AA Blog

21 AA Roadwatch Broadcasters

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AA ROADWATCH!

AA Ireland is offering €21 off its Membership, Home & Motor Insurance all of this week to mark the 21^st birthday of AA Roadwatch. Ireland’s travel and information service was launched in September 1989 and celebrates 21 years on air this week.

Although the AA Roadwatch Sky Patrol was only in action for about 5 years, from 1994 to 1999 it became such a feature with people that anyone who has ever worked with AA Roadwatch will tell you that they are always asked – ‘Did you go up in the helicopter?’

The “Eye-in-the-Sky” was originally manned by Electric Eddie but during the Roadwatch years Bob Conway took the reins and it became the AA Sky Patrol. Bob looks back on his time in the Sky with great nostalgia. At the time he worked with 2fm and he took to the sky every morning in the winter months, and both in the morning and evenings during Spring and Summer.

With schools returning this week Irish towns and cities are preparing for the seasonal return of traffic jams. AA Roadwatch is forecasting that traffic congestion is likely to improve significantly and that the coming ‘traffic season’ will be the lightest that we have had in many years. This is because we have a general reduction of traffic in the economic downturn and because the road building programme has eliminated key blackspots.

“Two main factors are in play.” Says AA Roadwatch Controller Nicola Hudson. “Firstly, there is the downturn. Car traffic on our roads has reduced by 4% since 2008, and more notably the volume of trucks is down by almost 13% according to NRA data. Secondly, there have been very significant infrastructure improvements which have come on line in recent months.”

Ireland now has 738 kilometres of motorway, and 188 kilometres of that opened in 2010. More important than the length of motorway is the elimination of key bottlenecks and the completion of inter-urban connections. These include the connections between Dublin and Cork, Galway, Waterford and (by the end of the year) Limerick. Major pinch points that used to cause so much frustration, such as Abbeyleix, will disappear off the map in terms of traffic jams.

Newspaper stories this morning (24^th August) implied that motor tax rules for commercial vehicles would be changed and that drivers of commercial vehicles would face ‘fines or even imprisonment’ if they used their vehicles for non-commercial, domestic or pleasure purposes. This presented the prospect that a plumber or carpenter could be fined for driving his van to mass on a Sunday, a prospect that the AA denounced as unfair and unenforceable.

The AA has received clarification from the Department of the Environment subsequently which makes it clear that there is no change to existing regulations.

The cost of petrol decreased marginally this month from 133.3 cents per litre to 132.4 on average, the lowest price since April of this year.  Despite the slight reprieve, overall, petrol is up 18.5% on the same time last year.  Diesel is down 1.7 cents on average this month to 123.2 cents, again the lowest since April.  This represents a 13.5% price increase on this time last year for diesel. 

The AA is now inviting motorists to report on fuel prices in their area via the AA website, www.aaireland.ie/fuel.

The AA has conducted a survey of nearly 7000 Irish motorists and the results show that most people feel that Irish driving standards have improved in the last ten years – but not by much.

 AA Motorists’ Panel members were asked whether in their view the behaviour of car drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers, cyclists and motorcyclists had got better or worse in the last ten years. Overall the result was positive – most people felt that standards were better now. But the results were far from unanimous and many people felt that Irish drivers had got worse, not better.

Participants of Ireland’s first electric car trial are plugging in and charging up at home as ESB domestic charge points are rolled out nationwide. Conor Faughnan, AA Ireland is taking part in the study and is currently testing the Mitsuibishi iMiEV electric car, as well as a domestic charge point which was installed in his home last week.

Fuel up on last year but new cars prices and servicing costs down

The cost of running a family car has fallen by 3.4% per cent in the last 12 months, according to the AA’s annual survey of motoring costs. It now costs €11,171 to run a small family car in the ‘Band C’ tax category (typical engine size of 1251 – 1500cc) for a year; down by €397 on the figure for 2009.

The AA has described the proposal to apply toll charges to the non-motorway N-Road network as absurd and has called on the government to rule it out immediately.

The proposal is included in the measures put forward by the Local Government Efficiency Review Group report published by the Minister for Environment, Heritage & Local Government today. Those measures include a number of straightforward tax increases for motorists, such as a 60% increase in the cost of a driving licence, but by far the biggest concern is the notion of new toll booths on the country’s roads.

The average price of petrol has finally fallen this month by 1.7c to 132.7c per litre according to the latest fuel price survey from the AA. Diesel prices also declined slightly by 1.5c a litre in the last month to an average of 124.0c. This is the first month since October of last year that prices have actually fallen.