Heavy guides
The consent-form trap at the scene
ATRI documents towers pressuring drivers to sign at the scene — a signature that can move the whole event out of the protected class. What signing changes.
ATRI's researchers documented the pattern: at the scene, in the noise and the dark, a tower asks the driver to sign — a work order, an authorization, a “consent to tow.” The signature can move the whole event out of the protected nonconsent class: the caps, the manuals, the banned billing methods were written for tows you did not agree to.
The discipline is simple to state and hard at 2 a.m.: read before you sign; photograph what you signed; if the form is a consent and you have any other way to move the truck, do not sign it. If you already signed, the verdict is not over — the signature is the first exhibit, the complaint still runs, and the invoice audit still applies to every line the state regulates regardless of consent class.
That is why the heavy checker asks about the signature before it asks about money, and says on its first screen what a signature can change.
Run the heavy checker: check a heavy tow.