OKLAHOMA WRECKER OWNERS ASSOCIATION
300 SW 29TH
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 73109-6793
(405) 319-1724
APRIL 2004
DEAR FELLOW WRECKER OWNERS:
I have a lot of news and information. First of all, I want to thank Jimmy Robertson (Lenox Wrecker, Owasso) and Gaylon & Gaylon Chiles (Chiles Repair & Wrecker, Seiling) for coming to the Capitol to help get SB1416 out of committee. Thanks to them they were able to make contact with a few Senators that had a problem with our bill and help get “Yes for now, but I want to see different language soon” votes. This is very important to keeping our bill moving forward. It’s a million times better than NO. Thanks for the drive time and giving up a day at the Capitol for your fellow wrecker owners. This newsletter will be sent to ALL members & wrecker owners. I will have a special update for members only in the next couple of weeks to cover the progress of our bills.
Our bill, SB1416 was heard on the Senate Floor on March 8th. We passed without any NO votes. Good job to all that called their Senators. The “title is off our bill” which means we need to go to a Conference Committee when the bill (if the bill) passes through the House. It will next be heard Monday, March 29th at 8:30 AM in the House Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee in Room 512A. Representative Bill Paulk (OKC) is the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman is Lucky Lamons (Tulsa). The Committee members are: Neil Brannon (Arkoma), Mary Easley (Tulsa), Stuart Ericson (Muskogee), Bill Graves (OKC), Ron Kirby (Lawton), Mark Liotta (Tulsa), Ray McCarter (Marlow & the House Author of our bill), John Nance (Bethany), Mike O’Neal (Enid), Fred Perry (Tulsa), Pam Peterson (Tulsa), Mike Reynolds (OKC), Paul Roan (Tishomingo), Glen Bud Smithson (Sallisaw), and Mike Tyler (Sapulpa). These are the House Members we need to make sure understand our bill by Monday. If you know these Representatives, please contact them and let them know we need help in making sure we get paid. They don’t know anything about our business and we need to let them know we have problems. If we pass out of this Committee on Monday, our next destination will be the House Floor. That’s when we need the support of ALL the House Representatives. Our bill must pass out of the House Committee by April 1st or we are done for the year. Start contacting all of the Representatives to ask for support.
Around 20-30% (or more in some areas) of the vehicles we tow are abandoned and the salvage is not worth anything. Sometimes we have to pay to get rid of these cars. We know we will never collect on every vehicle. The number of abandoned vehicles is increasing every year and we do not get paid about a third of the time now. We cannot continue this. Our insurance has doubled and tripled. If we don’t get paid on more vehicles, we won’t be able to clear the roads of junk vehicles and law enforcement won’t get the help they need. We must get paid.
We are trying to pass Florida’s law to help us get paid. We need a way to help us collect and stop the vehicles from being abandoned on us. This is a National problem, not just Oklahoma. Many states have passed and are passing solutions to this National problem. We held a Senate Interim Study Committee this past fall and it was determined that we need something to help us get paid. This bill may keep an individual from purchasing a renewal tag for 3 years if they “dump” a law enforcement tow on a wrecker owner. This doesn’t apply to any other tows, only law enforcement. The DPS will send a notice with their “notification” process to warn the owner. We will put a notice in with our T42 abandoned vehicle letter. The Tax Commission will send a letter to the registered owner 30 days before their name is entered on the list. An owner may simply send a letter stating they don’t own the vehicle and we will not be able to add their name to the list. If they have the name of the buyer, we can pursue them. This doesn’t apply to car purchases, only renewals. The registered owner will have many chances to stop this process if they don’t own the vehicle. Once on the list their name may be removed by paying the wrecker fees and 10 days storage to the wrecker owner, but they will still be civilly responsible for the rest of the fees in a court of law. The Tax Commission says they cannot perform this task unless Oklahoma changes to “tag the owner” process like Kansas, Arkansas, Florida, or many other states (the tag stays with the owner and not the vehicle). This idea is supported by law enforcement and it should help cut down on uninsured motorists since they can’t use someone else’s tag. It will also give the vehicle owner another reason to come to our facilities to claim ownership. Ray McCarter wants to introduce this to the House Floor. This will be quite a battle and may cause our bill to be unsuccessful if we don’t contact our Senators and let them know our problems. Start contacting your Representative as soon as possible to let them know you need help. There is another proposal we have setup if this doesn’t work and we get a chance to fix it in Conference Committee. This is going to be an exciting year. Make sure your legislators know we need help.
