A crash truck is the shadow vehicle that sits behind a work crew on a live road with an energy absorbing unit on its tail. Contractors hire them rather than own them because the truck earns nothing between closures. With a driver, expect roughly $700 to $1,200 a day, and a job measured in months is quoted on a different basis entirely.
What the yard calls it
Ask for a crash truck and you will be quoted a truck mounted attenuator, or TMA. The same conversation covers a shadow truck and an impact protection vehicle, which are the same thing under different agency vocabulary. Give the yard the road authority and the specification number on your traffic control plan and the naming sorts itself out.
The truck alone does not make a closure
A mobile operation normally needs the attenuator plus an arrow board, advance warning signs, cones or drums, and often a second shadow vehicle further back. Yards rent all of it, and each piece is priced separately. Book the whole set in one call, because the pieces come off different parts of the fleet and have different lead times.
The driver usually comes with it
Most yards hire these operated, which means an hourly or daily rate that includes a driver, travel time and a minimum number of hours. Bare hire happens where the contractor runs its own traffic crew and carries the insurance for it. Operated is the common deal because sitting in a shadow vehicle is a trained job, not a spare pair of hands.
Lead time and the monthly rate
Fleets of these are small, and night work in a metro books them out weeks ahead. A closure running for months should be quoted monthly rather than by the day, and the gap between the two is large. Give the yard the schedule at tender stage, not the week before the first shift.
Questions people ask about crash truck rental
Do I need one for a shoulder closure?
That depends entirely on the road authority and the approved traffic control plan for that road, not on the size of the job. Many state agencies require a shadow vehicle for any mobile or short duration operation in a live lane. Read the plan before you price the hire.
Can I put an attenuator on my own truck?
Only if the truck matches the ballast weight and chassis the attenuator was tested and approved with. Yards rent the tested combination as a unit for that reason. A unit hung on the wrong truck is not the tested product any more.
What happens if it gets hit?
It has done its job, and the absorbing cartridge is spent. The contract will say who pays for the replacement unit and the truck downtime, and that clause is worth reading before the closure rather than after. Report the impact to the yard the same shift.