There is not words to be said, letting the vehicle do the talking, but there are quite a lot of exhaust fumes coming off some of the cars giving the impression of how cold it is, but also showing us, how much C02 can leave these older cars.

Being close to you means shorter average call out times, which the RAC have realised is just as important as price and all 3 large organisations looking at just over 30 minutes as average, but how these figures are measured we still don’t know. Are they measured in quiet times, busy time as the extreme figures removed? (ie. Breaking down right next to a parked patrol van). Anyway here is the video.

As we know most call outs are for things like a flat battery, or flat tyres or being locked out of your car. So having bikes that can get through traffic quicker than a car or van for these call outs make sense. To have electric bikes makes even more sense and plays its part to save the world, especially in a heavily polluted are such as a city.

Not only do these bikes work well but they also look good, especially painted in the AA colours., here is a video to show.

Green Flag from £25: Although this depends on car and mileage factors. You need to fill in the form to find out the correct price.

RAC: They offer cover from £29

The AA: If you buy online they have cover from £29, not the £35 they advertise on TV.

This is clearly not a marketing video and aimed at the membership rather than out side it, but it does give an inside to AMA membership and how being a part of a group can give benefits, beyond a magazine.

The benefits also include discounts from several retailers relating to motorcycles products, when you subscribe to AMA champion. The real benefit is that this can also be breakdown cover for family members for other vehicles including RV’s. The amazing price for the ideal is only $39 a year. Sometimes we wish we were born on the other side of the Atlantic.

The motoring badges have now become collector items, sometime going for tidy sums at collector’s fairs and auctions. The AA badges were used from 1906 right up to 1967, when the traditional square logo that is used today standardised the logo. As usual progress and the need to reduce costs meant that the badge was an unnecessary product, that in later years were just not used even when they were allocated.

Today, even if we wanted to there are very few cars which have the ability to show a metal badge even if we wanted to. So the Automobile Associations collector items are just that, for collectors only and a bit of nostalgia.

The AA website has an article explaining the various badges that were produced over the decades. Now most of us are not bothered about membership of a motoring club. All we want is someone to give us breakdown cover in our time of need and it is down to cost and quality of service that gets our custom, not the design of our badges.

The AA believes that the bike still has its worth because that so many breakdowns are due to flat batteries, flat tyres and being locked out their car, in better words callouts that do not need a large set of parts or tools.
The AA are also keen to suggest that one persons breakdown could cause other motorists problems, especially if the breakdown on a busy street. The improved attendance time within city areas, could ease congestion and get both the car that has broken down and possibly many other motorists on their way much quicker.

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.

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.

I found this confusing as Asda does not provide the breakdown cover service, the RAC does, so it was time to visit the Your Money website direct and read why Asda received this award. However this became even more confusion as the page with what we assume to be a list of awards just would not open on the night.

So for this blog post we cannot even link to the online breakdown cover award and at this point we still do not know what makes Asda better than the rest, even though the RAC provides the breakdown cover.

We will take you to the Your Money homepage and hopefully when you look, you will find why the medal is place on the Asda breakdown cover page

Well here are the scores on the board on the 4th September 2008, advertised directly on the websites.

The cheapest is Green Flag with their basic Rescue package from £25, clearly they are looking to woo those who can see just how cheap this price is compared to previous years. Green Flag have market themselves at this price point before earlier in the year and now feel they needed to return to this entry point.

The next price up is quite surprising as it is the AA, who we are normally used to see being the most expensive of the 3, although this survey is only based on entry point prices. The AA is advertising prices from £29 which is based on the 35% discount you would get buy buying online. Here is a hint (you can do this through Breakdown Cover Net). The AA call their entry point breakdown cover service as just Roadside.

Finally we have the RAC who have prices from £33, although not a bad price is just not as competitive as the AA or Green Flag. The RAC breakdown cover polices do cover you as a driver or passenger in a car, rather than for one vehicle, so this should be a consideration.

We should stress however, that although these are the price entry points for these breakdown cover organisations, these polices are not identical and those difference should be the priority when choosing which policy would be right for you.

During this so called credit crunch time, breakdown cover may no seem the biggest priority with mortgages to pay and the high price of fuel to add to the financial burden. It seems these emergency roadside service providers have responded with lower than usual prices to keep you safe whilst driving your car.