One tow, a six-figure invoice, zero federal ceiling. Four states just said enough.

A single nonconsensual tow can hand a small carrier a bill north of $100,000. No negotiation. No federal ceiling. No appeals process. The towing company holds your truck, your cargo, and your operating margins until you pay whatever number they typed on the invoice.

That is not a hypothetical. OOIDA has documented a $9,200 surcharge attributed to "high temperatures" and a $500 charge for a tow operator taking cell phone photos — on the same bill. The leverage is structural: they have physical possession of your equipment. You don't pay, you don't move. The load misses its window. Detention compounds. The carrier absorbs the hit or folds.

The Bill That Can End a Carrier

OOIDA Executive VP Lewie Pugh has testified on this directly before state legislatures, and the plain-English version of his argument is worth reading:

"We don't have any protection as truckers on nonconsensual tows. There's probably protection for consumers, but not business-to-business."

— Lewie Pugh, Executive Vice President, OOIDA

That asymmetry is the whole problem. A stranded motorist in most states has some statutory floor under consumer-protection law. An owner-operator with a $90,000 rig on someone else's lot has nothing equivalent. The dispute-it-later advice assumes the carrier has operating capital to absorb a five-figure hit while litigation runs. Most don't. Pugh's written testimony was direct: predatory nonconsensual towing puts small-business truckers out of business.

FMCSA Called It Price-Gouging — Then Did Nothing

The federal government already knows this is a problem. The U.S. Department of Transportation went on record — in an official press release — stating that once a vehicle is towed, the owner is "in a very vulnerable position and highly susceptible to predation," with tow companies using their "possession of the vehicle as leverage to price gouge." That is a federal agency's own language, not a trucking-lobby talking point.

Then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg named it directly:

"When a truck driver's vehicle is towed, they can't earn a living until they get it back — leaving them vulnerable to predatory junk fees from towing companies."

— Pete Buttigieg, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation

The towing industry's organized response: those fees are valid and necessary, and no, thank you, we don't support the FTC's junk-fees rulemaking. No federal rule followed. Washington diagnosed the disease in writing, published a press release, and handed it off to the next administration.

Indiana Was Worst in the Nation. It Took Until 2025 to Change That.

State Rep. Pressel, the author of Indiana's predatory towing crackdown legislation, did not mince words when the bill was moving through committee:

"When we are number one in the nation for predatory towing when it comes to commercial vehicles, that's not acceptable in my mind."

— Indiana State Rep. Pressel, bill author

That ranking came from the bill's own author — a Republican state legislator, not a trucking-industry advocate. It matters because critics of reform love to frame these fights as carrier self-interest. Hard to run that line when the person making the "worst in the nation" claim is writing the law.

Indiana's crackdown took effect July 2025. It joined Arkansas, Connecticut, and North Carolina, all of which passed some form of predatory towing reform in the same calendar year. Four states in one year is a signal. It is also a map of the problem: the rest of the country still has no floor.

Congress Moved Its Lips in July 2025

On July 10, 2025, the House Appropriations Committee voted 31-26 to advance a transportation funding bill carrying a provision directing FMCSA to develop guidelines for towing and recovery regulations.

ATA President and CEO Chris Spear called the practice out by name:

"Charging truck owners thousands of dollars for each unwanted tow and holding cargo hostage with excessive invoices are egregious practices that disrupt our supply chain."

— Chris Spear, President & CEO, American Trucking Associations

When ATA and OOIDA agree on something, pay attention. Those two organizations spend most of their time on opposite ends of issues that affect small carriers versus large ones. The alignment here says something about how clean-cut this particular fight is.

What the Appropriations Committee actually voted to do, though, is direct FMCSA to develop guidelines. Not a rule. Not a cap. An instruction to begin thinking about eventually creating a framework. Owner-operators should not structure their financial planning around federal action arriving before 2027.

The Towing Lobby Is Not a Few Bad Apples

The Towing and Recovery Association of America actively lobbied Congress to weaken the FTC's junk-fees rulemaking. This is not a story about rogue operators who got greedy on a dark stretch of I-70. It is a story about an organized industry that has blocked federal oversight, called its own fees valid and necessary on the record, and is prepared to do it again.

The documented abuse goes beyond the invoice. According to ATA's analysis of carrier data, a majority of carriers who dealt with nonconsensual tows encountered additional problems: truck release delays, cargo release delays, truck seizure without cause, and tows misreported as consensual. The invoice is one weapon. Controlling access to the truck and cargo while the clock runs is another.

The "dispute it later" option is not a real option for a single-truck operator who needs that truck on the road Monday morning. It is a pressure tactic dressed up as due process.

Who Is Actually Fixing This

The states moving in 2025 are proof the problem is solvable. Indiana, Arkansas, Connecticut, North Carolina — none of them had to wait for federal permission. They looked at what was happening to carriers operating in their states and passed a law.

The federal inaction proves this will not get solved from the top down on any timeline that matters to a driver holding a six-figure invoice right now. FMCSA has been on record calling it predatory since at least 2024. The towing lobby killed the federal remedy. Congress just voted to ask FMCSA to think about guidelines.

If you are running trucks in a state that hasn't moved on this, find out who chairs your state transportation committee. Write them. Call them. Show up. The only people who have actually fixed this problem in 2025 are the ones who generated enough calls to their statehouse offices that not fixing it became the harder political choice.

Photo by Seb Creativo on Unsplash