Procession honors those who died on the white line

A line of nearly 100 tow trucks from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland took over Pittsburgh’s streets Friday afternoon as part of the American Towman Spirit Ride.

Leading the line was a tow truck with an empty casket on its bed. The words “Slow down, move over” were painted across its side to honor all tow truck operators and first responders killed by vehicles passing them on the road.

“Until you stand there, it’s hard to understand,” Ryan McGann, a tow man at McGann and Chester LLC in Bon Air, said of his job.

Mr. McGann, 25, drove a heavy-duty tow truck in Friday’s procession. He has been

lives are at risk, Mr. McGann said.

About 4 p.m. Thursday, an employee of C& D Towing & Recovery in McKeesport was hit on the side of Greenlee Road in Brentwood.

Todd DiBeradin, vice president and owner of the towing company, said his employee was still in the hospital Friday after suffering a punctured lung, fractured rib and broken vertebrae.

“When you only have seven or eight feet inside of the white line, and cars are coming at you at 70 miles per hour, you’re always thinking about your family back home, your kids,” Mr. DiBeradin said.

It has been more than 10 years since laws went into effect requiring people to move over for emergency vehicles or tow trucks on the side of the road, but Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell D. Hissrich said many people still aren’t following that law.

“It’s important that the public tries to use some common sense,” he said at a ceremony preceding the parade of vehicles.

Mike Corbin, a Spirit Ride messenger, said that every year there are about 100 emergency responders or tow operators killed on the sides of roads across the country.

Of those 100, about 60 percent are with towing companies, he said.

“When we’re out there on a scene, it’s all of us; we’re a team,” said Pittsburgh police Chief Scott Schubert during the ceremony.

“The loss of life in the white line affects us all,” Mr. Corbin said.