I am now on the M18 going North, not knowing if my car will make it, but for some reason I just want to get home, not ring any breakdown cover company. However as I take the turn off to the A1m, some more bad news, it seems the A1m is closed for road works so I am forced back down the M18 to the Doncaster turn off.

Going into Doncaster I am forced now to go down to 3rd gear to handle all the roundabouts but keep the revs high, I follow the signs until the get less and less and then disappear. I am now back on the M18 and to be honest not sure where I am, as the sat nav is telling me to go back to in to Doncaster. I stop at a service station, get my bearings, but did not want to open the water chamber on the car, in case the steam pushed more water out. I then go from M18 to M62, still with no intention of ringing the breakdown cover company, even though I have paid up and not used them this year.

I now have to dive the car continuously at 4000 revs and as I go downhill, the temp gauge goes crazy, so a very slow journey back up the north east in 3rd gear follows. It felt like i was driving an old Morris Minor, at 50mph.
I got home, stressed and very late, but at least i got there. The next morning, I kept asking myself, why did i not just pull over when I had a chance and ring my breakdown cover company to get them out? As I later found out, that all I need was a few pints of water in the system, I could have been fixed and on my way. Even if I had waited an hour for the call out, I think I would have been home earlier that I was. Even if it had been a bit later, I am sure I would have been less stressed. So do others do what I do? I think they do, when under pressure they just want to get home and will keep going until they are forced to stop and ring their breakdown cover service provider.

I actually could have done a lot of damage to the car and in hindsight was very lucky not to blow the engine or create an accident.

Living in the North East I had a business appointment in South West Midlands for 2.00.pm. Driving down the M18 I saw the sign saying that the M1 was closed from junction 26 to 27. I knew a service station nearby, so I stopped looked at the map (as the sat nav had no other suggestions but the M1) and so decide to go off junction 28 and do a detour. Another 10 minutes and I am back on the road to find myself coming to a dead stop. It seems the info on the signs were wrong, the local radio is now saying road closed from junction 28 to 26.

Here I sat for 1.5 hours until I slowly moved forward to be taken off at Junction 28. When I get there the road is coned off, but behind the cones was a huge breakdown recovery truck, with driver sitting there, lights flashing. I remember thinking, why is he there and not say a police car? I wasn’t aware that breakdown recovery gents would be paid to sit in one place and as it was behind the cones, I had to assume he was there by request.

I eventually got to my meeting 1 hour late and so left the meeting in the dark into Wolverhampton, with sat nav. These are great things, but in rush hour do not give you instructions quick enough as by the time they tell you to take the 3rd exit and the next roundabout, it is already to late to get into lane, as the locals know what they are doing.

But here is where the real problems started, as I go round in circles, even with sat nav, I notice the temp gauge on my car getting very high. At this point I think, do I stop and ring my breakdown cover service? As I put my foot down to move away from the round about I notice, the temp gauge goes to normal. Very quickly i notice that with high revs the car seems to get back to normal.

I now start looking for somewhere to stop, but inner cities at rush hour, do not accommodate car breakdowns, so i decided to keep going until I got away from traffic and then decide what to do,
Getting out of traffic was 190 miles away and by now I am on the motorway, driving in 4th gear at 65mph to ensure revs are above 3250. Should I ring the breakdown cover service, once again went through my brain. But the point of this post, was to discuss why I chose not too and just keep on going until I could go no further so for now, I decided lets keep going. So no phone call for now!

Part 2 coming soon.

A bit more digging into the road safety poster seen in Leeds Bradford Airport, brought up Green Flags own campaign. But once again the year does not match but the time of year does.

It seems Green Flag had another road safety week in 2007 from 5th to 11th November, which is of course similar time that this post, but I could not find anything written about road safety week 2008. Maybe I am just not looking hard enough, but I did look under the road safety section of the Green Flag site.

You tube has several United Nations road safety campaign videos, but again I could not find any related to the Green Flag campaign. Just for the record here is the United Nations video.

As I came through the tunnel taking me to the arrivals areas in Leeds Bradford airport I saw a huge banner with a Green Flag Breakdown truck saying these words “Have a safe Journey”. Most travellers never raised an eyebrow, just walked by thinking about just getting home or to their destinations. So it got me wondering why the banner was there at all, as clearly one was going to buy Green Flag Breakdown cover from an airport, especially when so many passengers were foreign, or would use a hire car.

