Predatory Towing: FMCSA Opened the Door in 2024. Why Has It Gone Quiet?

A tractor-trailer crashes. Police secure the scene. The carrier asks to contact its preferred heavy-duty recovery company—but a towing provider has already been dispatched from a law-enforcement rotation list.

The truck, trailer, and possibly its cargo are taken away. Only afterward does the carrier learn the price.

The invoice may include multiple wreckers, specialized equipment, supervisors, administrative charges, cleanup fees, storage, and other vaguely described expenses. If the carrier disputes the bill, its equipment can remain in the towing company’s possession while storage charges continue to accumulate.

This does not describe every towing company. Heavy-duty recovery is dangerous, specialized work requiring costly equipment and trained operators. Reputable towing professionals deserve to be paid fairly.

But what happens when the company controlling the truck also controls the price, the invoice, and the conditions for releasing it?

FMCSA recognized the problem

On February 7, 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that FMCSA was supporting federal protections against predatory towing fees. The agency warned that these charges could add thousands of dollars to a commercial tow and urged the Federal Trade Commission to include towing in its proposed junk-fee rule. Read USDOT’s announcement.

FMCSA then opened Docket No. FMCSA-2024-0124 and held a public meeting on June 21, 2024. Motor carriers, towing companies, and industry representatives were invited to discuss pricing transparency, invoice practices, and whether commercial vehicle owners are informed of charges before a tow. The comment deadline was eventually extended to August 1, 2024. Review the FMCSA public-meeting record.

The evidence submitted with FMCSA’s comments was difficult to ignore:

• An analysis of crash-related towing invoices classified 29.8% as containing some form of predatory billing.
• The average pre-tax crash-tow bill was approximately $8,926, while invoices classified as predatory averaged approximately $18,155.
• One-quarter of the analyzed crash-related invoices were not meaningfully itemized.
• Motor carriers reported using their preferred towing company in a median of only 10% of towaway crashes.
• Thirty-six percent of responding carriers said they never had an opportunity to select the towing company.

Those figures come from research included with FMCSA’s formal submission to the FTC. Read FMCSA’s filing and supporting research.

The illusion of choice

The state-level picture is especially troubling.

The research found that 23 states had laws or state-police policies supporting some form of carrier choice. Yet the decision frequently remained with law enforcement, particularly when officials believed the vehicle presented a traffic or public-safety hazard.

That distinction matters. A right that can disappear at the scene—without a transparent standard, written explanation, or practical appeal—is not much of a right.

Police need authority to clear dangerous roadways quickly. But should emergency authority also create an unrestricted commercial relationship between a carrier and a towing company the carrier did not choose?

If law enforcement selects the provider, who is responsible for ensuring that the provider’s prices, equipment deployment, and release practices are reasonable?

The federal protection never arrived

FMCSA’s 2024 effort was tied partly to the FTC’s proposed rule against unfair or deceptive fees. But when the FTC finalized its rule in December 2024, it applied specifically to live-event tickets and short-term lodging—not commercial towing. Other industries remained subject to case-by-case enforcement under existing law. Read the FTC’s final-rule announcement.

As of this writing, FMCSA’s public rulemaking index identifies the May 2024 meeting notice and July 2024 comment extension, but I could locate no subsequent proposed rule, final rule, or nationwide trucker-protection framework arising from Docket No. FMCSA-2024-0124. That is an inference from the agency’s published record—not proof that no internal work occurred. Search FMCSA’s rulemaking index.

The public, however, cannot evaluate internal work it cannot see.

Questions FMCSA should answer

Was the 2024 roundtable the beginning of a genuine policy initiative—or a listening session with no deliverable?

What did FMCSA learn from the comments, and where is its written assessment?

If nearly three out of ten analyzed crash-tow invoices showed possible predatory billing, what level of evidence would be enough to trigger action?

Why should a hotel guest receive federally mandated fee transparency while a small carrier recovering a six-figure tractor, trailer, and load may receive the price only after losing control of the equipment?

Should law-enforcement rotation lists be treated as public-safety tools—or as government-created captive markets requiring procurement-level transparency?

Who audits complaints against rotation-list towing companies?

Should a carrier be entitled to an itemized invoice, the equipment deployment record, dispatch and arrival times, photographs, mileage, and the applicable rate schedule?

Should disputed equipment and cargo be released through a neutral bond or escrow process so that storage charges cannot become leverage?

And the most uncomfortable question: If FMCSA agrees that predatory towing threatens the financial health of motor carriers, why has the public record gone quiet?

What meaningful protection could look like

A credible national framework would not impose arbitrary prices on legitimate recovery work. It could establish minimum procedural protections:

• Published rotation-list rates and qualification requirements.
• Itemized invoices showing equipment, personnel, hours, mileage, and surcharges.
• Carrier choice when the preferred provider can meet a defined response window.
• Independent review of disputed police-initiated towing invoices.
• Prompt release of cargo and equipment through bond or escrow.
• Limits on additional storage charges while a properly documented dispute is pending.
• Public reporting of complaints, suspensions, and removals from police rotation lists.

Truckers should not have to choose between paying a questionable invoice and watching additional charges accumulate while their equipment sits behind a fence.

FMCSA asked the industry to speak in 2024. The industry did.

Now FMCSA should tell truckers what it intends to do with what it heard.