Tow trucks doing good business

The heavy downpours in Jeddah over the weekend have brought in a lot of business to tow truck owners in the city where flash floods have resulted in the breakdown of a large number of vehicles requiring to be towed away.
Car owners are also complaining of the high rates of tow trucks which are charging up to SR40 per vehicle. However, tow truck drivers do not feel they are charging too much.
“We need to share the SR40 with three other workers who assist us in the job,” said Abdul Kawi Muhammad, an Egyptian tow truck driver. He added that at the end of the day, each worker was only able to make up to SR200 and that too, if there were heavy rains, which was rare.
He said it was unfair to think that tow truck drivers were exploiting the situation and overcharging car owners. “We are not using the situation to our advantage but on the contrary, we are helping people to get their cars out from the dirty and stagnating waters,” he said.
He pointed out that the fees demanded of car owners was very small compared to the service being offered them. “Imagine what would happen to the cars if we did not pull them out?” They would remain in the water which would damage the engines and further compound the miseries of their owners,” he said.
Meanwhile, a general physician at the Ada Medical Center, Dr. Emad Hassan, warned people against coming into contact with contaminated water. “It is scientifically proven that water contaminated by human and animal wastes causes 80 percent of infectious diseases including dysentery, cholera, typhoid,
bilharzia, polio, liver diseases, intestinal disorders and skin conditions,” he said.