Why does nationwide car recovery do "handovers"?

[rcx132]

Does anyone know the real reason why nationwide recovery over long distances often relay the car and passengers? Ie one recovery truck does first leg, hands over to another recovery truck and so on? I kept asking each driver why they don't go the whole way, some said it's a legal issue, others made other excuses. I'm very curious?

 

[Chris Snow]

Driving hours? They might not get home?
Just be a guess though.

 

[cheb]

AIUI recovery vehicles are exempt from some tacho regs as long as they don't go more than a certain distance from their registered operating address, 150 miles comes to mind.

 

[qwakers]

Got it in one. Only drivers that do emergency recovery ONLY are exempt drivers hours, the rest have a patch they have to stay on to stay legal

 

[James1979]

AIUI recovery vehicles are exempt from some tacho regs as long as they don't go more than a certain distance from their registered operating address, 150 miles comes to mind.

What he said^^^

 

[Matchless]

They used to run tilt and slide transport/tacho equipped lorries but their accountants decided it was more cost effective to dump customers at service areas every 60 miles to wait for the next guy, my daughter was recovered from Bristol to Epping, took over 13 hours, two tow jig punctures, three or four hand overs, one just two miles from her house! She walked home and told them to drop the car off whenever, knocked on her door at 3am to give her the keys! Brave of them.... oh and she got the "how did we do" text whilst sitting in a services waiting for the next guy to collect her........

 

[cheb]

Or I was recovered from Portree on Skye and recovered to Thurso, with one smooth and quick handover in Inverness.

I was heading to a week long job and decided to get the van fixed, a broken brake pipe, in Thurso. Bad move, it took them all week to replace one brake pipe and it was installed badly enough to chafe an adjacent brake pipe. Pleasant place Thurso, some very good food too.

The plural of anecdote is not evidence.

 

[m_c]

Can be due to various reasons.
The ability to run without a tacho for emergency recovery got tightened a few years ago, so now most recovery companies moving vehicles do run tachos.

Most changes are now down to driver hours, and making the process as efficient as possible to minimise empty lorries.
Swapping lorries several times isn't ideal for the customer, but it'll make sense to the planners who know how many recoveries have to be moved, where they have lorries going, and how many contractors they'll need to use.

 

[Matchless]

The AA has a 60 mile radius from their base when using their towing dollies, non tacho, from memory,

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Pleasant place Thurso, some very good food too.

Aye, it's just a shame it's at the a*rse-end of nowhere.

I had no idea this happens with longer distance recovery jobs, but when you think about it it makes sense.

 

[premmington]

All recovery lorries now mostly work - 100km from the operating centre.

If they sub into a major recovery service - you are just "on relay" pushed from one to the next.

We too don't take our lorry further than the tacho excemption allows (100km or 62miles).

 

[tom2207]

used to be the AA did relay , but RAC did door t door , in the old mk2 Cortina days service guys joined the RAC as it got you home quicker on shorter periods of leave ,,, if you join either recovery service in a motorway service station your cover didnt start until the next day ,,, if you got the right sales guy they would back date it by a day and you got home that day ,, if not you sat till midnight then phoned for recovery ,,,, allegedly.


Were they really the good old days ... lol .. probably just that things were simpler back then , and no computers.

 

[W.olly]

What ever the reason they need to sort it.

It took me near 5 hrs to get home not long ago. I broke down near 40 miles away and they relayed me at a point 15 mins from home. took that long to do the relay.

And after all that the van just had a blown fuse which the first so called mechanic didnt even bother to look at when i told him it was electrics.

Although after that i got a full refund for the cover i paid and an extra £40 for inconveniance. That was the AA

 

[ukracer]

Can be due to various reasons.
The ability to run without a tacho for emergency recovery got tightened a few years ago, so now most recovery companies moving vehicles do run tachos.

Most changes are now down to driver hours, and making the process as efficient as possible to minimise empty lorries.
Swapping lorries several times isn't ideal for the customer, but it'll make sense to the planners who know how many recoveries have to be moved, where they have lorries going, and how many contractors they'll need to use.

Are you sure the planners know??

 

[Matchless]

What ever the reason they need to sort it.

It took me near 5 hrs to get home not long ago. I broke down near 40 miles away and they relayed me at a point 15 mins from home. took that long to do the relay.

And after all that the van just had a blown fuse which the first so called mechanic didnt even bother to look at when i told him it was electrics.

Although after that i got a full refund for the cover i paid and an extra £40 for inconveniance. That was the AA

Daughters car had a bad earth on the electric fuel pump! no one looked at it as it did not have an OBD port! 1990 BMW E30 318is touring, proper old school,

 

[W.olly]

Daughters car had a bad earth on the electric fuel pump! no one looked at it as it did not have an OBD port! 1990 BMW E30 318is touring, proper old school,

thing is this van has. 2006 transit. you could tell he couldnt be bothered.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I once called due to losing oil pressure at hartshead moor, about 5 miles past the services towards manc. Took 2 hrs to pick me up and then I got abandoned at the next services, <8 miles from home. 3 hrs later I still hadn’t heard anything so I phoned back and told them I’d take my chances driving it home. Engine was already goosed so I wasn’t losing anything!