Tow truck in Menlo Park, Edison: mall decks, hotel rows on Route 1, and the truck that fits under a low ceiling

The open lots load either truck on the spot. Inside the decks the clearance bars stop a rollback at the entrance, so the wheel-lift goes in, lifts the car and brings it down the ramp to daylight.

An all-wheel-drive car then transfers to the deck outside in a couple of minutes. Say which entrance, which level and roughly which row.

Cars parked nose to tail for a week while their owners are at a conference or the airport. A dead battery after five days is a jump at one flat price, and a car that has to move rides whichever truck the drivetrain calls for.

The driver can work from a key left at the desk, with photos before and after and the receipt sent to your inbox.

The streets around the Thomas Edison Center are residential and narrow, with parking on one side and the occasional tour bus on the other. The rollback loads where the street opens out, and the driver phones ahead so a neighbor's car can be moved if the driveway is short.

The park's loop road and its lots are open-air, so any truck loads there, and the grass beside the lake is where cars go in the rain. A winch pulls them straight back.

On Route 1 itself the jughandles at Parsonage Road and the mall lights fill with stalled cars at rush hour, and the wheel-lift clears them in minutes.