When Jim Shirley, 76, was on his way home from a Welsh camping holiday one morning, he disappeared. Concerned friends set out from Bristol at 5am the following day to search for him. “We saw him from half a mile away at the side of the A44,” says Mari Martin. “He had broken down at 1pm the previous afternoon and the RAC had told him it would send a recovery truck since it could not repair his van. It never came. He’d spent the night waiting at the roadside, five miles from the nearest town with no phone signal, and was extremely distressed.”
Martin called the RAC, but three hours passed before a vehicle arrived. However, it was not the promised recovery truck and could not take Shirley home, so he was towed to the nearest services and told to wait a further eight hours for rescue.
“That was 31 hours after his first call for help,” says Martin. “He had had very little sleep, food and drink, and was becoming confused, but nothing I said could persuade them to attend earlier.” The recovery truck arrived at 8pm and broke down on the way to Bristol. Shirley finally reached home at midnight, 35 hours after calling the RAC. After two months and five letters, Shirley received a £100 cheque with no covering letter or apology.
The RAC sales blurb claims four out of five vehicles are fixed within 30 minutes of callout, although its terms and conditions fail to commit to a timescale. Despite rising premiums, increasing numbers of motorists are complaining about being left stranded for hours. In the past week, reviewers on Trustpilot report waits of up to nine hours for assistance.
Barry Gray (not his real name), 78, had to make his own way home on public transport in the middle the night when an RAC patrol refused to repair or recover his car. After a tyre was punctured by debris on the A14 in Suffolk, Green changed the wheel and drove on before discovering a second tyre had also been damaged. A patrol reached him within three hours, but was unable to help as Green had used the spare wheel. Green, whose policy included recovery, asked to be taken home. He was told he had disqualified himself because the terms of the cover required him to have a usable spare wheel. “The fitter drove off into the night, leaving me to find my own way home after six hours in the wind and the rain,” he says. “I got in 10 hours after calling the RAC.”
Complaints about roadside assistance have increased 110% in the last financial year and are set to leap again, according to Martyn James of complaints-handling website Resolver. “Callout problems, especially excessive waiting times, are the leading theme and for many, the wider issue is that they’re stuck with poor service because roadside assistance is a relatively closed market,” he says.
The sector is dominated by the RAC and AA, which control nearly 70% of the market and employ their own patrols, while smaller rivals subcontract callouts to local garages. Both firms were set up more than a century ago as co-operatives and, since demutualising, have been bought out by private equity firms, which have reduced staff and increased premiums. And like the RAC, AA members are reporting waits of several hours.
Martin Nield spent the night in his car when a flat battery stranded him at 11pm in London. A truck arrived three and a half hours later, but the mechanic could not do a repair or take him home, since his policy did not include recovery. Nield paid £117 for the service over the phone and was told to wait two hours. Five hours passed with no sign of the AA and Nield had to make alternative arrangements to get home. “I would expect that of the thousands of cars in London, many are covered by the AA and it would ensure it provided for this,” he says.
Alison Swann paid £400 for recovery when her car broke down and it took the AA 12 hours and three drivers to get her home. “We didn’t arrive home until 4.30am and were passed around like an unwanted parcel.”
Not only do motorists have limited alternatives if they want to take their custom elsewhere, they also have no recourse when their provider fails to resolve a complaint, as the provision of roadside assistance is unregulated. Although the sale of breakdown cover is overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority, the service customers pay for is not. The Financial Services and Markets Act says firms that provide roadside assistance as their sole function are exempt from the constraints imposed on other insurance providers. Since the AA and RAC have set up subsidiary companies for this service, motorists left at the roadside can’t turn to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which handles complaints about all other insurance issues.
As complaints about the AA and RAC rise, so do the premiums they charge. Customers lured in by introductory deals can find the cost of their policy soaring by up to 124% when their membership is automatically renewed and rising each year they remain with their provider. Shirley, an RAC member for 16 years, paid £348 for cover in June, a 50% rise on his premium last year.
He received an apology and a year’s free cover from the RAC after the Observer got in touch. The RAC says it had to employ subcontractors in his case because of the remote location and size of his vehicle. “We are working with the two third-party contractors to understand how they failed to find Mr Shirley’s campervan despite its prominent location on an isolated road,” says a spokesperson.
Gray was offered a refund of his premium as the RAC admitted it had “not delivered the service expected”. The RAC says that, contrary to what he was told, members are not required to carry a spare tyre.
Five months after Nield’s ordeal, the AA has repaid his £117 premium along with £200 in compensation. “The delay was due to a failure in communication, coupled with high service usage in the area, and we sincerely apologise,” says a spokesperson. It says it will use Swann’s ordeal to “improve its services” and has awarded her £200.
James says the law needs to change to weaken the companies’ monopoly. “The industry needs opening out to provide better service and choice.”
