Tow Truck Fleet Helps Keep Bay Area Roadways Clear and Motorists Safe

Freeway Service Patrol Logs 1 Million Assists

OAKLAND, Calif., April 8 -- A stranded motorist and the veteran Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) tow truck driver who came to his rescue together helped the roving tow truck service reach its 1 millionth assist on Monday, March 24, 2003.

Steve Kinsey, chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways (SAFE), which administers and operates the FSP in partnership with Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol (CHP), lauded the milestone.

"The FSP provides a vital service for the region, and motorists who've been helped tell us frequently how much they appreciate it," Kinsey said. "They call our drivers 'guardian angels' and 'knights in shining armor' and 93 percent of them give the service the highest possible rating."

Daisaku Edwards of Vallejo, whose car stalled at 9:45 a.m. on the 24th at the dangerous Interstate 80/580/880 split in Oakland as he was taking his 3-year-old son to daycare, would definitely concur with that assessment. His heartfelt remark to Rick Mendell, the FSP driver who quickly towed Edwards' red Hyundai to a safe spot off the freeway, was "It's great that you guys are out here providing this service to the public. I won't complain the next time I get a bill from the DMV to pay my vehicle registration fees (part of which fund the FSP program)."

For Mendell, who has been driving for the FSP since the program's inception in 1992, it was all in a day's work. FSP drivers stop an average of more than 300 times a day, during the busiest traffic periods, to clear accidents, assist stranded motorists, remove dangerous road debris, tag abandoned vehicles and otherwise help to make the region's freeways safer and less congested.

In the 10 plus years of its existence, the FSP has grown from a single, three-truck beat in the Interstate 680/Highway 24 interchange area to a network that today includes 33 beats, 74 trucks and some 450 miles of coverage all around the region. (For a map of current FSP service areas, go to www.mtc.ca.gov/projects/fsp/fspmap.htm.)

FSP drivers provide basic services free of charge such as changing a tire, jump-starting a battery, taping hoses or providing a gallon of fuel. If they can't get stalled vehicles running within a few minutes, they tow them off the freeway -- at no charge to the vehicle's owner -- to the nearest safe location identified by the CHP, where the motorist can call a private tow service.

The FSP program is paid for by a variety of federal, state and local funds, including part of a $1-per-vehicle annual registration fee assessed to Bay Area motorists.

MTC is the transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.