<p>I don’t want to give the specific location over the internet but it was a little bit north of the Throggs Neck Bridge.</p>
<p>Wow, what terrible service. Good to know that your son is on his way home.</p>
<p>nysmile,
glad your son will get to sleep in his own bed at some point soon.
AAA should be paying for your tow.
look into your insurance carrier’s roadside service, we dropped AAA and added Geico’s roadside service for about 1/4 the cost–we now get maps from Google maps.</p>
<p>OK. </p>
<p>That is a long time to wait for a tow. Someday it will become a family legend but for now it is just very upsetting, stressful, and exhausting. Good to hear that the tow truck finally arrived and that he’s on his way home at last.</p>
<p>I was also asked when I had called AAA if I was in a safe place. The driver then told me (in a round about way) that he rushed (17 minutes) to me knowing I was a single stranded female. It makes me think, for all you parents who have sons, if they called mom when needing AAA and then mom calls AAA, maybe the response time could be faster.</p>
<p>nysmile, so glad to hear. Let us know when he is safe at home.</p>
<p>I apologize for my psuedo F-bombs in this thread. Our experience with AAA tonight was incredibly frustrating. I suppose the “mother bear” was coming out of me.</p>
<p>Son just called and he’s on the LIE. He’ll have quite a story to tell when he gets back to campus.</p>
<p>Didn’t you say the AAA dispatcher said someting about them towing all the way home? Does that mean they’ll pay for it? If not, you should contact them with a timeline of the events and repeated time promises and see if you can talk them into it.</p>
<p>As bad as AAA, arguably worse, is the idea that the parkway towing just dumped him off the highway. This shouldn’t even be legal - it certainly doesn’t sound safe. Did they at least drop him someplace with a restaurant or something or was it just on the side of the road?</p>
<p>Glad to hear he’s now safe. Don’t forget to head out this weekend to Best Buy, Circuit City, or somewhere and buy a car charger for his phone.</p>
<p>No apologies necessary, nysmile. I’d have been saying something at LEAST as bad…</p>
<p>Glad to hear all will end well. Any idea what went wrong with the car?</p>
<p>nysmile, do you have AAA plus where the first 100 tow miles are free? I always keep that plan as one long tow would be more than several years of the additional cost.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, he will be buying a car charger for his cell phone this weekend.</p>
<p>He’s in the AAA tow truck right now and they’re driving him (and the car on the flatbed) home. The only thing I know right now about the car is that it started to smoke and he pulled over and it “died”.</p>
<p>I’m assuming that we’ll have to pay a ridiculous high price for the tow to our house but whatever the charge, we really didn’t have any other option. I just wanted him in a safe place and home. </p>
<p>I don’t know where the first tow dropped him. Son said that nothing was around him and he was in the middle of no where. He didn’t see any stores or restaurants or anything–just darkness. I’ll find out more info when he gets home.</p>
<p>I’m just going to wait up until he gets home. He left his college at 11:30 am on Friday. It’s 1:00am Sat. and hopefully he’ll be home soon.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the support. What a week–root canal for me, S2 freshman is sick at college, and S1 was stuck on the highway.</p>
<p>2:00 am and still waiting for son. it shouldn’t be too much longer.</p>
<p>2:30 AM and he’s home. $580 CASH for the tow. He wouldn’t take a credit card or check. We scrounged around the house and between son, husband, and my wallet we managed to come up with the $580. The reasoning for CASH ONLY is that since the tow truck’s office is closed he can’t “run” the credit card or check. I did get a written receipt for everything.</p>
<p>Get this–the tow truck driver didn’t get the call until 1/2 hour before he picked up our son. That means, AAA was picking their butts for 5 hours! </p>
<p>We also don’t qualify for AAA plus (which gives free tows beyond 3 miles) because you have to be a member for one full year before you can get it. We haven’t been members for one year yet. </p>
<p>The car is dead–lifted the hood when it got home and the battery was oozing acid. I’m surprised the battery didn’t catch the car on fire. </p>
<p>Time for bed. Thanks everyone. Son is home, dead car is parked in front of the house, wallet is $580 lighter, and it’s a new day in the morning. Good night.</p>
<p>We’re commiserating with you. Talk about frustration.
