The job of a tow operator is not limited to the highway recoveries; they have to be ready to respond to any accident, whether it is recovering a vehicle on unmaintained logging road, pulling a fully-loaded semi truck out of a lake, or rescuing a tractor trailer stuck on an overpass embankment. The value of a professional training is that it gives tow truck operators a strong foundation of knowledge that they can build on when dealing with various situations on the job.
“If something goes wrong, it could be fatal. If a chain breaks, or you don’t rig the truck correctly, or your wire rope breaks — when you’re dealing with those kinds of weights, the chances of something catastrophic happening is much, much higher,” said Mitchell Martin, owner/operator of Mitchell’s Towing in North Vancouver in an interview for Speaking of Safety. Read the full interview here.
This summer, British Columbia hosted the first-ever Canadian WreckMaster 8/9R level training teaching the most advanced rigging and winching techniques. As part of the training, students practiced one of the most advanced techniques ever when they hoisted a small vehicle on two wire ropes to a height of about six metres by using two heavy-duty trucks. Read more about this advanced training here.