Title:
Breakdown Cover: A 'Day Trip' Gone Wrong...

Word Count:
678

Summary:
Just imagine… you’ve been out on a ‘day trip’, with the family, to the coast and had an amazing day. However, you lost track of time and leave the coast a little later than expected. Not long after leaving, it starts to get dark.

Keywords:
breakdown cover

Article Body:
Just imagine… you’ve been out on a ‘day trip’, with the family, to the coast and had an amazing day. However, you lost track of time and leave the coast a little later than expected. Not long after leaving, it starts to get dark.

You wouldn’t normally be too worried about this but it’s the first time you been to this particular coastal town and on your way back home you end up taking a wrong turn. A few miles later you realise what you’ve done but you think that there’s sure to be a town or village just around the next corner with a signpost to point you in the right direction. You keep going.

Before you know it, you’ve gone another ten miles or so, but you think it might be better to carry on rather than go back. There’s bound to be some directions you’ll recognise sooner or later.

The fuel gauge is starting to get a bit low. Now you’re starting to worry, especially as you didn’t fill up with petrol before the journey home – you went past a garage but thought about getting onto the motorway first, and a few miles under your belt. Now you’re feeling a bit anxious and getting more concerned about finding a filling station than directions for home!

You can’t turn back and find that original filling station because you know the fuel would run out before you got back there. So you keep going. Until now, you’ve managed to keep your concern under your hat but your partner’s noticed you feeling uncomfortable and she asks you what’s wrong. You tell her as quietly as possible so the kids don’t hear, but her reaction renders that action pointless! Now the whole family are getting worried.

Thankfully you come to a crossroads and a signpost which points you to a village only a mile away. The family feel somewhat relieved, but when you get there, there’s no filling station! Next stop 15 miles! Well, what can you do? You head for the town but the gauge is now in the red. You take it steady but as the miles go by, the inevitable happens… the engine starts mis-firing. You struggle on for another couple of miles then the engine cuts out.

This is possibly your worse nightmare. You’re in the dark, on a lonely country road, about 4 miles from town, with no fuel. Your partner is worried sick and one of the kids is crying. You go outside to think for a minute, wondering how you got caught out like this and trying to think what to do next. Then, you remember a few weeks earlier talking to a friendly Face to Face RAC agent and taking out some breakdown cover!

‘What did he say?’ you think to yourself. ‘If you run out of petrol or lock your keys in the car, we’ll come out to help’. After taking your mobile phone out of your pocket you realise that at least something is going right for you: there’s a decent signal on the mobile and you call RAC rescue. ‘Where are you sir?’ the friendly voice asks at the other end of the line. ‘I’ve no idea’ you say as you begin to panic again. ‘That’s okay sir, we’ve got your location from the mobile phone signal – we’ll have someone with you in around 30 minutes’’. ’It was unleaded petrol you need wasn’t it’.

A few minutes later a text message comes over to your mobile saying a patrol car will be there in about twenty five minutes and sure enough an RAC van arrives bang on time. After putting petrol into your car, the Rescue Patrol follows you to the town and waits while you fill up. They then point you in the right direction for home.

Wow, what a service! And boy aren’t you glad you joined the RAC for your breakdown cover!