TheAA no longer prioritising lone women for recovery

[Imayhaveerred]

A woman tweeted this “ hi @TheAA_UK I am a lone woman whose car has broken down at night in the dark. Your call handler has told me you treat lone women and lone men as exactly the same priority in such circumstances because “that’s equality”

TheAA reply: “Hi Helen, you've been advised correctly. We don't prioritise based on gender, we do consider the location so as an example we would prioritise someone on a motorway over someone in a supermarket carpark”

twitter.com/theaa_uk/status/1483867262373220356?s=21

Surely lone women are always at higher risk than lone men? And that’s before the egregious use of gender when they mean sex…

“Mouseonmychair

Women want equality. I don't see the problem. Perhaps men should pay a lower premium if they get a lesser service. This is typical of the silly Mumsnet style feminism where women don't want equality they want preferential treatment“

I don’t think equality always means the ‘same’ or ‘identitical ‘. It would mean equally getting what they need. You can see this in health care for example. A woman won’t need identical health care to a man’s. But as many resources should be given to prostate cancer as to breast cancer, the the most urgently in need of treatment should get it first. A woman on the motorway has a more urgent need usually.

As for women paying a higher premium if their need will be more urgent in cases like this, I think they already pay too high a premium in the name of equality given they have fewer accidents.

Totally agree sex or age alone is not determinative. Obviously risk of injury is first priority but after that it’s madness that lone women broken down aren’t prioritised.

I think it is @TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross along with reminding the hard of thinking yet again that men are attacked by other men so the problem remains male violence

@Mouseonmychair

Women want equality. I don't see the problem. Perhaps men should pay a lower premium if they get a lesser service. This is typical of the silly Mumsnet style feminism where women don't want equality they want preferential treatment.

Finally someone who speaks sense. I'm sick of the whole 'men and women must be treated equally... until it doesn't suit us'

Your life expectancy on a motorway hard shoulder is about 15 minutes
Don’t be ridiculous

@Imayhaveerred

Your life expectancy on a motorway hard shoulder is about 15 minutes

Source please.

I work with the emergency services (A&E doctor/urgent care GP). This is part of our training. Tired drivers fix their eyes on a stationary object and drift towards it, often hitting it. I have seen some absolutely horrific accidents that will stay with me for the rest of my life - whole families wiped out. ALWAYS get out of your car and over the barrier.

I don’t dispute that advice, which is good advice. I do dispute the claim that you’ll be killed after 15 minutes on the hard shoulder.

Weather you’ve seen terrible accidents or not your life expectancy is NOT 15 minutes on a hard shoulder. Some people can’t leave the car and most vehicles are recovered safely from the hard shoulder.

Of course those on a motorway should be prioritised! Not only are they at more risk but also they are risking the lives of other motorists. It would be ridiculous to prioritise a woman in a safe position over a man on a hard shoulder.

Did they ever prioritise lone women? I agree with a PP, maybe a lone woman should be rescued before a lone man, but only all other safety concerns being equal.

Women don’t want to be attacked and murdered. Is that equality? If it’s not equality I still want to not be attacked and murdered, and I’m glad I don’t hang out with people who think the women murdered by men every 2-3 days deserve it.

This is a case of sex not gender. A 5’10 transwoman with male muscle density is not a target the same way the average woman is. I’m 5’4 and 115 pounds, a perfectly normal female height and weight.

Hard shoulders are very dangerous in relation to the rest of the motorway but definitely not a life expectancy of 15 mins! That’s playing fast and lose with statistics .

I think its fair enough. The location is the important thing. Or maybe the driver has a disability so should be prioritised.

@5zeds

Your life expectancy on a motorway hard shoulder is about 15 minutes Don’t be ridiculous

Please explain why you think it’s ridiculous. About 100 people are killed on the hard shoulder every year. When you consider that the vast majority of motorists do now know they need to get over the barrier as quickly as possible, you realise that most of those deaths are occurring within a couple of minutes—before they have time to exit the vehicle. Read accident reports in the media if you don’t believe me. People killed on the hard shoulder have typically just pulled over.

Because far far more than a hundred cars a year end up on the hard shoulder and there would be many many more deaths if that statistic was correct. Who told you that?

@Imayhaveerred

I don’t dispute that advice, which is good advice. I do dispute the claim that you’ll be killed after 15 minutes on the hard shoulder.

That’s clearly not what an average life expectancy means. A high proportion of deaths occur within a couple of minutes of pulling over, which brings the average down.

How many transwomen have been abducted and murdered in recent years in the UK? And how many women this year alone?

I'm aware of the statistics and that wasn't the point I was making. Asking for precision in language should go both ways, or it just seems like a prejudice against the word 'gender'.

Statistically men are at greater risk of a random attack so should they be prioritised?

I don't massively disagree with this policy. I'd hope the AA looked at the risk factors of the location of the car.

Isn't this an issue where it's actually fairly reasonable to go with gender over sex? Surely it's signifiers of gender that a predator would be using to decide whom to attack, so that might very well include trans women.

Then they'd get a very unpleasant surprise when they find themselves faced by a person as strong as themselves. Sex is what makes women vulnerable not their gender.

@Imayhaveerred

Your life expectancy on a motorway hard shoulder is about 15 minutes

Source please.

Google gives multiple sources, ranging from 10 to 30 minutes depending on source. Obviously some people won't be hit at all.

But it's woefully common
(and why I avoid 'smart' motorways, which are even more dangerous)

I think they are right to look at the nature and location of the incident as one of the important factors in assigning priority.

Erm you can lock yourself in your car. You don’t have to start wondering around an unlit car park.

Google says over 200,000 cars break down on motorways in the uk every year and over 100 people lose their lives. I can’t see how that equates to a life expectancy of 15 mins when the vast majority survive the experience.

If you say you can’t leave your car, they come faster but not lights flashing drama faster

@5zeds

Because far far more than a hundred cars a year end up on the hard shoulder and there would be many many more deaths if that statistic was correct. Who told you that?

I have already explained that this was part of my emergency services training from the police. That was in the 2000s and I have just checked more recent data and it’s now 30 minutes- which makes sense, as the number of road fatalities has fallen over the last decade.

Ok. So now we're waiting for an indeterminate number of women waiting for the AA (or whoever else has this policy) to be attacked/raped/killed. Then they'll be some hand wringing, with some discussion about how to choose who to prioritise on the news and talk shows. There will be discussion about statistics, about how not enough research has been done yet to say for sure that women are at more risk than men. There will of course be the discussion about how actually the most vulnerable people are trans. Then a few more women will be attacked. Then a very photogenic one will be and she will be the face that gets the AA and the rest to have a great new initiative of clicking on their new app to signal if she's being threatened.

And we basically come back to the thread running through everything: how many women need to be raped or murdered for it to be unacceptable enough that women are recognised to need protection from the violent men (because note: NAMALT, of course).