Most people, when they phone for a tow, lead with what happened. It is the natural thing to do — something has gone wrong and you want to explain it.
Dispatch needs something slightly different. Five specifics decide which truck leaves the yard and how fast it gets to you, and none of them is the story.
Here they are, in the order that helps most.
1. Where you are — precisely
This is the one that changes your wait time more than anything else.
The best answer is coordinates. Open your maps app, drop a pin where you are, and read the numbers out. It takes fifteen seconds and removes all ambiguity.
If you cannot do that, build the description in this order:
- The highway or road number — Highway 2, Highway 1A, Stoney Trail
- The direction you were travelling — southbound, eastbound
- The last fixed thing you passed — an exit number, a range road, an overpass, a town, a bridge
- Roughly how long ago you passed it
"Southbound Highway 2, about five minutes past the High River exit, east shoulder" is a location. "Somewhere on the QEII" is an hour of driving up and down looking for you.
On the county grid, township and range road numbers are far more use than a street name. In the Bow Valley, be aware that "Highway 40" covers a great deal of ground.
2. What you are driving
Make, model and rough year if you know it. If you do not, the category is enough: sedan, half-ton, dually, cargo van, motorhome, tandem tank unit.
This decides the deck. A three-quarter-ton with a canopy and a loaded box is a different proposition from a compact car, and a motorhome is different again.
For equipment, say what it is — forklift, skid steer, tractor, excavator — and give rough dimensions. Width is usually the constraint, not weight.
3. What is wrong with it
Not the full story. The mechanical shape of the problem:
- Will not start
- Overheated
- Flat tire, no usable spare
- Locked out
- Out of fuel
- Collision damage
- Went off the road
Each of these implies different equipment. "Locked out" and "out of fuel" may not need a tow at all — we can often sort those on the spot, which is faster and cheaper for you.
4. Whether it rolls
Ask yourself: if it were in neutral on a flat surface, could someone push it?
A vehicle that rolls goes onto a deck quickly. A vehicle with a seized wheel, locked brakes, a snapped axle, or accident damage that has jammed a wheel against bodywork needs skates, dollies or different rigging entirely.
For equipment, the same question decides whether it drives on or gets winched on — and that is often the biggest single variable in the time and the price.
5. Where it needs to go
Have a destination ready. Your shop, your dealership, your yard, your driveway.
This matters more than people expect, because a vehicle with no nominated destination often ends up in a compound, where storage charges start immediately. Naming the address on the phone avoids that entirely.
If your shop is closed, say so — we will tell you what the options are rather than defaulting you into storage.
Things worth mentioning if they apply
- There are animals in the trailer. This changes the priority of the call, not just the equipment. Say it immediately.
- It is in an underground parkade. Low clearance means wheel lift, not a flat deck. Plenty of companies will arrive and discover they cannot help.
- It is off the road, in a ditch, or on soft ground. This is a recovery, not a tow, and it needs winching capacity.
- It is a loaded commercial unit. The load may have to be dealt with before the vehicle can be.
- Someone is injured. Call emergency services first. Always.
While you wait
Get yourself somewhere safe, hazards on, and if you have reflective triangles put them well back so traffic has time to react at highway speed.
On a rural highway with a wide shoulder, staying buckled inside the vehicle is usually safest. If you are near a blind curve or a hill crest, or traffic is passing close, get out on the passenger side and move behind the guardrail or up the bank.
Then tell dispatch where you are waiting, so the driver looks for a person rather than an empty car.
The 30-second version
"I'm on southbound Highway 2, five minutes past High River, east shoulder. Silver 2018 half-ton. It overheated and won't start. It rolls fine. I need it at Smith's Auto in Okotoks. I'm sitting in the cab."
That call gets the right truck moving immediately, with an accurate ETA and an accurate price. Everything else is conversation while we drive.
For what it will cost once we arrive, see how much does towing cost in Calgary.
