How listings are built

Where the listings come from

Listings come from three public sources, and owners can add their own business. Every listing says where it came from, in the card under its phone number.

The federal USDOT registry

Some listings start as a record in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) company census. That's the public registry of companies holding a USDOT number, which the U.S. Department of Transportation requires of many companies that run commercial trucks, tow trucks among them.

We include active registrations whose company name says towing, with words like “towing”, “wrecker” or “recovery”. Names about boat towing are left out. A registration whose name says roadside work and no towing is listed as roadside service only (below).

Google Business Profiles

Many tow companies aren't on the registry. To find them we searched Google's business listings for towing services and roadside assistance in every county with at least 15 tow companies on the registry or a state list. A result that matched a company already listed here added its Google details to that listing. A result that matched nothing became a listing of its own, marked “Listed from Google Business Profile”, when Google files it under Towing service or Auto wrecker. A tire or truck repair listing whose name says roadside work is listed as roadside service only, and an auto repair listing whose name says towing is listed as a tow company.

A Google listing that matches no registration or state list, has no website of its own (or one named for another place), has fewer than 3 reviews and whose name is only a place and the trade (“Towing Springfield”) is held back until its owner claims it or a person here checks it, since names like that are often call centers that pass jobs on rather than local companies. National dispatch and roadside networks and motor clubs aren't listed at all: they book jobs for local companies rather than tow themselves.

State tow license lists

Some states and cities publish a list of the tow companies they license. We read the lists from Texas, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Washington and the District of Columbia, and New York City's. A company on one of those lists that matched no listing here has a listing of its own, marked “Listed from a state license list”, with the name, town and phone number the list gives and the list's entry: the licensing body, the license number, the class and the status, a link to the body's own search where there is one, and the date we read the list. A list entry with no phone number or street address isn't listed until its owner adds one. Nevada's list gives no address, so its entries only add a card to a company already listed here.

A tow company in none of these sources won't be here until it's added. If that's you, add your business.

Added by their owners

A business in none of these sources can add itself. We check its phone number with a call that reads out a code, and a person here reviews the listing before it's published. These listings are marked “Added by the owner”.

Which phone number a listing shows

When the sources give a company different phone numbers, a listing shows the number on its Google Business Profile first, then the number on the state license list, then the number on the USDOT registration. A company's Google profile is the number it shows the public today, and about one registry number in four we compared differed from it. A verified owner's own number always comes first. A number we find on unrelated businesses in three or more states, or one that can't exist, isn't shown.

What a listing shows

The business name. We use the trade name (DBA) on the registration unless it's generic, like “Towing Service”, in which case we use the legal name.
The phone number, with a button to call it, and the address where a source gives one.
“Open 24 hours (per Google)” where the company's Google profile lists it as open 24 hours every day. We don't say a company is open around the clock, or how fast it arrives, unless the company says so itself.
“Heavy-duty towing” where the name says heavy-duty, rotator or semi work, or the registration lists 10 or more trucks.
“Roadside service only, no towing” where the company does jump starts, tire changes, lockouts or fuel and its name says nothing of towing. These are listed on their county's roadside assistance page and in their state's roadside section, not in the lists of tow companies, and they don't count toward a county's tow companies.
For a registered company, the USDOT number, registration status, the year it first registered and fleet size.
A state license entry, where one matched.

If a detail isn't on the record, we leave it out. We don't fill gaps with guesses, stock descriptions or placeholder text.

Verified owners

A business owner can claim a listing by entering a code we send to the contact details on the company's USDOT registration, or by sending details we check by hand. Verified listings are marked “Verified owner”. Text under “From the owner” is written by the business, not by us.

A claim link we email to an address the business publishes (the one on its USDOT registration or listing, or one on its own website's domain) verifies you when you press the button on the page it opens, and it works one time.

Duplicates

A business is often listed more than once, from more than one source or more than one registration. We show it once. Two listings in the same county are the same business when:

they share a phone number, and their names share a word that says which business it is, like a family name, not only a word for what it does;
they share a website of their own, not a page on Facebook, Yelp or a site like them;
they share a street number and street in the same ZIP code, and their names share a word as above; or
they're in the same town or ZIP code and their names are the same once endings like LLC or Inc are set aside, or nearly the same where one of them has no phone number.

A phone number or website on 5 or more of our listings, as a franchise's or a call center's is, never joins listings, and nor does a phone number we don't show. Two listings with different phone numbers of their own stay apart, and so does any listing its owner has claimed. The listing we keep is the one from the registry where there is one, then one with a license entry, then one with a Google profile, then the older one. It takes the other's Google profile and license entries, and the other's page sends you to it.

Google ratings

For some companies we show a star rating and review count from their Google Business Profile, labelled “via Google”. We only show them when there are at least 3 reviews, and we never copy review text. A business owner can ask us to hide their rating.

Counties and ranking

A county gets its own page once it has at least 15 listed tow companies, counting every source. Once it has a page, it keeps it until it has fewer than 10. Companies in smaller counties still have their own listing pages.

Listings are shown in three groups: Pro listings first (Pro is a paid plan for listing owners), then other listings whose owners have claimed and verified them, then everyone else. Within each group, tow companies are listed in the order below. When you sort by ZIP code or town, listings are grouped by distance, and the same three groups apply within each distance group, nearest first.

A Google rating of 4.0 or higher from at least 3 reviews, weighted by how many reviews stand behind it, highest first. Each rating counts as if it started with 20 reviews at 4.5, so a few reviews move it only a little: 5.0 from 6 reviews scores 4.6, and 4.9 from 11,000 scores 4.9.
The review count, where two businesses have the same score.
Larger fleets, by number of trucks and then drivers.
Business name, alphabetically.

When you pick a roadside problem on the form and give a ZIP code, we list the tow companies with a phone number within 30 miles instead, in order of distance, and store nothing about you.

Mistakes

Registry records, Google profiles and license lists can all be out of date. If something on a listing is wrong, see the corrections page.

Public records on a listing

A listing can show public records beside the details it's built from. Each record names its source where it's shown, and a field the source leaves blank drops its sentence. A record says what a business holds, not how good its work is.

The federal record

For a listing with a USDOT number, the FMCSA company census gives:

Whether the company runs across state lines or within its state
Its drivers and power units
Its vehicles by type, and whether they're owned or leased
The miles it reported for one of the last three years
The kinds of cargo it says it hauls that fit this trade
Its MC number
The month it last updated its registration

FMCSA's inspection file gives how many roadside inspections it had in the last 24 months and the date of the latest, shown with FMCSA's own note on reading inspection data. We don't show crashes, out-of-service orders or safety ratings.

License records

For a license on a state list, the card gives the expiry and every class the list shows for it.

For a license from California, Washington or Oregon we also read the licensing body's own records, by license number only: the Contractors State License Board, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries and the Oregon Construction Contractors Board. They give the status in the body's own words, the expiry and classes, and the bond, insurance and workers' comp the body lists. A suspended license isn't shown.

Business registrations and certifications

Some listings show a record from one of these:

The business registries of New York, Colorado, Oregon, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Texas and Iowa
SAM.gov, the federal government's register of businesses that can bid on its contracts

We show one only where the business's name, with words like Inc or LLC, and its town are exactly the record's, and only while the record is current. A state's own list shows only on a business in that state.

We never show complaints, violations, citations, wage cases or debarments, or personal details such as birth dates or home addresses.