The AA calls it the “busiest night for breakdowns in 25 years”

Anyone who has any doubt about the chaos caused by the snowfall over the last few days need not look any further than statistics revealed by the AA in the days just before Christmas 2009.

Whilst some parts of the country have been hit worse than others, the AA is reporting that by 8am on the morning of 22^nd December 2009, the breakdown company had visited around 6,500 broken down vehicles during the night. This makes the evening of 21^st December 2009 going into the 22^nd the busiest night for breakdowns that this country has seen for 25 years.

But before the night had even drawn in, the AA had already handled its busiest day in 10 years as it visited a reported 20,000 breakdowns before 8.30pm, with more than 1,200 an hour coming in according to their latest press release.

“There has been an unprecedented demand on our services nationwide due to the weather,” said Steve Dewey, the Road Operations Director for the AA, “not just in any one particular region – falling just before Christmas, it’s created a ‘perfect storm’ level of workload of the sort that only occurs say once every ten years.

“The difficulty is that with many roads grinding to a halt or impassable, it is taking us longer to get to members. We are also prioritising service for people in vulnerable positions on the road, over those at home.”

The company urges those with non-emergency situations to be patient, with Dewey going on to mention drivers with their cars stuck on the driveway – people should only contact the AA if they absolutely need to.

The situation comes only weeks after the AA reported a shortage in the amount of grit salt available to tackle freezing roads across the country. Back then they called the situation a ‘postcode lottery’ in regards to area that would receive adequate attention with AA President Edmund King pointing out that “Investing in ice and snow clearance, to save elsewhere down the line, makes total sense.”

People should clearly take care if venturing out onto British roads in these conditions with many roads and motorways severely affected.

Source: AA Press Release Dec 2009

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 11:19 am and is filed under Breakdown Cover, Motoring News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.