We were camping out in the desert near Ridgecrest, CA in November and one of my buddies needed to leave early but his truck wouldn't start.
He has AAA and called for a tow. The company nearby gave him a few bits of bad news:
1. They were having staffing problems and their main driver for the day (this was a Monday) was hungover and called out sick. It took them most of the day to get another driver in from Barstow.
2. They don't do dirt. If you aren't on the highway, they won't touch you. That seemed reasonable to me, but I had to tow him a few miles from camp to get him to the highway. (I took some pictures, but didn't want to be a jerk and show a RAM towing a Chevy to the road.)
3. After he was hooked up on the flatbed, the driver told him he could get him MOST of the way home, but not all the way because of the CHP scales. He claimed that the Chevy dually put him overweight and he couldn't chance it with the scales. Luckily my buddy found a shop just outside of town and it worked out fine.
I was pretty surprised that AAA took him as far as they did. It was probably 150 miles back from camp, but the driver didn't flinch (except for the part about the scales).
My buddy was really steamed about the slow service, but I think he made out pretty well compared to some of the horror stories I read here.
I was glad to have a recovery strap to tow him out to the highway. It's one of those things you hope you never need, but it's golden when you need it.
