‘How not to tow’ security camera footage shows incredible triple crash
If you think common sense is still common, you need to watch a video shared by the Sheriff of Pierce County, Washington. The Sheriff’s Department is looking for more information about a hit-and-run, but couldn’t pass up a chance for some laughs. The police department even titled the video How Not to Tow a Car.
A driver reportedly rolled up to an AutoZone in a Mercury Montego around 5:45 p.m. They were presumably hoping to buy some parts and get their malfunctioning vehicle working correctly. But no dice. They went inside and said they had to leave the vehicle for a while, but promised to have it towed soon.
Security footage shows a man and a woman arriving at the lot at 3:45 a.m. in a white Honda Pilot, pulling a tow dolly. A tow dolly is a sort of mini trailer, designed to lift just two of a vehicle’s wheels off the ground. The only problem was that the front-wheel-drive Mercury Montego was parked facing the AutoZone, and the parking lot sloped down toward the storefront.
The couple appears to spend the next 1.5 hours working out a solution. At 5:15 a.m., they hook a canvas tow strap to the back of the Montego and the tow dolly. Then they pull it to the other end of the parking lot. The strap comes free, and the man runs alongside the red sedan, apparently trying to stop it with brute force, before finally abandoning it to smash through the front of a pho restaurant that has the misfortune of being neighbors with the AutoZone.
If at first you don’t succeed, call a professional tow truck
They leave the Mercury inside the store for a while and puzzle over what to do next. At 5:50 a.m., they hook up the same tow strap to the same spot on the Montego, then pull it all the way back across the parking lot. Can you guess what happens next?
The tow strap comes loose again. The Montego rolls back down the hill and smashes into the storefronts a second time. At this point, it’s nearly 6 a.m. The would-be tow truck driver has smashed two storefronts, and it’s only a matter of time before employees begin arriving. He hooks the long ratchet strap to the nearly totaled Montego, pulls it back to the top of the lot, and along the back side of the building before trying to pull it over a curb. The midsize sedan becomes hopelessly stuck, so the couple unhook it and drive off.
I understand the challenge of loading a FWD car that’s parked against a curb. But I really don’t understand the reasoning here. With two people, someone could have just sat in the car to operate the brakes. If the car was locked or the brakes weren’t working, they could have walked next to it with a brick or block of wood to wedge the wheels. This would have been an excellent job to leave to a professional.
See the towing attempts in the video embedded below:
