TR Footnotes FN_0711 : Page 1

TOWING & RECOVERY Now Every T & R Footnotes ❘ July tow 2011 ❘ 1 ADVISOR Partners Month FOOTNOTES July 2011 Keeping industry pros on their tows www.trfootnotes.com ® Are towers gaining respect as ﬁ rst responders? By Allan T. Dufﬁ n “I would like to just encourage you to get and stay involved. What you do is too important not to be recognized, but no one is going to do it for you. You are an industry of hard workers so work hard for your industry. “Remember, decisions about the fu-ture of private sector towing are being made every day and they will be made with or without you, so I encourage you to get involved and get engaged.” — from Cpt. Tom Martin’s address to the TRAA Legislative and Leadership Conference, March 2011 Tom Martin is well familiar with the intricacies of working an incident scene. He knows the key factors at the heart of trafﬁ c incident management: Fast response time, a scene cleared quickly and efﬁ ciently, smooth coop-eration among responders. A retired captain with the Virginia State Police, Martin works on traf-ﬁ c incident management and safety issues for the I-95 Corridor Coalition, an alliance of transportation agencies, toll authorities, and related organiza-tions. Membership covers 16 states along the East Coast, from Maine to Florida — all connected by Inter-state 95. Martin’s speech at the March TRAA Legislative and Leadership Confer-ence was called “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of The Way: The Future of Private Sector Towing.” In it, he hit many key points with regard to the towing in-dustry’s role in trafﬁ c incident man-agement, especially as key responders at incident scenes. He agrees that tow-PRST STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID PEORIA, IL PERMIT NO. 315 Cpt. Tom Martin on duty ing and recovery personnel should be treated as equals among other experts tasked with clearing the roads. a long way in helping the other re-sponders understand what’s going on.” Great Strides “Over the years I’ve seen great im-provement in how the towing and recovery industry is perceived,” said Martin. “Many years ago law enforce-ment looked at towers as a necessar-ily evil. There wasn’t much engage-ment except that the towers showed up at the scene and helped clear the accident.” Fortunately, added Martin, the re-lationship between law enforcement and towing took great strides as tow-ers were asked to participate in train-ing and other programs that helped improve incident management pro-cedures. The Corridor Coalition offers work-shops dealing with subjects such as quick clearance. “Everyone’s invited,” said Martin. “We just had one of these workshops in Portland, Maine, and one in Connecticut.” Of the 60 attend-ees, continued Martin, at least 10 peo-ple from seven different towing com-panies were in the audience. “It’s so good when we have the tow-ers there,” said Martin, “because they can address their problems. Having them there to discuss their issues goes The Coalition The I-95 Corridor Coalition has three staff positions: an operations program coordinator; a travel infor-mation service coordinator who ar-chives trafﬁ c data; and the intermo-dal coordinator, who deals with truck parking and marine highways. “We tie all modes of transportation together,” explained Martin, “whether it’s rail, water, or ground.” The Coalition is funded by the Fed-eral Highway Administration through its annual transportation authoriza-tion bill. “We don’t buy anything. We don’t sell anything. We don’t tell any-body what to do or how to do it,” said Martin. “We build consensus.” Mar-tin’s role as the operations program coordinator is to supervise the organi-zation’s efforts with regard to incident management and safety. For example: One topic that always pops up at the Coalition’s workshops is the situation with local rotation lists. “You’ll talk to agencies that have rotation lists, and they’ll say the lists are fair,” noted Martin. Sometimes, however, towers don’t feel that way. See EQUAL PARTNERS? page 3 Volume 22, Number 3 ❘ $3.95 © 2011 Dominion Enterprises. All Rights Reserved. Towing & Recovery Footnotes ® 10 Bokum Rd. Essex, CT 06426

EQUAL PARTNERS?

