ON A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT...
Page 55
Page 57
Page 58
Page 71
Page 72
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
All the major vehicle manufacturers now offer breakdown rescue services, for which some bold claims have been made. We spent three nights in the Lake District with ten vehicles to put those claims to the acid test.
• Truck manufacturers can no longer sell just trucks. Nowadays most operators are rather like the much-written-about yuppie on the look-out for a new highly-paid City job: it is the total package they are interested in.
This really should not be too surprising considering that market forces are tending to push the "up-front" discounts offered by most manufacturers' dealers to broadly the same level, and there is a similar broad parity on many trucks' technical specifications and performances. Small wonder, therefore, that many manufacturers put so much effort into developing the range of after-sales services they offer in order to gain a competitive edge over their rivals.
One of the after-sales services to which a lot of attention has been paid recently is breakdown recovery, with a plethora of advertisements making all kinds of bold claims about speed of response and the excellence of x or y manufacturer's dealer network. As any regular reader of Commercial Motor will know, we put manufacturers' claims about their vehicles' performances very thoroughly to the test with our road test programme. We thought it was about time we began to test some of the other claims they make, and breakdown recovery seemed a good place to start.
Geographically, the location we chose to conduct the test was the Lindale by-pass, on the A590, which runs from the M6 motorway to Barrow-in-Furness.
The Lindale by-pass has no special quality that makes it more suitable for testing recovery schemes than hundreds of other similar roads in Britain (although, by the end of our exercise, some telephone operators may have come to believe that it is to commercial vehicles what the Bermuda Triangle is to aircraft and ships) but it suited our purpose well, and, most important of all, the operators who provided the vehicles for the test are all based reasonably close to that piece of road.
We could easily have chosen a much more isolated or difficult-to-find spot, and it is worth bearing that in mind when reading the tables which show the time taken from initial phone call to completed repair.
We made no attempt to try and find a location that was equidistant from every manufacturers' dealers since we reckoned that would be well-nigh impossible. Instead, we have taken the distance each mechanic had to travel from his base (the dealership, not his home) and used it to calculate a minutes-per-kilometre figure for each of the ten vehicles.
We realise of course that a survey of this kind has no statistical validity (the sample for each manufacturer could not have been smaller) but we have no doubt that it is worthwhile nevertheless. Some glaring weaknesses have been highlighted by it as well as many strengths. Any manufacturer who challenges our results on the basis of statistics should refer to any driver who has been left waiting in a cold, wet, lonely lay-by with a broken-down vehicle for longer than the manufacturer says is his "average".
THE CAUSE OF BREAKDOWN
While the diagnostic skills and resourcefulness of any mechanic or technician sent out to a broken-down vehicle evidently are important factors, we did not set out specifically to test them: that would have made it far too complicated and time consuming. The faults we induced on each vehicle, therefore, were intended to be very easy to find and rectify, although some unexpected complications did set in on a couple of vehicles.
Most of the vehicles we used in the test have full air brake systems, and on these we decided the most suitable "fault" would be a loss of air pressure. This is a fairly common cause of genuine breakdown, and
was easy to simulate in most cases by simply slackening a union on the compressor outlet pipe.
On the Ford Cargo the outlet pipe-tocompressor joint stubbornly remained in place and air-tight even when the nut was completely undone and so defeated our standard tactic. We resorted to a broken fan belt as the cause of breakdown in this case. The same fault proved to be the most appropriate for the air-over-hydraulicbraked Renault/Dodge 50 Series. On the Foden, to avoid two vehicles with air loss in the same lay-by we disconnected the accelerator linkage at the pump.
Two additional problems whch we had not reckoned with occurred on the Foden and the Mercedes tractive unit. The hydraulic cab-tilt pump on the Foden ran short of oil and had to be replenished and bled of air before the cab could be brought back. The second, unplanned problem, with the Mercedes 2035, resulted from a combination of this model's standard EPS gearshift system and Mercedes' failure to provide an independent means of stopping the engine apart from the exhaust brake.
With its cab tilted, disconnecting the outlet pipe from the 2035's compressor was straightforward. Then we tilted the cab back and brought in the low air warning buzzer by pumping the brake pedal. Just to make sure the fault seemed genuine, and to warm up the cab a little before the waiting began, we re-started the engine. Then, to our consternation, we discovered that we could not stop it!