We are also removing back tags, taxes, stop flags, and other back fees for title 42 vehicles for class AA wreckers. If we are required to help law enforcement, we shouldn’t be penalized when the vehicle is dumped on us. We are also raising the extra labor fees to $30.00 per hour. We can’t even hire anyone to help unload the vehicles on nights and weekends, even if we give them the entire $14.00 we are allowed to charge. We are also raising the work and wait fees since they haven’t been raised since around 1992 (11 years is too long). We are also asking that the Fuel Surcharge we had in the 80’s be re-instated so we can reduce the effect of fuel price spikes. The Federal Government has set up a web site to monitor this weekly. Every business in America that uses fuel has added a fuel surcharge (e.g. airlines, trucking, shipping, Fed-Ex, UPS, and on and on). It has been announced on National TV shows that fuel could go “well over” $2.00/gal in the next year. We need this to survive. Please call your Legislator and ask for a YES vote on SB1416. I want to thank Jeri Trope (Senate Staff) and Suzanne Broadbent (Senate Legal Staff) for all their help and efforts and GREAT ideas to help keep our bill moving forward. We owe them a great deal. Needless to say our bill’s authors, Senator Sam Helton and Representative Ray McCarter, are instrumental in keeping the bill alive. I have no idea what we will end up with or if we will get anything. All I know is now is the time to make sure our voice is heard and our feelings known. We must keep the pressure on.
As you can see, SB1416 covers a lot of area and it will take a lot of calls and contact with our legislators to make sure this bill passes the legislature this session. Don’t forget, the great majority of bills will die; we don’t want that to happen to ours. I need to make sure I have everyone’s email and fax numbers. It is the most reliable and quick method to spread the word quickly and efficiently. Please, please, please, if you didn’t receive an email or fax from me on March 19th then, I don’t have your correct email address. If you didn’t get a fax around February 27th, I don’t have your fax number!!!!! Send it to me now!!!!!! Several have and I appreciate your help. You can send email through the OWOA web site. Just log on to the Internet at www.okwoa.org. Click on the “Send a Message to your President” link and it will open a page to email a message to me. I will be able to get your email from sending me a message on this link. If you only have a fax, please fax a message to 405 631-3460 with your fax number listed and I can load it in the computer. If there are any special procedures, please write that down also (such as, “call first”, call at night, or whatever). Please leave your fax machine on in the evenings during the session so I can contact you. I don’t need any notes if you have a dedicated fax line. If you know your Senator and/or Representative’s name, give that to me also. It will become extremely important later in the Legislative Session. Call your legislator now and ask for a YES vote on SB1416 and explain it to your legislator in your own words. We need help getting paid.
HB2101 – Insurance Anti-steering & total losses
I want to let every OWOA member know how proud I am to be a member of this organization. I love it when our members call when asked and keep in contact with their legislator. It makes my job easier. I mentioned HB2101 as a body shop bill to help stop insurance steering. We didn’t get in the committee we wanted and were put in the Insurance Committee, which is where it probably belonged anyway. We were told by the Insurance Committee chairman that he wouldn’t hear the bill if Allstate and Farmers lobbyists weren’t happy. Every new word relating to body shops and steering was removed just to keep the bill alive. We wrecker owners are the only ones that have a dog in this fight now. I attribute our ability to keep the wrecker portion of the bill alive due to the activity of 181 members keeping in contact with their legislators. Farmers talked against the bill but we were able to pass the Insurance Committee anyway. I think the chairman was surprised we passed. I can tell you from personal experience, the insurance lobbyists seem to “own” the insurance committee and all the members.
When a vehicle is a total loss the insurance company is required to put any lienholders name on the check for the vehicle to be sure the loan is paid off. HB2101 makes the insurance company responsible for wrecker and storage fees on a “total loss” and requires the licensed wrecker service’s name be on the insurance check for wrecker and storage fees unless a paid receipt is available for the wrecker and storage fees. (There was an amendment added in the committee meeting that limits their exposure to policy limits on a pro-rata share.) Hopefully this will stop the insurance adjuster from paying the vehicle owner for the car and the wrecker and storage fees and making the check out to the owner only and not picking up the vehicle. While the insurance company may still not pick up the vehicle, at least you will get paid and have the owner asking you to sign the insurance check. The vehicle owner won’t get paid if you don’t. This shouldn’t change the operation of the salvage pool since they will have a paid receipt
There was also an amendment added on the House Floor that we can’t perform. The insurance lobbyists added an amendment to be notified in 5 days for a total loss vehicle. To be able to perform this task we are asking for access to the OTC/MVD insurance records and accident reports along with changing the time to a time period similar to the PPI notices (3 business days to ask for it- 7 business days to mail). You aren’t required to notify an insurer unless you want your name on the check and the vehicle is an obvious total loss. They are still responsible for fees if they want the car even if you don’t send the letter. This is a wrecker owner’s choice. We need to thank Lexa Shafer (Senate Staff) for her great ideas and help in “fixing” the insurance amendment so we can live with this bill’s language. The bill’s authors are Representative Bill Paulk, Representative Al Lindley of the House and Senator Sam Helton and Senator Debbe Leftwich of the Senate. We need a big thanks to these Legislators for helping us.
Be sure to contact your legislator and make sure they understand the importance of a “YES” vote on HB2101. This bill will be heard Monday March 29th in the Senate Business and Labor Committee. We must make sure we have several members contact Senator Maxine Horner (Tulsa) who is the Committee chair and make sure she allows the bill to be heard. The Vice-Chairman is Senator Harry Coates (Seminole). The members of the Committee are: Randy Brogdon (Owasso), Mike Fair (OKC), Jay Paul Gumm (Durant), Debbe Leftwich (OKC), Richard Lerblance (Hartshorne), Angela Monson (OKC), David Myers (Ponca City), Frank Shurden (Henryetta), James Williamson (Tulsa). We need to let these Senators know that we aren’t getting paid when we should be. We need help to make sure we collect for our services. No one wants to work for free.
I will let our members with emails know what happened to both bills on Tuesday, March 30th. I will also try to make a special mailing to members to let them know how this week went and what we may need to do next. If any legislator has a problem with the bill or if they have any concerns, please do not hesitate a moment to contact me. We need this bill to help the wrecker owners that are located a long ways from a salvage pool and have cars dumped on them consistently because the insurance company doesn’t want to move the car. This practice must stop.
Gene Fitzpatrick announced at our February meeting that there would be an Administrative Rules meeting on Friday, March 19th, 2004 at 10:30 AM in the Conference Room at the Robert E Lester Training Center. Most of the changes are to correct language but there are a couple of items that need to be discussed. Most of the rules shouldn’t cause problems for most wrecker owners. You may obtain a copy (25 pages) on the internet at http://okdps.us/2004.html and go the Wreckers. There are also some other rule changes for hours of service and Size & Weights. You may want to look at that also. One area of concern is dealing with releasing personal property. We want to make sure the rule doesn’t adversely affect wrecker owners. We want to be sure we are protected. We had several wrecker owners there to let their opinions be known and make some changes to the suggested rules. The good news is: the “dreaded DPS notification fee” language is being removed from our “Reg” book. Thank God! I still break out in a cold sweat when I think about it. There will be a new Regulation Manual printed later this year.
Gene was going to regulate the price of “haz-mat” material but after some discussion he decided it would be too big of a burden and there are a couple of government agencies working on guidelines right now. So until we know what is and isn’t required it won’t be on the list for now. I will keep the membership informed as the information is sent to me. There is a rule added that you will need to carry absorbent but you will not be required to remove the absorbent. This is just a “first responder” procedure. But be forewarned, be reasonable with your fees and this may not be an issue. If you get too carried away without documenting and justifying your fee, it could become regulated and cause the rest of us a lot of problems.
There is some language to stop unlicensed wreckers from jumping across the state line and performing wrecker service and going back across the state line. This wording could also limit “solicitation” for wrecker calls by in state wreckers also. The language is being strengthened to stop a wrecker from pulling up and offering services for fees. You will be allowed to stop and help in an emergency if you want, but you cannot ask for business without a penalty. Wreckers will no longer be able to have a magnetic amber light to get a wrecker licensed. The amber light must be permanently affixed. There is some language to stop “misleading” information on the wrecker vehicle. There is also some language added about releasing personal property to the vehicle owner. I will cover that later in a letter to the members when I get the amended copy from David Beatty at the DPS.
Towing & Recovery School
Our Towing & Recovery School is set for May 4th thru May 8th. May 4th & 5th will be light-duty. May 7th & May 8th will be heavy-duty. (The evening of May 6th will be the brainstorming session, which is open to everyone.) I hope that I have finally corrected the sign up form to have the correct dates (Thanks to Brian Albrecht of Cavin’s Wrecker in El Reno). These are separate classes with separate fees. You may attend both classes if you would like. Tom Luciano will be the instructor again. Light Duty class will be $200.00 for pre-registered members ($300 for pre-registered non-members) and heavy duty will be $250 for pre-registered members ($350 for pre-registered non-members). Fees will be $50.00 higher at the door. We are in the early stages but if you would like to attend or send some employees, please let us know you support the idea of training. Again, it will be first come, first serve basis except that members will have a preference over non-members. The last school was a great success and may have been one of the best in the nation. There will be a $100.00 non-refundable deposit required to secure your spot and we will still offer a full refund (with a written request at the end of class) of fees if you attend all the class and still don’t think you learned anything (excluding a family/medical emergency). Your dues must be current the date of class to be able to attend for the members discount price.
We will again offer the TRAA Certification Test (Level One & Level Two) at the end of class on Saturday. You must be pre-registered to take the test. We need to make sure we have a test available for you. It is a very good idea to get the test study guide before class and study the information before hand. If you have any questions during class it would be a great idea to bring it up in class. Did you know that Dewey Farrington helped write some of the test questions? Dewey is also one of the Level 3 administrators (the guys that ask the questions and interpret the correct response). Contact me or call the OWOA phone number to get a study guide and application.
At the National TRAA Conference in Arlington, VA (Washington DC) they covered several topics from abandoned autos and rotation. But the emphasis was on Incident Management, accident reconstruction and what’s coming in the future. The DOT is looking at requiring states to have their wrecker services become certified in some manner and attend training classes. The DOT has suggested that they may withhold Highway Funds if these things aren’t implemented. They aren’t doing this to be mean, they want trained personnel at an incident ready to handle whatever comes their way. The fire fighters and law enforcement have upgraded and increased their training and they powers that be think traffic incident management responders should do the same. I have warned of this before. I know this is coming, I just don’t know when it will start. It will be much better to be prepared and have a system in place than to be dictated to by someone that doesn’t ever get on the roadway. Think about it.