By Allan T. Duffin “I would like to just encourage you to get and stay involved. What you do is too important not to be recognized, but no one is going to do it for you. You are an industry of hard workers so work hard for your industry. “Remember, decisions about the future of private sector towing are being made every day and they will be made with or without you, so I encourage you to get involved and get engaged.” — from Cpt. Tom Martin’s address to the TRAA Legislative and Leadership Conference, March 2011 Tom Martin is well familiar with the intricacies of working an incident scene. He knows the key factors at the heart of traffic incident management: Fast response time, a scene cleared quickly and effi ciently, smooth cooperation among responders. A retired captain with the Virginia State Police, Martin works on traffi c incident management and safety issues for the I-95 Corridor Coalition, an alliance of transportation agencies, toll authorities, and related organizations. Membership covers 16 states along the East Coast, from Maine to Florida — all connected by Interstate 95. Martin’s speech at the March TRAA Legislative and Leadership Conference was called “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of The Way: The Future of Private Sector Towing.” In it, he hit many key points with regard to the towing industry’s role in traffi c incident management, especially as key responders at incident scenes. He agrees that towing and recovery personnel should be treated as equals among other experts tasked with clearing the roads. Great Strides “Over the years I’ve seen great improvement in how the towing and recovery industry is perceived,” said Martin. “Many years ago law enforcement looked at towers as a necessarily evil. There wasn’t much engagement except that the towers showed up at the scene and helped clear the accident.” Fortunately, added Martin, the relationship between law enforcement and towing took great strides as towers were asked to participate in training and other programs that helped improve incident management procedures. The Corridor Coalition offers workshops dealing with subjects such as quick clearance. “Everyone’s invited,” said Martin. “We just had one of these workshops in Portland, Maine, and one in Connecticut.” Of the 60 attendees, continued Martin, at least 10 people from seven different towing companies were in the audience. “It’s so good when we have the towers there,” said Martin, “because they can address their problems. Having them there to discuss their issues goes a long way in helping the other responders understand what’s going on.” The Coalition The I-95 Corridor Coalition has three staff positions: an operations program coordinator; a travel information service coordinator who archives traffi c data; and the intermodal coordinator, who deals with truck parking and marine highways. “We tie all modes of transportation together,” explained Martin, “whether it’s rail, water, or ground.” The Coalition is funded by the Federal Highway Administration through its annual transportation authorization bill. “We don’t buy anything. We don’t sell anything. We don’t tell anybody what to do or how to do it,” said Martin. “We build consensus.” Martin’s role as the operations program coordinator is to supervise the organization’s efforts with regard to incident management and safety. For example: One topic that always pops up at the Coalition’s workshops is the situation with local rotation lists. “You’ll talk to agencies that have rotation lists, and they’ll say the lists are fair,” noted Martin. Sometimes, however, towers don’t feel that way. Martin added that the Coalition tries to help agencies maintain balance in their rotation lists. “We meet with everyone and try to make sure it’s a level playing field.” Issues Remain Martin noted that the towing community’s professionalism has blossomed over the past several decades. “It started with the Towing and Recovery Association of America,” he explained. “They developed the Traffi c Incident Management Handbook.” That guide, said Martin, ensured that towers had information about incident management — and that they knew how to respond to various incidents on the road. “As [towers] started to engage that concept, in most locations I’ve found that they’re now an equal partner in traffi c incident management, scene clearance, and unifi ed command,” said Martin. Despite this progress, Martin acknowledged that the attitude is not all-pervasive and there’s still progress to be made. “There are pockets of resistance everywhere,” said Martin, “and problems with law enforcement too. But those problems are smaller than they used to be.” Look The Part What is Martin’s advice for towers who respond to incident scenes? “On a broad scale the greatest thing that towers can do is to work on the perception of professionalism,” said Martin. Law enforcement agencies, he explained, consider themselves professional organizations. Most of them wear uniforms, for example, and their vehicles are well identified. The same goes for the fi re department and personnel from the department of transportation. Like those organizations, said Martin, the towing and recovery industry is a group of professionals and should present itself that way: “It’s important to be image-conscious. When they show up on-scene, they should have some semblance of a uniform. It could be just a company t-shirt and nice slacks.” In addition, said Martin, tow vehicles should display a professional image, including a sharp paint job. “We see a lot where it’s not that way,” explained Martin. Interpersonal communication is another key part of maintaining a professional image. “It’s important that towers are engaging other responders — not only at-scene but also prior to getting there.” To read Cpt. Martin’s speech, go to either of these web sites: 1. Footnotes’ TowBlog at: http://trfootnotesnews.blogspot. com/2011/05/from-traas-legislativeleadership- 2011.html 2. Footnotes’ Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/note.php ?note_id=10150187096547842 Retired Virginia State Police Capt. Tom Martin joined the I-95 Corridor Coalition staff in December 2008 as its Operations Program Coordinator. He has extensive background in incident management and safety, and managing large public agency programs. Cpt. Martin recently retired from the Virginia State Police after 34 years of service, where he was the Commander of both Patrol Divisions and the Criminal Intelligence Division. During his time with the State Police, he participated in a number of major law enforcement missions, including the terrorist attack at the Pentagon. Cpt. Martin was also a multi-agency task force leader deployed to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. He has been an invited speaker and served on expert panels at numerous state and national transportation and Homeland Security conferences.

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