The standard procedure for stopping Mercedes' big diesels has long been to press the exhaust-brake button, which puts the fuel injection pump in the "no-fuel" position. The exhaust brake is air-operated, however, and as an auxiliary, it is one of the first components not to function when there is a loss of normal pressure from the system. With a conventional, manual gearshift system no matter how much air is lost the engine can be stalled, by engaging a high gear and letting up the clutch pedal.
Not so with EPS unfortunately, for it is an electro-pneumatic system which requires a reasonable air pressure before any gear can be engaged. It does have a limphome ability, but we discovered that the rotary switch on the EPS control console, which is intended to allow the driver to engage two gears in the event of a system failure, is also air-operated. We could find no means of stopping the Mercedes engine without tilting its cab while it was running and pushing the pump's rack to no fuel. We were not prepared to risk this and left the engine running until the fitter from Cumbria Commercials arrived. He had no answer to the problem but luckily was able to reach far enough under the tmtilted cab to refit the disconnected pipe.
This experience left us in no doubt that Mercedes should hastily modify its enginestop system, at least on EPS-equipped vehicles, so that there is an independent, preferably mechanical, means of stopping the engine.
THE VEHICLES
Without the extensive co-operation of five operators; T Brady and Son of Barrow-inFurness, British Gas North Western, based at Morecambe; Pandoro of Fleetwood; Rank Hovis McDougall of Manchester; and Shaw's of Lindale, this whole comparison test would have been impossible. We did not want to miss out any of the ten major manufacturers with significant market shares in this country (we excluded Hino, for example, because its market share is so small), all of whom offer their own breakdown and recovery services.
Some operators prefer to by-pass the manufacturer services, and go direct to independent organisations. We decided to leave those out and concentrate on the manufacturers on this occasion.
A Scania 142 and Mercedes 2035 came from T Brady and Son; British Gas provided an Iveco Ford Cargo 1313 and a Dodge S46; Pandoro let us borrow four tractive units from its big fleet: a Volvo F10, Daf 2800 and ERF E Series, (all 6 x 2s) and a 4 x 2 Seddon Atkinson 401. The Foden S10 tractive unit came from RHM at Manchester; and the MAN 16.362 from Shaw's of Lindale.
THE RESPONSES
The tables which follow show, in bald terms, the results of our one-off comparison, but the importance of several aspects of any breakdown service, like the manner of the telephone operator or the skill of the fitter cannot be revealed by any simple table. We therefore also briefly describe what happened in each case after we picked up the phone. . .
By midnight on the first night of the test we had the first three vehicles ready: broken down in three separate lay-bys within about 51cm of each other on the soon-to-be-notorious Lindale by-pass. They were the Iveco Ford Cargo, the Seddon Atkinson 401 and the Volvo F10.
We had with us a car with a mobile telephone and our intention was to be scrupulously fair to all the first three manufacturers by telephoning for assistance as near simultaneously as possible from the car. Lesson one from this exercise came as a bit of a shock: with one exception, none of the manufacturers' roadside rescue services can be contacted with a cellular telephone. The reason for this absurdity? With the exception of MAN-VW, whose scheme is run by London-based Mondial with a normal 01 number, they all use Freephone numbers through the BT operator or 0800, no-cost-to-the-caller numbers. Calls on 0800 cannot be made on cellular telephones, and the Cellnet operator, whom we called in some frustration when all our first attempts to be rescued failed, tells us that there is no way she or any other cellular system operator can contact the British Telecom operator.
While a no cost-call recovery system seems to be advantageous, therefore, it does have definite drawbacks (we later discovered some others quite apart from this cellular incompatibility nonsense).
By chance, the only one of our vehicles fitted with a mobile phone was the only one on which it could be used for our purpose, the MAN of Shaw's of Lindale. There are many good reasons for installing cellular telephones in commercial vehicles, but do not expect them to be of all that much use if the vehicles break down.
Compared with some unfortunate drivers we were lucky. There was a public telephone which was in good working order within reasonable distance of the brokendown vehicles, and, of course, we had a car on hand to take us there.
The first operator-made call to Seddon Atkinson's Freefone Sabre, like the majority of calls we were to make, went to National Breakdown's Leeds control room and was made at 12.30arn. The National Breakdown operator was careful to establish our exact location and, unusually among the test calls we made, wanted to know if the vehicle was loaded or empty.
