Hi

I wanted to ask your thoughts on this.

A while ago I had a tyre blow out on the motorway, this caused me to lose control of my vehicle and crash into the central reservation - now I take full responsibilty for this and this is not what I want opinions on, it's what happened next.

So, police arrived, towed my car across the carriageway on to the hard shoulder.  They took all the necessary details and asked me how I wanted to recover my vehicle as it was no longer roadworthy,  they offered me two options one was their own recovery agents but it would cost me £200 and the other was to ring my own breakdown service, in this case the AA,  I opted to ring the AA as I have Relay Plus (ie should take you home or garage of you choice after an accident),  phoned them and as it was an RTA they would only come out if I paid £150.00 which I did over the phone. The police then left me on the hard shoulder awaiting recovery,  I have no problems wth this, they must have better things to do than wait with me,  however an hour and a half later a breakdown truck finally arrives,  hooks me up and then tells me that as its an RTA they can only take me to the nearest place of safety.

This turned out to be 1/2 mile down the road to a service station on the M1, 200 miles from home, with no transport and no means of getting to the nearest town.  My question is, would you consider for a female travelling alone, a motorway service station to be a place of safety? 

Its been some time since this happens but it still makes me angry, more with myself for never challenging it.

Hi --- Breakdown companies are only obliged to offer services according to the level of cover you chose to take out when you joined up and it's always wise to consider if the level of cover is high enough, however although a motorway service area is considered a place of safety, in that it is populated by members of the public, telephones are available and the car is out of immediate danger, it is only a temporary safe haven in my view.

They could and should have given you the option to be further recovered to your destination, on your agreement and at your additional expense, irrespective of the level of cover you held under the circumstances and sorted the financial details out later, once you had agreed to the recovery home at your expense.

I don't know for sure, but maybe your car insurance would have covered these additional recovery costs anyway, under the road traffic accidents part of your policy.

Hi,

I would question the AA's justification in suggesting it was a RTA. You could very well have suffered a puncture and not collided with anything, yet still made the car un-drivable, what is the AA's answer to this? I would complain to the organisation and ask for an explanation as to their decision to leave you miles from home in that situation. I think a bit of customer reparation is in order!!

Regards

Ian 

As per other advice, unfortunately I think you have been subject to small print. It is the same with most companies, but the AA are notorious for having much ado about nothing.