Erik_D, you are way too confident in AAA and mobile telephony. What if your mob.phone just discharged (broken, lost, stolen, have no service in the area?).

Ok. The real life example (not towing but happened just 10 hours ago with me):

We were on the way home from a 3 day camping trip. I had to be back to work at 2 p.m. (Monday meeting). We had plenty of time ahead as we've checked out early to allow for traffic, but was ahead of schedule because there was no traffic at all. So, we've stopped at the Santa Cruz (CA) beach just to take a look at the famous Moscow Circus 1 hour performance (highly recommended!). We've parked on the narrow heavily trafficked one way street... When we've came back, I've realized that the car's battery is dead... There was no way to stop any passing-by car and ask for a jump start assistance because nobody would like to stop and block the one way street completely. I've called AAA and spent 15 minutes explaining my whereabouts and listening to a "5 year warranty new battery sale ad/offer exclusively from AAA" thing. Just to finally hear that the estimated time of service delay is more than 1 hour! Not acceptable!

Fortunately, the owner of the pick-up-truck, parked right behind me, has showed up. And the more important thing is that he had a jumper cable too! We've joined his cable with mine and got a long enough cable to do the job in this situation in just 5 minutes... I was at the important meeting right in time.

Sure thing I've canceled the request with AAA (they were glad because my order was not dispatched yet), replaced my 6 year old battery at the local Kragen, and going to shop for a longer jump starting cable (20 feet at least).

I'm just glad it died not at the camp site (no cell coverage, no people around (Monday), rangers are passing-by just 3 times a day...