Clearly one of the key questions for him was the name of a dealer he could contact to ensure that whoever he sent out to us would be paid. Lace most drivers, we suspect, we did not know the name of the company's dealer so, as previously arranged with Pandoro, we referred him to the company's workshop night foreman at Fleetwood, and agreed to call Sabre back in ten minutes. By 12.45am we had been told by the Sabre operator that Scotts of Penrith were "on their way to you" and in what seemed to us, just the right firm but friendly manner, he told us to go and wait in the cab.
By 2.00am we had come to greatly appreciate Pandoro's policy of fitting Eberspacher cab heaters in all its tractive units. Lindale in the early hours of an October morning is far from the most inhospitable place a truck can break down, but with no means of keeping the cab warm it can feel very cold, dark and unpleasant.
We did not have to wait long. At 2.10am a very competent fitter from Scott's arrived in a well-equipped Iveco Daily van and quickly but systematically began to find the air leak. He was a little surprised to find it was nothing more serious than an unscrewed compressor pipe. He had brought a good selection of valves with him, but did not waste any time mulling over the reasons behind the loose pipe. By 2.30am the engine was running again with full air pressure in the system, but the Scotts man did not them simple clear off. After taking the distance recording from the tachograph and details from the vehicle plate, he followed us to the M6 junction just to make sure everything was running sweetly. We were impressed. TB
IVECO
Ccrored
TRUCK
Iveco Ford Truck also uses National Breakdown for its rescue service, called Aidline. In the interest of realism, our first contact with it was through British Gas's Morecambe radio control room. Like Pandoro, British Gas does not normally use the manufacturers' recovery services: its drivers are instructed to contact their base workshop in the event of difficulty, and the British Gas vehicles have radio contact with their control room.
Within seven minutes of the initial call at 12.20, National Breakdown had its allimportant clearance from British Gas. From our description of the problem, the National Breakdown operator seemed to reach the conclusion that it did not require the expertise or parts stock of an Iveco Ford dealer.
This resulted in Auto Service Recoveries of Lancaster, a general recovery operator, being given the job instead of the Iveco Ford dealer in Lancaster.
The fitter travelled from Morecambe to Lancaster to collect the Ford Transit recovery vehicle, fitted with a spectacle lift, and arrived at out stricken vehicle at 1.53am. He confirmed his strong suspicion that the belt had broken by taking a look under the cab. Since a fan belt was the only spare part he had brught with him it was lucky that his initial diagnosis was correct.
He picked out the fan belt with the appropriate part number for our Cargo with the less-than-reassuring phrase: "The listed Ford belts do not usually fit.
He was right. The first belt he selected was obviously far too short and he gave up recommended procedure to simply hunt through his pile of belts to find one of the right length. While fitting it he asked if the engine had overheated, and also checked the coolant level.
There was a slight delay after the engine was started owing to a faulty cab-tilt warning lamp. Soon, though the fitter was able to rejoin his wife, who had accompanied him in the Transit, after noting vehicle registration number, odometer reading and location, and obtaining a signature. CS
RENAULT
The Renault Truck Industries rescue scheme is called Renault Assistance. Until 1 August this year it was operated by Mondial, but now is run by Octagon Recovery of Bradford with an 0800 number.
By coincidence, Octagon also runs British Gas's own recovery service and it was a British Gas Dodge S46 that we used to test the Assistance scheme. The fact that the Octagon telephone operator was familiar with the vehicle operator definitely seemed to smooth the procedure, although when we were unable to give him an Assistance membership number he did require a British Gas order number.
He was very precise with questions about the symptoms of the breakdown and about our exact location, but in other areas we think his line of questioning was rather vague, although always noticeably friendly. He did not ask, for example, if the vehicle was loaded or not.
He was certainly as good as his word, however, when he said: "There'll be someone there as soon as we can get him to you." A fitter from Dalthwaites, the local (very local, being just down the road at Milnthorpe) Renault dealer arrived in an estate car one hour and 11 minutes after our call ended. He said that this was Dalthwaites' first job from Octagon.
His supply of spare parts and equipment in the estate car was very limited, and it was clear that his conversation with Octagon had made him fairly sure that the fault was simply a fan belt or alternator. He had both components with him but it is an indication both of his resourcefulness, and of a failure in the Dalthwaites' systems, that they were both used components. The fitter explained that he had been unable to get into a locked stores and therefore had taken the belt and alternator from a vehicle in the workshop.
