There is a particular kind of quiet at 2am on Grand Boulevard. The Lakeside car parks are empty, the lights are still on, and the only traffic is the occasional taxi. It is also, statistically, one of the more likely times for someone in the northern suburbs to be standing next to a car that will not move.
Almost every towing business in Perth says it is available 24/7. Far fewer will tell you what that phrase actually means at their end. So here is a night shift job around Joondalup, written up the way it happened.
What “24/7” means, and what it usually means
In our industry, “24 hours” can mean one of three quite different things:
- A phone that rings through to a person. You explain the problem, they dispatch a truck. This is what people assume they are getting.
- A call centre that takes a message. Someone rings you back when a driver is available. Sometimes that is twenty minutes. Sometimes it is morning.
- A voicemail with a promise attached. You leave a message into the dark and hope.
We are the first one. If we genuinely miss a call because a driver is already under a car, we ring back — and we hold ourselves to doing that quickly rather than whenever it is convenient. That single difference is worth more at 2am than any amount of marketing.
The call
A young bloke calls from the roundabout end of Shenton Avenue. He has finished a shift, the car has died mid-drive rather than refusing to start, and he has rolled it onto a verge. Hazards on. No lights on the dash before it happened — it just lost power and stopped.
A car that dies while driving is a different problem to a car that will not start. It is usually fuel, ignition, a belt, or something electrical letting go. None of those are roadside fixes at 2am, so this was always going to be a tow. We told him that on the phone rather than turning up and discovering it together.
The three things we ask at night, every time
- 1Where exactly are you, and which side of the road? At night, on a dual carriageway, the wrong side costs us a full loop. Cross streets and landmarks beat street numbers.
- 2Are you safely away from traffic? If you are standing on the verge side of the barrier, good. If you are in a live lane, that changes everything about how we approach.
- 3Is anyone with you, and where are you going after? A tow truck cab does not always have room for four people. If we cannot take everyone, we would much rather sort that out before we arrive than leave someone on a kerb at 2:30am.
Why nights are sometimes faster, not slower
People apologise for calling late. They should not. From our base, the run down to Joondalup at 2am is genuinely quicker than the same run at 8am on a weekday — the Mitchell Freeway is empty, and every set of lights on Marmion Avenue is in your favour. Loading a car on a deserted Shenton Avenue verge is also far safer and quicker than loading the same car in peak-hour traffic.
The one thing nights change is where a car can go. Workshops are shut. So for this job, the car went home to his driveway in Edgewater — a five-minute run — and he called his mechanic when they opened. That is almost always the right answer for a late-night breakdown: get the car off the road tonight, decide about the repair tomorrow.
Common 2am jobs around Joondalup
- Cars that die on the Shenton Avenue and Joondalup Drive corridors after late shifts.
- Flat batteries in the Lakeside and Joondalup Health Campus car parks — long shifts, lights left on, hot days.
- Kerbed wheels and blown tyres around the roundabout network, where nobody carries a usable spare any more.
- Cars locked in a car park after the boom gates go down, which is a genuine tow, not a roadside fix.
- P-platers who have done nothing wrong except own an older car with an original battery in it.
If any of that sounds like tonight, 24/7 towing is the service, and the Joondalup area page covers what we run through that corridor. If the car has stopped somewhere unsafe, call rather than read — that is what emergency towing exists for.
Need a truck now?
Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If we miss your call, we'll call you back within 30 minutes.
Questions we get asked about this
Do you really answer the phone at 2am?
Yes. The phone rings through to the crew, not a message service. If we are physically under a vehicle when you call, we ring you straight back rather than leaving you waiting until morning.
Can you tow my car if every workshop is closed?
Yes, and it is the usual outcome for a late-night job. We will take the car home to your driveway or somewhere safe so it is off the road overnight, and you can arrange the repair in normal hours.
Can I ride in the truck with my car?
Usually yes, and at night we would rather you did than leave you standing on a verge. Tell us how many people are with you when you call so we know what we are working with before we arrive.
