Broken Down on the Conejo Grade: FSP or a Thousand Oaks Tow?

Published 17 September 2026

Thousand Oaks Tow Truck answers one question from the shoulder of the Conejo Grade more than any other: is there a free truck for this, or do I have to hire one? It depends on the clock, the day and where the car has to end up, because the Ventura County Freeway Service Patrol is real and free, and it has edges a driver stalled at 7 p.m. on a Saturday runs into at once.

Here is the grade, what the Freeway Service Patrol does and does not do, the CHP and the four-hour rule, the day the grade closed, and when a private tow is the only option.

The Conejo Grade carries US 101 out of the Conejo Valley and down to Camarillo and the Oxnard Plain, a 7 percent grade with its summit at 841 feet. Heading toward Camarillo, the last exit is 47C, Wendy Drive; there are no exits 48 or 49, and the next way off is exit 50, Camarillo Springs Road. The Conejo Valley Guide calls it a four-mile stretch, and for a stalled car every one of those miles is shoulder.

At the top, on both sides, sit the CHP's Conejo truck scales, a commercial vehicle enforcement facility that is not open to the public, so it is not a place to pull off and wait.

Say which direction you are headed and roughly where - on the climb from Newbury Park, at the summit by the scales, or on the drop toward Camarillo - because the truck has to come in on your side of the freeway, with no way to turn around between exits.

The Freeway Service Patrol is a Ventura County Transportation Commission program, funded 75 percent by Caltrans and 25 percent by VCTC. Its first beat is the 10.5 miles of US 101 from the Los Angeles county line to Camarillo Springs Road - the whole Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park stretch, with the Conejo Grade at its west end.

Request it by dialing 5-1-1. When it fits, nothing beats a free truck, and we say so to anyone who calls us from the 101 inside those hours. It runs Monday through Friday, except certain holidays, from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 2 to 6 p.m., and inside those hours an FSP truck will:

• Give you a gallon of gas if you ran out.
• Jump start a dead battery.
• Refill the radiator and tape a hose to get you moving.
• Change a flat tire if you have a spare.
• Tow you free to a CHP-approved drop location off the freeway.

Outside the hours or off the beat, the Ventura County FSP page says to call CHP dispatch at 805-477-4174; the CHP's Moorpark Area, which patrols the 101 from the county line to Camarillo Springs Road, decides what happens to a car stopped in a live lane.

The drop location is where most FSP stories end and the private tow begins: the car is off the freeway, safe, and still broken, and the run from there to a shop in Newbury Park is a tow somebody pays for. The edges are firm:

• No nights, weekends or holidays. Outside weekday commute hours there is no FSP truck on the grade.
• Not on the 23 or any surface street. The Moorpark Freeway, Westlake Boulevard, Decker Canyon and Kanan Road are outside every beat.
• No tow to a shop or your home. The free tow ends at the drop location, and FSP will not recommend a tow company or a repair shop.
• No motorcycles. A bike on the grade is a private flatbed tow at any hour.

On the shoulder with the hazards on, a car is a breakdown; in a live lane it is a hazard, and CVC 22651(b) lets an officer have it removed for obstructing traffic. Under CVC 22651(f) a vehicle left standing more than four hours on a freeway right of way may be removed on an officer's order. A CHP-ordered tow goes to the rotation company's yard at rates the CHP Area approves and does not publish, and what that yard may charge by the day is a guide of its own: how much a tow lot charges per day in California.

Then there is the day the grade is not there. On November 8, 2018 the Hill Fire started at 2:03 p.m. at Hill Canyon Road and Santa Rosa Road; the 101 was closed in both directions between Wendy Drive and Pleasant Valley Road, traffic was diverted onto the 23, and Dos Vientos was evacuated. The Woolsey Fire started 21 minutes later and burned 96,949 acres and 1,643 structures.

For a tow that means the route is whatever detour the CHP has open, the quote follows it, and no arrival window survives a closure.

Put the lists together and a private tow is the only option in five cases: at night, on a weekend or a holiday; on the 23, Westlake Boulevard, Decker Canyon or Kanan Road; for a motorcycle; for a tow that ends at a shop or your driveway; and for the leg from the drop location onward. That is why Thousand Oaks Tow Truck around the clock means the truck at 7 p.m. on a Saturday as much as at noon.

Some of those calls are not tows. A battery that gave up after a summer in the sun - heat is AAA's number one cause of battery failure, and the record here is 119 degrees - is a jump, and a flat with a good spare is a tire change, though on a 7 percent shoulder the car may ride the flatbed to level ground first: roadside assistance and a tow on the Conejo Grade.

So for a tow you call for yourself: on a weekday inside the hours, try 5-1-1 first; know that the drop location is not the destination; and otherwise call with your direction and your last exit, and the total and the arrival window come back on the same call, with no yard and no daily rate at the other end.