STATESVILLE, N.C. (WBTV) - Wade Estes believes he's lucky to be alive after a crash involving his dump truck earlier this year.
"The lady ran a stop sign and I didn't have enough time to stop," Estes told WBTV.
"When it happened, I felt like I was going to die for sure."
After emerging from his rolled dump truck unscathed, Estes felt lucky. But that feeling didn't last very long after he received the bill from the towing company that removed his hauler from the side of the road.
They were charging more than $50,000.
"They want you to pay this big tow bill, and it's pretty much pay or lose your truck," Estes said.
WBTV's continued investigation into the Wild West of Towing in Charlotte has expanded across the state and found new problems plaguing truckers and drivers who crash on state roads.
Estes' truck was hauled away by Ultimate Towing & Recovery, which operates in Mount Airy, Statesville and Virginia.
North Carolina State Highway Patrol responded to his crash scene. State law creates a wrecker rotation system managed by law enforcement to get these crashes cleared.
"It's not really much of a choice to the motor carrier," Ben Banks said.
Banks is Vice President of TCW in Savanah, GA. He's very familiar with Ultimate Towing after one of his drivers crashed in North Carolina. Even though the company has received multiple awards for its safety record, enough trucks have crashed or broken down that Banks said he's familiar with what a tow should cost.
"We were expecting $6,000 to $8,000 based on, historical, similar, instances," Banks said.
The first bill he received from Ultimate far exceeded those expectations.
"I knew this $27,000 invoice was astronomical," Banks said.
The second invoice came as an even bigger shock.
"$61,000. Just like the first invoice, astronomical," Banks said.
TCW hauls cargo freight from shipping ports while Estes moves dirt and gravel for local construction projects. They're both literal and figurative engines of the American economy.
Despite never speaking to each other and living nearly 300 miles apart, Estes and Banks had many of the same questions when they saw the bills.
https://www.wbtv.com/2024/0...han-50000/
