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A tow truck operator’s most dangerous moment often isn’t the tow itself. It’s the several minutes spent standing at the roadside: hooking up chains, positioning a dolly, operating a winch, all while hazard lights flash and traffic keeps moving at highway speed. For that stretch of time, the operator has no vehicle around them at all, only a reflective vest and whatever attention passing drivers happen to be paying.
Why Tow Truck Struck-By Deaths Are Undercounted
Part of why this risk stays invisible is how it gets recorded. When a roadside worker is struck while standing outside their vehicle, crash databases have historically logged them simply as a pedestrian, with nothing to distinguish them from any other pedestrian struck in traffic.
Researchers at the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety had to build their own dataset from industry fallen-operator records just to get an accurate count, matching those records by hand against the federal crash database because the standard federal coding missed the majority of these deaths, even after new tracking codes were added in 2019. That January 2024 study identified 123 roadside assistance providers, a category dominated by tow truck operators but also including mobile mechanics and safety service patrollers, fatally struck by vehicles nationwide between 2015 and 2021.
The industry’s own National Tow List identified 122 tow operators specifically struck and killed over roughly that same period. Their average age was 41, ranging from 21 to 80, and every one of them was a man. The number killed each year rose steadily over the study period, from 10 in 2015 to 26 in 2021, a statistically significant increase that outpaced the overall rise in traffic deaths generally.
A separate study cited in the research found that the towing industry’s occupational fatality rate is more than double that of other roadside industries, including law enforcement and fire protection.
Where and When Tow Truck Operators Are Struck Most Often
The data paints a specific picture, and it isn’t the one most people would guess. Eighty-five percent of these deaths happened on high-speed, limited-access highways, and more than two-thirds occurred on Interstates specifically. Nearly 90% happened at locations with a posted speed limit of 55 mph or higher.
Nearly two-thirds happened in darkness, most of it unlit darkness, and close to a third of all these fatalities happened between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. Perhaps most telling: 84% happened on dry roads in clear weather.
These aren’t crashes caused by rain or ice catching a driver off guard. They’re happening on ordinary nights, on fast roads, when a driver simply wasn’t paying enough attention.
Why Standing on the Shoulder Doesn’t Guarantee Safety
An operator’s instinct is to get fully off the road, and most do. Sixty-three percent were struck while standing on the shoulder or roadside, not in a travel lane at all. But that instinct doesn’t fully protect them: researchers found that in nearly two-thirds of all cases, the vehicle that ultimately struck the worker had first left the roadway entirely before the impact, meaning the driver was already off the road, out of control, before the tow operator was ever in danger.
An operator can do everything right, clear of the travel lane, reflective gear on, and still be at the mercy of a driver who never should have left the road in the first place.
Who Is Most Likely to Strike a Roadside Tow Truck Operator?
The striking drivers themselves tell part of the story. Pickups, vans, and SUVs were the most common vehicle type (37%), followed by passenger cars (32%) and large trucks (24%). Their median age was 38, ranging from 17 to 80, and 72% were men.
Of the drivers who were actually tested for alcohol, roughly a third tested positive, and more than a quarter were over the legal limit, including nine who were more than double it. But testing itself was inconsistent: 39% of all drivers who struck and killed a roadside worker were never tested for alcohol at all.
And in 21% of these crashes, the driver left the scene entirely, the same hit-and-run pattern that shows up in other pedestrian crashes across Mississippi.
Mississippi’s Move Over Law for Tow Trucks, Explained
Mississippi has a law built specifically to prevent this. Under Miss. Code Ann. § 63-3-809, a driver approaching a stationary tow truck, what the statute calls a “recovery vehicle,” with its lights flashing, must change lanes away from it or slow down and be ready to stop. A driver who ignores that duty and strikes the operator can be held liable.
What to Do If a Tow Truck Operator Is Struck While Working
A few things matter early on. Get a copy of the police report, and note whether the striking driver was cited for a move-over violation, since that citation can be powerful evidence.
If the tow truck or company vehicle has dash camera footage, or the towing company keeps GPS and dispatch records, ask that the footage or records be preserved before they’re automatically deleted.
Don’t give a recorded statement to an insurance company before speaking with a lawyer, and don’t accept an early settlement offer before you know the full extent of the injuries, or, in a fatal case, before your family understands what the claim is actually worth.
If you or someone you love was struck while working at the roadside in Mississippi, a tow truck accident lawyer at Giddens Law Firm can help. Call 601-355-2022 or contact us today for a free consultation. We work on a contingency fee basis, so you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.