One of the upsetting jobs breakdown recovery vehicle companies have to do is remover cars from the scene of an accident, sometime where someone of many have lost their lives. This tends not to be something the national breakdown cover organisations do not get involved with as they do not have local storage facilities for the salvaged vehicles, but they could get involved in smaller shunts.

What determines whether someone walks away from a crash like this, is all based around NCAP testing, using dummies and specific crash tests to see how your car would suffice in different types of accidents.

The AA who are the largest breakdown cover provider in the UK, were one of the founder members of the European NCAP as a motoring club proving an interested in car safety as well as the normal breakdown cover service they provide.

Of course the testing is not based around keeping that car on the road, or removing the need for a breakdown cover truck. Most tests are about allowing the outside shell to take the impact and compress, reducing the impact on the shell that the passengers would sit in.

Very often you can then see crushed vehicles on breakdown recovery trucks, that passengers have walked away from, because the cocoon they sit in has remained intact, when parts all around have fallen off or have been crushed.