10% of Irish motorists have suffered a breakdown in the past six months
According to recent research from Automobile Association, 10% of Irish motorists have experienced a breakdown of some sort or another within the past six months.
They surveyed 7,000 motorists who use their Rescue Breakdown Services and 3.84% of respondents revealed they had a breakdown in the past month.
A further 7.25% reported having experienced a breakdown between 1 month and six months ago.
AA Ireland Director of Consumer Affairs, Conor Faughnan stated:
“While the recent mild-weather seen throughout winter was good news for motorists from both a road safety and car maintenance perspective, car breakdowns remain an unfortunate part of life. In fact since January of last year almost a fifth of motorists have experienced a breakdown, but thankfully in our experience many of these are fixed at the roadside minimising inconvenience and cost for the motorist,”
Mr. Faughnan went on to state: “For many of us our car is a central part of our lives and a breakdown can be a huge inconvenience, but in over 80% of cases AA Rescue deals with the motorist is back on the road in a short space of time meaning the panic that a breakdown may cause is short-lived.”
One interesting aspect to the findings were that 34.19% of motorists have never experienced a breakdown before. Well for some, we say, however, younger drivers were significantly more likely than their older drivers to have avoided an emergency roadside situation.
Half of Irish motorists (48.99%) under 35 have yet to experience a breakdown with this figure dropping by almost 50% among older drivers.
Just 28.74% of drivers over the age of 56 have never suffered a motoring breakdown at all according to the AA findings.
“Ultimately it’s hardly surprising that older drivers are more likely to have experienced a breakdown as, put simply, the longer you’ve been driving the more likely you are to have had some form of issues with a vehicle. However, when you do experience a breakdown your own safety along with that of your passengers and other road users needs to be a priority,”
“If you can at all pull the vehicle into a safe area on the road and make sure your car is visible to other drivers. Meanwhile, if you must exit the car do so through the passenger-side door and ensure you are standing behind the barrier if on a motorway or in as safe a space as you can find on other roads.”
It would seem that breakdown figures were similar across most of Ireland except for drivers in Connacht where they were the most likely to have experienced a breakdown within the last month as 4.22% of those surveyed reported a recent breakdown, compared to the national average of 3.84%.
Author
Justin Kavanagh
Justin Kavanagh is a recognised leader
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