The only thing I could come up with was” Brand Awareness”, but even that did not wash as it did not seem to be a cost effective way of promoting Green Flag.

So a few searches on Google came up with Road Safety week and the fact that Green Flag had in fact sponsored this worthy cause, and even though it did not say Road safety Week anywhere I saw walking through the airport, I have come to the conclusion, this must be the reason.

Actually as far as the road safety week website is concerned, I can only find a relationship back in 2006, so not sure if they have done their own campaign, or is just a very old awareness banner.

We are so used to our brand names here in the UK, that we are probably unaware that there is a Royal Automobile Club down under in Australia also. It is also called the RAC and offers pretty much what we do over here, but with some strange additions.

For example have you ever heard of a breakdown cover organisation offering flights ? It seemed strange at first until you remember that even the UK, has a recommended hotel section, which came from the motorists wanting to go on driving holidays. So the holiday theme works, but the point of flying rather than driving doesn’t so much.

They call their emergency services in Australia as roadside assistance, which is what we do for the cheapest service out, and every thing else seems pretty much the same, except there are some pretty remote areas in the outback, so we would have to assume the RAC Australia would have to use a lot of garage agents on in the wilds, to ensure a fast call out time.

According to the site they have been around as long as the UK RAC, so there certainly is some history and we have mentioned their Free To Go service for young drivers in an earlier blog, without realising it was the RAC that delivered it.

The cover is presented as Ultimate, Classic and Standard, 3 different levels of breakdown cover just like here in the UK.

You would think for such a small place there would be little need for that metal box called a car. The first thing you notice is that all the registrations begin with the letter G and even though they are a UK colony with British army, British police forces, you still drive on the right, rather than the left back in the UK.

For such a small place, it is hard to drive around. Get one street wrong, and you are on a detour with no where to turn around. It is here you realise how many cars there are on this small rock of an island.

As far as breakdown cover is concerned, you have got to think that any car failure would just bring this place to standstill and you could probably push the car home if it weren’t for the steep banks.

So no small national breakdown cover organisation here then, but don’t underestimate just how many cars seem to navigate this small area not including the scooters and mopeds. I just can’t understand the BMW’s and the four by fours who with a G number plate clearly live there, but would never get out 3rd gear.

Even the breakdown cover van would probably only do 2000 miles a year, even working overtime. In short, if you are panning to go. Leave your car on The Spanish side and get the bus in. I wish I had!

It is hard to promote why breakdown cover could be an important purchase in terms of saving you money time and stress. Well this is written when America votes for its next President, and election that is probably one of the most important in USA history based on the events of the last 8 years.

Lewis Hamilton has won the F1 world championship, bringing some pride back to the UK; the place motor racing was born and has some amazing talent. Even Ferrari relies on chief engineers from the UK, to compete with Maclaren.

But probably the main reason for a reduced demand for breakdown cover is the worldwide financial crisis with banks around the world needing bailing out from Governments and tax payer’s money.

Christmas is around the corner and families are more concerned about finding money
to buy presents for the kids, than that breakdown cover policy for the car. These are trying times with uncertainty all around.

Breakdown cover net will be visiting the USA very soon, and will be writing about how the USA are handing things. Will breakdown cover still be an important purchase for them after the election? Let’s wait and see.

For those patriotic Formula One fans out there, if there was a time to have a nervous breakdown, it was the last 2 laps of the Brazilian Grand prix last Sunday. With a clear position to have enough points to win the world championship, he gave way to let Vettell through, making him at position 6th, just not enough to win, but with 2 corners to go, he passed the Toyota of Glock and went back to fifth, allowing him enough points to a deserved world championship.

You can’t help feeling sad for Massa, who did nothing wrong that race and his family, who though he had won the championship as he went over the finish line. Especially his father, as the TV cameras zoomed in on both the celebrations and then tha bad news was told, when Lewis took position 5 back. Hearts were high, then low then high again, and a nervous breakdown was defiantly on the cards, during those final laps. What a finish.

It was shame for David Coulthard though, who finished his last F1 race on the first corner, once again hot from behind. This guy was well respected in the sport. The BBC will cover F1 next year, let’s hope the do as good or even better job than ITV.

Oh yes, a small campaign form breakdown cover net. Martin Brundle for the BBC.