After a Collision, Who Decides Where Your Car Goes

The minutes after a collision are not when anyone thinks clearly about logistics, which is exactly why the destination of the vehicle gets decided by default. Knowing how it works beforehand is worth real money. Call Knoxville Towing at (865) 606-6676 if you are able to choose.

How a truck gets assigned

When law enforcement works a crash and a vehicle has to be moved, the responding agency typically calls from a rotation list of approved operators. That system exists to be fair and to get a truck moving quickly, and it works well for clearing the road.

What it does not do is consider where you would like the vehicle to end up. The default destination is generally the operator's own storage lot, and from that moment storage fees begin accruing daily.

In most circumstances you retain the right to say where your vehicle goes, provided it is not being held as evidence and provided you are in a condition to make the request. Saying so at the scene is far simpler than arranging a second move later.

Storage fees are the expensive part

A vehicle sitting in a lot accrues charges every day, including days when nothing is happening because an adjuster has not attended yet. Over a week or two those charges become significant, and they are frequently disputed by insurers as avoidable.

The cheapest path is a single move to somewhere you actually want it — a repair shop you use, or a body shop your insurer works with — rather than a move to a lot followed by a second move afterward.

If the vehicle has already gone to a lot, retrieving it promptly matters. Fees accrue whether or not anyone is working on the claim.

Your insurer's role

Call your insurer from the scene if you can. Many will arrange or authorize towing directly, and some have arrangements that avoid storage entirely.

You are generally entitled to choose your own repair facility rather than being directed to one, though using a shop within the insurer's network can simplify payment and guarantees. Those are separate decisions from where the vehicle is towed initially, and conflating them costs time.

What to take with you

Registration, insurance documentation, and anything of value. Garage door openers and toll transponders in particular, because those are both valuable and easy to forget.

Photograph the vehicle at the scene from several angles before it is loaded, including the surrounding roadway. That record supports the claim and establishes the condition before the tow.

Get the name of the towing company and a contact number before the truck leaves. People routinely lose track of where their own vehicle went.

Equipment at a crash scene

A damaged vehicle usually travels on a flatbed rather than a wheel lift, because suspension or drivetrain damage makes towing on its own wheels unsafe. All-wheel-drive vehicles require a flatbed regardless of damage.

Where a vehicle is off the roadway or on its side, the job becomes a recovery with winching rather than a straightforward load, and that takes longer and requires more equipment.

If nobody is asking you

Speak up. In the confusion of a scene, an operator will proceed with the default unless told otherwise, and that is not obstruction on anyone's part — it is simply what happens when nobody states a preference.

A calm sentence naming the shop you want is usually all it takes.

When the vehicle is not drivable but looks fine

Airbag deployment, a leaking fluid, damage to a wheel or suspension, or anything affecting the lights all make a vehicle unsafe to drive regardless of whether it starts. Drivers routinely underestimate this and try to drive home from a scene.

Deployed airbags in particular mean the vehicle should be transported. Beyond the obvious, the restraint system is now inert and will not protect anyone in a second impact.

Documenting the tow itself

Get a written invoice or receipt from the towing operator showing the charges and the destination. Insurers reimburse towing under most policies and a vague receipt slows that considerably.

Where storage has accrued, ask for the daily rate in writing and the date it started. Those figures get disputed frequently and having them from the outset avoids a long argument at the end of a claim.

We serve Knoxville, Farragut, Alcoa, Maryville, Oak Ridge and the surrounding counties. Call (865) 606-6676.