The AA

Not the estimable organisation for helping alcoholics but the rather shoddy motoring organisation of the same name.

I must admit to a little bias here. Long ago, touring in Europe in my Morris Minor Traveller, I had an accident in Germany. I had taken out the maximum Five Star Insurance and tried to get lodging, medical bills, travel paid with the AA's vouchers. No one would accept them, saying they were never honoured, so I was left with no option but to sue the AA in court in Stuttgart. I won, and have studiously advised people not to have anything to do with the organisation ever since.

A curiosity in London is that you can often see AA trucks towing away illegally parked cars. How does this help the motorist?

Now the AA has written to the Transport Secretary, who you would have thought had better things to do than read their drivel, to the effect that removing speed cameras from the roads 'will put lives at risk'. From the Press Association: 'A recent switch-off of cameras in the Thames Valley area alarmed residents and there now appeared to be a "road safety policy void", the motoring group said.'

Of course this 'motoring group' is nothing of the sort: it is promoting the views of residents, non-motorists, against the interests of the driver. The AA has turned into another busybody pressure group trying to advance its right-on poitically correct opinions at the expense of its members.

Take no notice of it, is my advice.