Like many others trying to switch off from work over the Christmas period is not that easy. Over the holiday period there was extensive media coverage on the chance that those involved in an accident under the age of 25, would have alcohol in their system was 35% of all accidents.

I am very vague on the details; the information was presented by Green Flag and the safety organisation Brake. It seemed an easy solution to wait until after the holiday period then visit the Green Flag site direct and get the full details. As it so happens the press release page on the Green Flag site is well out of date and very disappointing. In fact the last date of any pres release was Feb 2008. Although there was much press information on the Brake site, the information all seemed to relate to car accidents from the BBC site.

You would have thought that an organisation as big as Green Flag with its full breakdown cover operation and claims of supporting road safety in the UK, would have the information at hand. Of course if the road safety news is separated from the main news, it should be easier to find.

This is an opinion only and subject to different interpretations.

Some quick facts of why the Honda Clarity, the Hydrogen Cell powered car, could have the solutions and technology to change the world. Here are some reasons.

Reduce The Need For Oil
The financial world is reliant on oil prices, with some nations currently extremely rich because of the reserves of oil they own. Removing the need for this oil, will not only reduce prices, but also may in fact take away the whole income for that nation.

Change The Need Of Car Parts
With only one moving part within the electric motor, the car parts industry would need to change drastically, to adapt to the new electrical technology. It is more likely that those already with the electrical industries would take over this demand.

Garages And Servicing
To say a washing machine serviceman may be more qualified to repair damaged motors may be nearer the truth than we would like to admit. Of course there will still be some normal car parts on the new breed of cars, but new training, equipment and tools will be required.

New Taxation
Our road tax is currently calculated on how much C02 gasses come out of our exhaust but the Honda Clarity has zero emissions, meaning zero road tax. Of course it is unlikely that the government will let us go tax free on the vehicles we own, so we could see road tolls or other taxation procedures put in place, to get some of this money back.

Emergency Roadside Services
The breakdown cover patrolman, such as the AA, RAC and Green Flag will need to be retrained, all vans which themselves by now may run by fuel cells, new tools and there may not even be anything like the breakdown cover call outs that we have today. After all when has an electric motor failed to start in the cold?

We have mentioned before some of the lesser known breakdown cover providers or arrangers here at BC net, but we have yet to talk about Britannia rescue which has been around for 25 years or so.

Just like Green Flag, their call out system is based on local garages and recovery agents that will answer calls as and when they are required. Often this can mean quicker call out times, rather than waiting for an employed breakdown cover patrolmen sitting in his van 20 miles away, or someone who is already on call.

In this case Britannia claims on its homepage to have been awarded a best buy status from Which, the consumer magazine that compares all service providers and matches on certain criteria, from price to customer service. Although when we checked this out; the latest report we could find was from July 2008 and has the AA as top RAC second and Britannia third.

Even at third it was good reading, to the point of being better than Green Flag, where the research showed you were less likely to be repaired at the roadside. At the time of writing they are advertising roadside assistance from £29, which seems a competitive price. They are promoting this through press advertising including the Daily Mail.

If you want to promote your business then the secret seems to be to give fantastic customer service and hope they share their experience via the social media sites such as You Tube. Well that is exactly what happened when a lady in New Zealand broke down in her car. She was attended by NZI roadside assistance, she then spends a few minutes explaining why this breakdown cover service made her day and converted a bad experience into a good one.

She then thought we all should share our goo customer experiences on video, so we can share who is good and I suppose not so good. A memorable experience, was the parting words or be forgotten. So intrigued by the 2 minute video, that we were motivated to research this breakdown cover organisation down under. Unfortunately all we could find was NZI insurance, who offer car insurance but we cannot find any indication that they do in fact offer breakdown cover.

There was a very strong suspicious that maybe this was set up and an employee or maybe even a part time actor was recruited to speak about their wonderful breakdown cover service. But on trying to find who she is talking about, it does become clear that this video, the best kind of marketing is in fact genunine and the presenter really did want to share her experience.

Yes there is good argument to tell the world both good and bad, but you can’t help thinking, it will be dominated by false information, orchestrated by the company or in fact the opposite orchestrated by the competition.

We are in the States this week in what is supposed to be sunny Florida. But although warmer than the UK, it is as hot as it should be. Anyway this is not a holiday, but research for another vehicle based sites and business, we are helping with. Of course this is excellent territory to research the USA breakdown cover business and how they market their services.

We have said this before, that the Americans do not use the term breakdown cover and tend to describe it in a different way. It looks like the term Roadside Assistance is the most popular, but I suppose what is surprising is the lack of internet rankings for national companies looking for this service.

He most popular or top of Google is the GM Motor Club which at first glance gives the impression it is a roadside assistance club for the owners of General Motors cars. A bit more reading and you realise that the service is open to anyone and in fact competes directly with the other national roadside assistance companies.

Another interesting point is that you are covered for driving in to Canada, which in the UK you would have to increase to European breakdown cover to move from country to country.