NEXT MEETING – WEATHERFORD – APRIL 13TH
We didn’t have a meeting in March since I had so much on my “plate” with the National TRAA Conference, Legislative Meetings, DPS Meeting, and Oklahoma City Planning meetings. I apologize but I just needed to step back and catch my breath. I didn’t get any phone calls so I asked Albert’s Wrecker in Weatherford to host a meeting. We will meet at Mark Restaurant in Weatherford. The Mark Restaurant is located at 601 E Main St in Weatherford. There is a buffet or you may order off the menu. The meeting is on Tuesday, April 13th. The meal starts at 7:00 PM (or when you get there) and the meeting starts at 8:00 PM. I will have the progress of the bills and if we have time I will cover the DPS Rules Meeting topics and the TRAA Legislative Conference. The meeting is for anyone and you aren’t required to be a member to attend, although the members get the best food, especially the dessert (I’m kidding). Non-members can only listen with one ear and watch with one eye (again, I’m kidding), but non-members must wear duct tape over their mouths except when eating (you decide if I’m kidding on this one). Be sure to check your mail label for an expiration date. If it’s after April 1st, 2005 then your dues are due now. Some of you non-members will have a date that might be before you even owned a wrecker (1/1/90). Under my old database system I had to enter a default date to sort the labels. Take a deep breath and relax, it doesn’t mean anything, except the IRS will want to collect taxes for those years you didn’t file while on the OWOA registry (again, I’m kidding). I hope to see you in Weatherford on April 13th.
NEXT MEETING
April 13, 2004 – Tuesday
Mark Restaurant – 601 E Main - Weatherford, Oklahoma
Meal @ 7:00 PM - Meeting @ 8:00 PM
Call your legislators and ask for support for:
SB1416 & HB2101- Vote YES on both bills
MONDAY March 29th is the day of decision
OWOA PRESENTS
Tom Luciano Towing and Recovery Schools
1. Light Duty – May 4th & 5th, 2004 ($200/Member)
Heavy-Duty Recovery May 7th & 8th, 2004 ($250/Member)
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM – For both classes – Separate Schools
“Brainstorming” Session Open to All – Thursday, May 6th = 7:00 PM
TRAA Certification test will be offered after class on Saturday. You must pre-register for test.
Study Guide included – Certificate of Completion for Courses
PLUS: HANDS-ON DEMONSTRATIONS
Pre-Register by April 12th = $100.00 non refundable deposit needed
Balance due first day of Class – Payable to OWOA
OWOA MEMBER (with paid deposit) =Light= $200/head // Heavy $250/head
Membership in ANY State Association will be allowed. Proof of membership must be received with application
Additional participants from same member company= $150.00/Hd
($100 Deposit needed for Additional Employees - $50.00 due at the Door)
Members Registering at the Door =Light = $250//Heavy= $300.00
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Pre-Registered ($100.00 paid deposit) Non-Member = Light $300/Heavy $350
Mail registration fees to: OWOA, 300 SW 29th, OKC, OK 73109
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SCHOOL REGISTRATION (Please Print)
Company Name* ________________________ Phone_____________________________ *For Multiple Student Discount Company Name must be the same for each Student.
Address_______________________________City _________________ST____Zip_________ TRAA Certification Test will be offered Saturday after class. You MUST pre-register for test.
Light Duty Student Name(s)(Please Print) -___________________________________________________ $100 Deposit needed for each student pre-registering for each class.
Heavy Duty Student Name(s)___________________________________________________
TRAA Certification Test- Lvl 1 _______________________ Lvl 2 _________________________ Please contact the OWOA to acquire the Study Guide and Application for the TRAA test.
Light ___/ Heavy ___Amount Included $_________ / Member= Yes No / Balance Due $________
OWOA use only…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Deposit included ____ Full Fees paid ____ Ck # ______ Date _____ Amt$__________ |
Money back guarantee – If not satisfied, fees will be refunded. No questions asked.
Requests for refunds must be made in writing by the end of the last day of class.
Oklahoma City Police and Fire Training Center
(Due West of Oklahoma State Fairgrounds)