Crouch Recovery Reviews 

Antwoord van Crouch Recovery

1 feb 2024

Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback.

Whilst you don’t mention specific details to help identify the job, we can confirm that we are a Breakdown Recovery Operative contracted to four Police Forces in the Midlands Region (Leicestershire, Northants, Warwickshire and Notts Police).

When a vehicle breaks down or is involved on an RTA on a major road (Motorway or Dual Carriageway as you describe) then the Police have both the obligation and necessary statutory powers to have the vehicle uplifted and recovered to a place of safety.

The Police no doubt made a decision to exercise these powers, after you contacted them about your vehicle, and thereafter required us, as their contracted agent, to uplift and recover your vehicle.

In short, it was the police’s decision to exercise their statutory powers and they did so for the safety of other road users.

The charges for the uplifting and recovery of the vehicle are fixed by the Government, pursuant to The Removal, Storage and Disposal of Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Regulations 2023. Such fees are fixed, and do not take into account distance travelled.

In this case the statutory fee is £320.00 for the recovery, and £26 per day for storage until you collect the vehicle.

Any additional charges would be for the loading fee of the vehicle, which is necessary when a vehicle is substantially damaged and cannot simply be driven out of the depot and loaded by your chosen recovery operative. This fee would not have been £96.00 as you suggest. We suspect that this figure also included some storage charges.

We appreciate that vehicle recovery is an unplanned expenditure, and also the frustration that may be caused when you wish to arrange your own recovery after doing the right thing and reporting an incident to the police.

However, the Police have to follow very specific rules when allowing an owner to arrange their own recovery. It must generally be undertaken within 30 minutes of breakdown before they have to take the decision to refer the matter to one of their contracted recovery operatives - not the next morning as you state in your review

Ultimately, a broken down or damaged vehicle cannot simply be left on or next to a fast-moving road, simply for the safety of other drivers. The Police have a duty of care to keep us all safe and cannot deploy the resources to monitor the vehicle for hours pending recovery by the owner the next day.

Hopefully the above explains the position to you, and anyone else reading this review.

Stay safe, and best wishes.

Crouch Recovery