Glad to hear that everyone is home safe.</p>
<p>Just wanted to point out that you had the composure to come up with a great name for this thread. Very clever!</p>
<p>Now that your S is safely home I’ll tell you what happened to us. My H and I were driving at night on the George Washington Bridge on the way to JFK airport to fly to FL. We got a flat on the bridge. Open the trunk for the spare…uh oh. The spare is flat. (S#1 hadn’t bothered to repair a flat when he borrowed our car.) We were towed off the bridge and dumped in a neighborhood that was pitch dark (upper Manhattan) with no businesses open and in front of a no parking sign. (This was before cell phones and we didn’t have AAA at the time. The tow off the bridge was free.) Fortunately a taxi happened to come by and drove us to the airport. We called S#1 and told him it was his responsibility to figure out a way to get our tires repaired and to get our car home AND to meet us on our return to JFK. All ended well and we didn’t even get a parking ticket.</p>
<p>It’s possible AAA wasn’t “picking their butts” the whole time. They may have assigned the tow to another company that didn’t respond or got waylaid (for example, I don’t think the tow who finally did show up for your son expected to have to tow him so far, so anyone else they were supposed to tow after him would have been in for a long wait.) On the other hand, the two times I have called AAA it seemed their dispatchers were short on empathy and long on attitude, and really could care less if or when the tow truck gets there!</p>
<p>Still, I’d investigate the following:
- Call the parkway authority and find out where your son should have been taken after the first tow. The middle of nowhere should NOT be the correct answer! They should have taken him to the nearest service station or restaurant, at least! </p>
<p>2) Call AAA - or go to your local AAA office in person - and find out what the heck was going on for all those hours your son was waiting. Someone needs to give you a reasonable answer and if there is no reasonable answer someone needs to be held accountable.</p>
<p>Even if both tow companies had come immediately, I think your son would have needed a ride home or you’d have had to go pick him up. I don’t know of too many stations that could work on a car that was “smoking, then died” with an oozing battery at 9 o’clock at night on a holiday weekend.</p>
<p>At least he’s home safe and sound, and thank heavens for cell phones!</p>
<p>And if you don’t get satisfactory answers from AAA and the Parkway, CC will be here with our pitchforks and torches!</p>
<p>Nysmile,
I really appreciate your sharing the experience. I insisted that my D join AAA so I would feel more secure with her on the road. Nice to know how well they get the job done. :(</p>
<p>When my daughter is taking a road trip I will remind her to have a fully charged phone and to take a charger.</p>
<p>I found out that the first tow truck dropped him of literally right off of exit 23S off the Hutchinson Pkwy—just off the end of the ramp.</p>
<p>5 NON-AAA tow trucks stopped and asked him if he needed a tow but he told them that he was waiting for AAA (logical answer). He said that cops would randomly stop to check on him. One NON-AAA tow truck left his cell phone number with son just in case AAA didn’t show up. </p>
<p>When the AAA tow truck arrived (after 6 calls and 5 hours), he went there knowing to expect a tow all the way out to LI. It wasn’t a surprise to the tow truck operator. When I talked with the tow truck driver, he said that he got the call 15 min. to 30 min. before he actually arrived to the location. That would be around 11:00pm which is 5 hours after son’s first call to AAA. The timing matches with my last frantic call to AAA when I told them that son is just going to call 911 for help. Either coincidence or that did the trick. </p>
<p>Today, he’s buying a cell phone charger for the car.
Karen Colleges–HAHA–I didn’t realize the humor until after I had typed it. You’re the first to pick up on it. LOL</p>
<p>Our experience with AAA is that the problem is often with the tow companies they deal with, and depending on the part of the country, it can mean that they may have called and depended upon several different companies. They may have called to dispatch a tow truck, and the contract is such that they can only “take away” that job and hand off to another if the first company has not arrived in 2 hours. Then they call tow company number two, and cannot call number three until number two has had another 2 hours to get the job done. So they tow truck that finally arrived may have been called only 30 min before, but may have been the 3rd or 4th company called.</p>
<p>In our part of the country, the charge after what triple AAA covers is $3 a mile I believe. </p>
<p>For the next time, see if your insurance offers roadside assistance, and see if an (emergency use only) American Express Gold for son is on option (his card linked to your account), as they cover roadside assistance as well. That way you call them both and see who gets there first!! You can always say–woops and blame it on another family member… We have triple AAA and have had to use them for a tow twice, once 106 miles away from home. We had the 100 miles from home coverage, and paid for the extra 6 miles. But I knew that I could call AMEX if I had to. </p>
<p>We had a neighbor whose son’s car broke down 180 miles from home They had son,s AAA card pay for the 100 mile tow, had the car dropped off in a parking lot, mom met him there with her AAA card and used her card to get the car another 80 miles. Now this was daylight, but they were able to get the car all the way home on AAA.</p>
<p>nysmile, take a little trip to your local AAA office and demand answers. Obviously it wasn’t a terribly busy night after all, if 5 random tow trucks were willing to help him!</p>