As car repossessions increase, SC tow truck driver speaks out on the dangers he faces

After his hand was run over while he attempted to repossess a car, tow truck operator Ted Baldwin gave up on repossessions.

“The owner of the vehicle came out while I was behind the tire hooking it up, and I didn’t see her, and she got in the car and backed over my hand and took off.”

Repossessing cars creates serious risks for tow truck operators. Earlier this month, it proved fatal for Steven Hughes, a tow truck operator from Lexington. Hughes was shot and killed while attempting to repossess a car on Fairmont Road in Richland County. A brother and sister — Raheem Jackson, 20, and Essence Jackson, 19 — have been charged with murder, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department said.

Raheem Jackson shot Hughes and Essence Jackson was a co-conspirator, the department said. Neither owned the vehicle Hughes tried to repossess.

Memorial services were held for Hughes on Wednesday, according to a report by WIS.

In light of the dangers associated with repossessions, Baldwin said he stopped doing them within four years of starting his towing business, Alpha Towing in Spartanburg.

Whenever repossessing a car, Baldwin said, the objective is to get in and out as quickly as possible. But recovering a car parked in front of a house presents a real challenge because the tow truck driver can’t keep his eyes fixed on the front door of the residence.

“People do come out and catch you outside of your truck, and that’s when altercations happen,” Baldwin said. “People will jump in their vehicles, and then, you know, you can’t drive away with somebody in the vehicle. They’ll stand in front of your truck. They’ll stand in front of their trucks. They’ll try to block you in. I’ve even had people chase me with shovels.”

For Anna Wingard, the president of the Towing and Recovery Association of South Carolina, the dangers associated with repossessions center on uncertainty.

“I think every repossession agency does it differently, and because there’s not really a standard business or job practice for repossessing vehicles, that, in and of itself, makes the job difficult because you don’t know what kind of a situation you’re going to be in,” Wingard said.

Car repossessions are on the rise, according to auto industry experts at Cox Automotive. Nearly 1.5 million vehicles were repossessed in 2023, which was 300,000 more than 2022.

The trend will likely continue as car payment delinquencies in 2024 are tracking higher than during the past 20 years, according to a report by Fitch Ratings.

Regarding repossession, “I think we’re going to see much more of those with the economy being difficult and the rise in inflation,” Wingard said. “People are going to be choosing between paying for their groceries or paying their car payment.”

How tow truck operators repossess cars

Before repossessing a car, an agent in South Carolina must receive three documents from the lien holder. Those documents include: a notice of right to cure letter, a repossession order and a hold harmless letter, according to Baldwin.

Under South Carolina law, a notice of right to cure letter puts the vehicle’s owner on notice that the bank may repossess their car after the owner is more than 10 days late in making their car payment. The bank must then allow the owner another 20 days to make-up or cure the late payment before repossessing the vehicle.

Notice of right to cure letters only have to be sent to the owner once over the life of the loan. That means if an owner is late in paying their car note more than once, the lien holder can reclaim the car without notice, according to the South Carolina Bar. Notably, vehicles financed by credit unions are exempt from sending such notices.

Repossession orders are not issued by a court but from the lien holder themselves. The order directs repossession agents to recover the vehicle. Baldwin and Wingard said documents signed by the vehicle’s owner during the financing process allow banks this ability.

Finally, a hold harmless letter, Baldwin says, allows the repossession agent to legally tow and retain possession of the car in case the owner calls the police and reports the car stolen.

As for where agents prefer to pick up cars, Wingard said the element of uncertainly makes it complicated.

“You don’t know if the vehicle is going to be at the address that you might have been dispatched to,” Wingard said. “The repo driver may have to find it themselves based on a little bit of information, maybe where the person works. But, again, there’s just a lot of uncertainly. You don’t know if the person is asleep, you don’t know if they’re in the car, you don’t know if they’re in Walmart.”

More dangerous than repossessions

Tow truck drivers face serious, and even deadly, risks when repossessing cars, but that’s not the most dangerous part of the job, industry experts say.

Tow truck drivers are 15 times more likely to die on the job than all other private industry workers combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while car repossessions contribute to the industry’s fatality rate, the majority of tow deaths stem from distracted or reckless drivers, the CDC says.

It’s a finding Baldwin, who is vice president of the Towing and Recovery Association of South Carolina, knows first hand.

“A lot of tow truck drivers get hit on the side of the road just performing their job,” Baldwin said. “We constantly have to have our head on a swivel, and I’m constantly looking behind me while trying to get a car loaded, making sure I’m not going to get run down.”

Part of the problem, Baldwin says, is drivers not obeying South Carolina’s “move over” law when they see emergency vehicles, including tow trucks, on the side of the road.

Under the law, when drivers see flashing lights, including amber or yellow, they must “significantly reduce the speed of the vehicle, and yield the right-of-way by making a lane change into a lane not adjacent to the authorized emergency vehicle.”

Most drivers, Baldwin said, are unresponsive to flashing yellow lights because they see them all the time.

“The public is kind of anesthetized to seeing those (yellow) lights on our trucks because there are so many tow trucks and other kinds of trucks that have the same color as ours.”

A 2024 AAA study identified 123 roadside assistance providers fatally struck while working in the road or at the roadside from 2015 (the first year of victim records available) through 2021 (the latest year of national fatal crash data available). Four deaths during that period were in South Carolina.