...and the AA Condembed - Again

Sir,

I should like to endorse the views of J. L. M. Cotter on the Automobile Association (July Motor Sport). Although their services have on occasion been useful in the past to me, including the “relay” of my broken Lancia Aurelia GT from Leicester to London, I have become increasingly disenchanted with both their “selling” methods and their apparent lack of concern or initiative on matters which the motoring public find ever more frustrating and paternalistic. The 50 and 60 m.p.h. “emergency” speed limits are not the only legal aspects which come to mind. It would be far more encouraging to pay one’s subscription to an organisation which was less of a book club and insurance broker, and more of a downto-earth lobby defending rationally the legislative tide which threatens to overwhelm not just the enthusiast but the everyday motorist.

I do not wish to criticise the AA’s services to broken and ailing motor cars, but I do feel that some of their many ancillary activities are misplaced. These feelings, the cost of subscriptions and the fortunate rarity with which I have required the “rescue” services have lost them my membership and those of several others I have talked to recently. At least Motor Sport still speaks out at the more absurd governmental suggestions!

Horsham Paul MAYO

[I find it infuriating that on the one hand the AA will no longer post handbooks to members on account of rising postal costs yet on the other can expend funds on a seemingly endless chain of letter-box-filling cheap offers, mostly unrelated to motoring. My own complaint to the AA that, as they had failed to send me handbooks for the last two years, could they please send me one this year has met with no response. Like’ Mr. Mayo, 1 shall not be renewing my subscription at the end of this year. For all I know the RAC may be just as had, though complaints to us are conspicuous by their absence. But at least they do a positive job in keeping motoring sport running in this country and for that will gain my membership support.—C.R.]