TB
MERCEDES-BENZ
As already stated, the Mercedes 2035 would not stop, and after some desperate exhaust brake pressing, we got on the blower to Mecerdes' breakdown service tout de suite.
The National Breakdown clearing house took the call, and asked about the owner, dealer, vehicle details, the load, the problem, and the location, in that order.
"Cumbria Commercials of Carlisle will be with you in ninety minutes," he says, cheerily. The big 14.6 litre vee-eight replies, Crob. . Crob. . .Crob. . .
At 9.20, a Mercedes 307 van passes slowly by on the other side of the road, where there is also a Little Chef restaurant. We wave like mad, but the van disappears in an easterly direction. Crob. . Crob. . .Crob. . .
We phone the Breakdown service to tell them about this, and to confirm that the location we gave them was on the Lindale-by-pass, by the Little Chef on the north side of the road, as we were travelling in a westerly direction. We are also allowed to talk to the Foclen breakdown service man at National Breakdown, who is sitting to the left of the Mercedes man, and dealing with Tim Blakemore's stricken Foden in the same lay-by.
At 9.52, the Mercedes 307 draws up in front of the 2035. The twin-steer tractor has been idling for over two hours now. Crob. .Crob. . .Crob. . .
The van contains one box of tools, and an angry young man, who says he was told only to go to the Little Chef. He was about to go home, and had drawn into the Little Chef on our side of the road to phone the breakdown people, when we flagged him down. . Can you stop this (crob) engine?"
"No, it's (crob. . crob) a problem on the vehicles with EPS," he says, adding: "I don't like to tilt the cab (crob) with the vehicle running. It could be dangerous."
Fortunately he can see the disconnected pipe, and leans into the engine bay to effect a one-spanner repair job. The union has two joints, and should be tightened with two spanners.
Without waiting for the air to build up, or for a signature, he bounds back in the van and is away. It is fortuitous that the repair only needed tools, for he had no spares in the van. AE
SMNIA
The Lindale bypass rises to around 180m with stunning views over Grangeover-Sands to the River Kent estuary, and Morecambe Bay. At 2am none of this is visible, and the darkened cab of the stricken Scania 142 is a poor refuge from the rather boisterous weather conditions. The man at the other end of the telephone works for National Breakdown, and is called Jim. After the initial phone call at 12.53, we had to call back at 1.15, 1.30 and 1.50. The security manager from Kelly's Trucks is out on his 'security rounds', and he is needed to authorize the call out in case the owners of the Scania have not paid their bills.
We stamp our feet and blow on our hands outside the phone box for nearly an hour, until finally Jim comes up with a solution.
He asks about the vehicle, the location, the registration, and the problem, and tells us that the nearest dealer is Graham Commercials of Carlisle. and rather than call them out, he has called a nonfranchised agent to come and troubleshoot.
Hudson Engineering of Milnthorpe is only 14km away, and an engineer is despatched to try to sort out the Scania, and call out Grahams if this proves impossible.
Hudson arrives at 2.13, a dour engineer who quickly sorts out the knobbled Scalia, and leaves. He doesn't take a signature, or details from the vehicle.
Scania is acutely aware of the problems of phoning its freephone Lifeline number from an in-car phone, and it is currently reviewing the situation to try to find a solution.
'NTOTATO
At L20 in the morning, the merits of air suspended seats, cab heaters, tape machines, and a clean cab cease to be a debating issue, and are esential, keeping the driver warm and sane during the wait. AE The receiving man at the other end of Volvo's emergency 'Action Line' is indecently cheerful considering the weather, and the time of the night (12.50).
Volvo's central clearing house for emergency calls is BRS Rescue and the man asks about the type of vehicle, and the load. He also asks about the nearest Volvo dealer to our location, and Pandoro's main dealer. We profess no idea on either subject, but tell him that we have no air, and go back to wait for the repair man.
Two rather isolated hours pass, and then an Escort van pulls up containing another infuriatingly cheerful engineer from Thomas Hardie Commercials of Preston. Volvo Action Line had called him by bedside bleeper at 1.30. 'No air on an F10," they said, as they gave him the directions.
He had raised the storeman, and crammed, it seemed almost every component on an FlO's braking system into the back of his van. Pandoro had authorised the callout, and he was on his way.
By the time he arrives, it is raining knives and forks. Undeterred, he dons a fiat cap, and anorak, and effects the easy repair. "The more information I get at first, and the fewer people in the chain the better," he says, as he explains what makes a good repair job.
