Tow truck in downtown Linden, NJ: Wood Avenue, the station lot and the blocks beside the tracks

A car that sat since morning and clicks at six in the evening is a battery nine times in ten. A jump is one flat price with no miles, and the truck that brings the pack is the one that would tow you, so the tow is added at the flat fee if the charge will not hold.

The lot is open enough for a flatbed to back straight to the car. Say the row and what you drive, and the truck is there before the platform empties.

A car that stalls on or beside the tracks is a call to make from the sidewalk, and the first thing the dispatcher does is confirm you are off the crossing. The truck comes in on Wood Avenue from whichever side keeps it out of the queue, and the car is winched or lifted clear before anything else is discussed.

Say which side of the tracks and which direction you were headed. That decides the approach.

Two-family houses, cars parked nose to tail on both sides of narrow one-ways, and a car in the middle that has to leave. The driver slides skates under the wheels, walks it sideways into the street on the wheel-lift and then hooks it, and the booking fee covers the work.

A lowered car on the same block still rides a flatbed; the driver frees it at the space and loads it at the corner where the ramp lies flat.

Delivery vans double-parked, customers' cars at the curb, staff cars that would not start after a long day. The truck has one chance to stop on a busy block, so give the storefront or the cross street and the side of the avenue.

From here a tow to a garage on St. Georges Avenue or a body shop on Edgar Road is a handful of miles, and shops that call more than once a season get an account with one invoice.