On Florida's highways, drivers in distress - and those zooming by disabled cars - can count on Road Rangers.
By MARTY CLEAR
Published May 21, 2004
TAMPA - Mark McBride wasn't having an especially busy work day. Still, carrying on a conversation with him was difficult. Every few seconds, the police would call him on one of his three cell phones.
"I get calls from TPD and FHP on this phone," he said. "Everyone else calls me on this other phone. And I've got a third one in my pocket. Sometimes they're all ringing at the same time."
All this happens while he's driving up and down Interstate 275.
It's all part of what McBride says is the best job he has ever had. He's the daytime lead driver for the Florida Department of Transportation's Road Ranger program in the Tampa Bay area.
The Road Rangers' mission is to patrol the interstate highways, helping to keep the roads clear by offering free assistance to motorists who are in trouble.
"Helping people is just one of those things that you can't help but love," he said. "And then when you tell them it's free, it's even better."
The Road Ranger program got under way in 1999. It has expanded over the years, and these days the program's distinctive white trucks patrol some 918 miles of interstate in metropolitan areas around Florida. Statewide, the program has 88 vehicles and has helped more than a million distressed motorists.
Along with his fellow drivers - there are six on the road at any time, 24 hours a day, in the Tampa Bay area - McBride covers I-275 and St. Petersburg, plus the first 10 miles of Interstate 4.
Because he's the lead driver, McBride gets most of the calls that come in to the Road Rangers from the Tampa Police Department, the Florida Highway Patrol and Traffic.com, a company that monitors traffic through cameras on the Howard Frankland Bridge. He serves as the de facto dispatcher, phoning other drivers and alerting them to broken-down vehicles and other potential hazards.
"We have one truck on the bridge, one in St. Petersburg, and three wreckers and a pickup in Tampa," he said. "I pretty much know where all six of them are at any given time. I know who's tied up, who's busy. After a while you learn to just keep up with a lot of this stuff in your head."
The white trucks are essentially miniature mobile service stations. Drivers have a checklist of more than 60 items that they're supposed to have on board: five gallons each of oil, gasoline and diesel fuel. Bolt cutters, wrenches and screwdrivers. A first aid kit, paper towels and a broom.
They also carry a bunch of cards that briefly explain the program. When drivers see an abandoned vehicle on the side of the interstate, they'll leave a card on the windshield. The card gives a phone number - one of McBride's three cell phones - so when the car owners know to call the Road Rangers the next time they're in trouble.
The drivers in the program all know a little about engine repairs. Most are former truckers. Some, like McBride, are former mechanics.
Their main mission is to keep the roads clear. They'll tow cars off the road (not all the way home) if they break down in a traffic lane. They'll sweep up glass, metal and other detritus from accidents. They'll perform minor repairs and change tires.
"We'll even give you a gallon of gas," McBride said. "Even when it's $2 a gallon we won't take money for it."
The program has been in effect long enough that the Road Ranger drivers see some repeat business. And stranded motorists will often look for the Road Ranger trucks and flag them down.
Unfortunately, some drivers also try to take advantage of the system.
McBride tell the story of a man who called the Road Rangers and said he needed gas. McBride found the man on the side of the interstate.
"His car was still running but he wanted me to give him 2 gallons of gas," McBride said. "He said he was going to Bradenton and he didn't have any money for gas. Of course I didn't give it to him. If you don't have any gas money, don't take a trip."
Most of the Road Rangers' "customers," though, are in real need of help, and the program's drivers will help in any way they can. It might be repairs, providing water to people who are waiting for a tow, or a cell phone to people who are going to be late for work.
The drivers occasionally run into problems, of course, most having to do with inebriated people.
One Road Ranger driver, 19-year-old Justin Willis, was struck and killed in a hit-and-run on Dec. 31, 2001, at I-275 near Westshore. The driver of the red or maroon Nissan pickup that hit Willis was never caught.
Most of the calls are more mundane. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, McBride made three stops in an hour, all for vehicles he spotted by the side of the road. One was someone who pulled off to see a small plane that had made an emergency landing alongside the Courtney Campbell Causeway. Another was a man with a flat tire who had called AAA and was awaiting service.
In the third case, a car had broken down along I-275 just west of the Tampa/Ashley exit with four women inside. They were too close to the road to get out safely. They were trying to call for help, but none of them spoke English very well.
McBride stopped his truck and turned on his emergency lights, walked over to the passenger's side of the vehicle, and spent a few minutes talking to the women and making phone calls for them.
"See that?" he said as he got back in the truck. "They were broken down and they were scared, and now they're smiling and AAA's on the way and their son's on the way. They said, "You've been an angel to us.' We did all that in 10 minutes with a couple of phone calls."