By 3.35 he has solved the problem, and packed his tools away. The air tanks have been run up to full pressure and allowed to blow off, and he has rechecked all the connections, A receipt is signed, with the chassis number, Pandora's number, and the odometer reading, but before the Escort speeds off into the murk, he offers a cup of coffee, and a lift. AE
ERI
The ERF 'Freeway' number is engaged when we first try to call it at 8.30. When we finally get through there is some concern about the 'Freeway' membership number as the vehicle is still under warranty, and the number is needed, We give the man all the details on the membership card, but belatedly find that the membership number is taped to the inside of the windscreen.
BRS Rescue is the clearing house for Freeway calls, and the man needs to know the owner of the vehicle, the load, the gross weight, and the location. He asks whether the vehicle is off the road, and whether there is sufficient shelter for us to wait in.
He is a pleasant chap, and seems concerned for our welfare as much as anything else. He calls out Lakeland Commercials of Carnforth, and an engineer arrives at 10.44.
The engineer is driving a Bedford CF2 van, and like the man from Volvo, he has packed it with every spare he can think of for an ERF air system.
Before looking at the vehicle he asks a number of questions to isolate the fault. He then runs up the engine, tilts the cab, and identifies the disconnected pipe.
It is soon fixed, and he starts the engine to run up the air tanks. Before the dump valve has worked, he has taken the odometer reading, the chassis number, and obtained a signature. Twenty minutes after he arrived, the CF2 pulls out into the traffic, leaving a perfectly operational ERF. AE
Leyland OAF
Our call to Leyland Dafaid began in a rather confused way. The National Breakdown operator who responded to our 0800 call wanted the name of our local Leyland dealer despite our having made clear that the broken down vehicle was a Daf 2800.
What we believe had happened is simply that someone at Leeds had forgotten to re-label a telephone. Prior to the forma tion of Leyland Daf, both Leyland's and Dots rescue services were operated by National Breakdown. Once Leyland Daf was formed it made sense to use just one line instead of two, and that line was the former Leyland Linldine one.
After we had given the operator Pandoro's workshop telephone number for the mandatory local dealer clearance to be obtained we were asked to call back.
When we rang back, we were told that Solway Daf Trucks of Carlisle was "on the way" and would be with us in about one and a half hours, so it was back to the Daf cab and another opportunity to be grateful for Pandora's cab heaters. Two hours later, the Solway Daf man arrived.
By 3.26 a Vauxhall van pulled up with the repair man, and a number of spares.
We are not about to question the engineer's technical skill, but we were amazed at the man's gullibility. The air pipe unions on the Daf 2800 had proved extraordinarily resilient, and we had resorted to removing the banjo bolt on the side of the compressor, and leaving it by the side of the engine block.
When the engineer started the engine, the offending bolt must have fallen on to the ground under the engine sump.
The man started by looking under the cab for the fault, and virtually tripped over the bolt!
"You must have driven all this way, and then the bolt fell out here," he said, totally unsurprised, "What a dream job!"
He was carrying copper washers in the van, and effected a sound repair job. After testing all the other unions, he ran up the air tanks to blow off, obtained a signature, chassis number, and odometer reading, and zoomed off into the night. AE Compared with many of the telephone calls we made, the call to MAN's rescue service was made in comparative comfort; from the cab of Shaw's new 16.362. The Mondial operator wanted to know vehicle details, the exact location (since Shaw's is based at Lindale we moved away a little for this vehicle down the A590 towards Barrow-in-Furness to Greenodd), the nature of the fault, and the name of the operator. There was the familiar question about which dealer supplied the vehicle and, unusually, Mondial wanted to know if we knew who our nearest dealer was. Mondial needed about 15 minutes to obtain the necessary dealer credit clearance. The in-cab phone was brand new and we had no number for it, so we agreed to call back.
"Someone will be with you within the hour," was the reassuring but, as it turned out, slightly optimistic message we received when we did so. One hour and forty minutes later the VW Caddy pick-up from Borderman Trucks of Carlisle pulled up alongside the MAN.
The cheerful Borderman fitter apologised for having taken so long: "I had to fuel up, and I picked up all the loss-of-airrelated spares I could think of," he said. He was clearly pleased to find when he tilted the cab that he needed none of them.
Within five minutes of his arrival the compressor pipe was reconnected, the cab back in place, and the engine running with normal air pressure restored to the system. The paperwork information comprised: customer name, date, vehicle registration number, odometer reading, nature of fault, call-out time, distance travelled, and the fitter's name.
Having signed a form to confirm the work had been done, Stan Shaw was given a questionaire to fill in later which asked questions about his opinion of the standard of service provided. CS With the Fodensure call out we again found that 0800 numbers cannot be reached direct fom public payphones without going through the operator. Another communication complication in this case was that the call was made from a Little Chef and as regular users of this Trusthouse Forte chain will know, the public telephones they use are of the type which does not accept incoming calls.
Foden is another manufacturer which uses National Breakdown to operate its rescue service and, since it was the last vehicle of our bunch we believe that maybe by now the operator had begun to suspect that there was something a bit odd about all these Lindale by-pass breakdowns.
"Just sit tight", he told us, and surprisingly in view of our earlier experiences, did not seem unduly perturbed when we were unable to ring back in ten or 15 minutes, after he had contacted one of the dealers whose names we had given him, because the Little Chef was closing.
Forty minutes later, after the Little Chef was closed we found another public telephone and learned from National Breakdown that Hudson Engineers of Milnthorpe were on their way to us. It seems that the operator had been unable to contact the call-out fitter at the nearest Foden dealer, North Riding group of Carlisle, and had decided that Hudson probably could handle the job.
The operator was right. Five minutes after our second call the Hudson's fitter arrived in an exceptionally well-equipped Transit van and proceeded to demonstrate his efficiency, versatility and resourcefulness by quickly finding the diconnected accelerator linkage, finding a nut from his van to fit it and then topping up and bleeding the problematical cab tilt pump. Within half an hour of his arrival the Foden was ready to roll and we had a
copy of the Hudson's order. TB
CONCLUSIONS
In assessing the results of our first breakdown survey it soon became clear that each rescue operation falls readily into two parts: communication and the rescue itself. We reached very different conclusions on the two parts.
We can find little to seriously criticise in the way in which almost all our repairers, whether they came from franchised dealers or from general recovery firms, carried out their tasks. With the possible exception of the Mercedes fitter, who could have shown more initiative in finding the vehicle and whose standard for the repair left something to be desired, the mechanics and technicians who came to our aid impressed us with their skill and resourcefulness, and the way they represented their companies.
There is tremendous scope for improvement, however, in the way the communications side of CV rescue is handled in this country. All the hidden difficulties which we uncovered relating to 0800 and Freefone numbers could be cleared up, and most of the responsibility for this must rest with BT and the people who run the cellular phone networks.
British Telecom tells us that all pay phones in the London area have been converted now to allow 0800 calls to be made from them, and the rest of the country's pay phones will be converted in due course, although we were not told the scheduled completion date for this exercise. In the meantime if you break down outside London you had better hope that the pay phone nearest you is not one of the increasingly common type which does not allow you to call the operator.
EXTRAORDINARY DELAY
There is also a lot that the rescue organisations, dominated among the vehicle manufacturer schemes as our chart shows by National Breakdown, could do to make recovery smoother and quicker for the unfortunate driver with a broken-down vehicle, and less costly for the vehicle operator. The main cause of delay in our exercise between the initial telephone call and information that someone was on the way to us was the operator having to contact our local dealer.
In some cases this delay was extraordinarily long. We understand the need for the rescue organisation, and thus the repairer, to ensure that it will be paid for the job, but there must be more efficient ways of checking an operator's creditworthiness than contacting his local dealer in the early hours of the morning. As an alternative, for example, why could not all the rescue organisations simply keep a blacklist of operators to whom they should not send recovery agents without a guarantee of payment, leaving the majority of creditworthy operators to automatically benefit from manufacturer-backed rescue?
DRIVER'S WELFARE
We are surprised that there is apparently no standard list of questions for the rescue telephone operators to ask drivers (with the exception of the name of local dealer). Far from all of those to whom we spoke asked if the vehicle was loaded or not, and none asked if we were carrying dangerous goods.
Some were noticeably better than others in showing the right degree of concern for the driver's welfare while still telling him exactly what he should do next. It is essential that the driver is kept properly informed and, as one of our rescuers pointed out, ideally he should be put in direct contact with the repairer.
We now know from personal experience just how frustrating it can be to sit in a broken-down vehicle without knowing exactly what is being done to rescue it, whether that wait is for 76 minutes or 144 minutes or even longer.
0 by Tim Blakemore, Andrew English and Colin Sowman.