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…

It might have been a different guy. Glad he was sensible on the radio.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

So no it wasn't just the call handler and the patronising SM person.

So what? After the incident the CEO looked into it and made changes. What the hell else do we want organisations to do?

Or are we going to do that thing we deplore when A N Other does it and refuse to let an person or organisation recognise their error and put it right?

Fucking ridiculous!

I'm not saying that, I'm simply pointing out that this started on Twitter, and what happened, and that it did involve someone v high up making a tit of himself, not just hapless junior staff.

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

You seem to be a transphobe who thinks that gender expression and identity match.

Plus I don't really agree with blaming it on someone who has only been there a month, when the same attitude was echoed by the SM poster and the Senior Man. On Twitter. It's great they have given their heads a wobble now and apparently taken the feedback on board.

Well perhaps it wasn't feminists, but I was definitely on a thread a few years ago on here under a different name and I was in a minority of about 2 or 3 for saying there were physical differences between men and women and that men were stronger etc. Most posters were basically saying I was sexist.

It would seem many of the ladies on this thread would like equality but only when it suits them, not how it works I'm afraid.

@Fiftythreepercent

Because all we little women do is a run out to the supermarket. Unlike our intrepid male counterparts circumnavigating the M25

Exactly. Honestly, both of the responses by them were crap. One more crap than the other. They didn't want to acknowledge the 'equality' response debacle so.. they went one further?!

This thread is timely for me as I was the stranded lone woman last night. 3 hours on a pitch black country lane from midnight to 3am (work doesn't finish until late so not necessarily through much choice either). The reason for delay given by AA was that they were extremely busy. Them experiencing a high volume of calls on a freezing night is fair enough although obviously still a nightmare. At least they didn't try to give me an equality explanation.

Does anyone who spouts this in these or similar circumstances realize that no one would necessarily want or insist on a priority unless it was for a bloody good reason?!!

@FenellaFieldingsMingeHair

It would seem many of the ladies on this thread would like equality but only when it suits them, not how it works I'm afraid.

It would seem you don’t understand what equality means but still think you should comment on this thread; not how it works, I’m afraid.

@FenellaFieldingsMingeHair

It would seem many of the ladies on this thread would like equality but only when it suits them, not how it works I'm afraid.

Actually, I do want equality. I want attacks by strange men on women to be as equally rare as attacks by strange women on men.

Until we've eliminated that inequality, I'd like us to preserve the safety measures we've created in response to men killing women.

Hello everyone. The AA's press office contacted us with a response to this thread that we've agreed to post on their behalf as a right of reply:

We accept that the wording of our initial response to the customer wasn't great and have apologised. In fact, we prioritise anyone at risk but more often than not it will be lone women. In breakdowns involving lone women where there is any concern raised by the customer they receive the highest level of care and priority.

In this customer's case, the breakdown was prioritised within 4 minutes and an AA patrol arrived in 26 minutes. We have personally apologised to the customer for the misunderstanding.

We take our responsibilities very seriously and have reminded staff of our vulnerable customer processes and procedures which include personal management of breakdowns for those in an at risk situation. Further training will be given.

That's a reasonable statement so it sounds like someone has their head screwed on there. Thank you.

Good - interesting they picked up on this thread and wanted to respond!

Why should I have priority over someone else when I break down? You're safe in your car

Location priority is much more important

And yet when I said I'd heard the CEO say every single part of that statement, timings and all, that it was all so much blah blah blah?

Sorry Erish, but your internalised misogyny is showing!

@maddy68

Why should I have priority over someone else when I break down? You're safe in your car

Depends where your car is. Marks & Spencers car park in a retail park during business hours? No priority needed.

Side of a motorway , when one shouldn't be in the car anyway, priority for everyone over the person in the car park.

And within that latter group there will be different priorities too. The Women's Rugby World Cup winning team en masse probably don't need priority over a single man accompanied by children.

@maddy68

Why should I have priority over someone else when I break down? You're safe in your car

If you're not in a vulnerable situation you won't have priority over someone who is. FYI, the head of the AA has made it clear that you are not safe in your car on, for example a motorway's hard shoulder and the advice is to leave your car and stand by the side of the road where you are statistically safer.

Sorry Erish, but your internalised misogyny is showing!

Don't be ridiculous. You came in, without having seen how any of it play out on Twitter and talked over people who had been discussing it for 2 days about what happened without actually being aware of the full picture. Which was seriously irritating. And you weren't actually the first person to discuss the AA radio appearance. It was discussed yesterday afternoon by people listening. This thread has really brought out some odd behaviour in people I normally respect.

As you acknowledged, you weren't actually fully informed about what happened to kick the whole thing off on Twitter. And I saw the senior guy's tweet, which could have been this same guy, and it wasn't good.

Who knows what sex the person is in the Comms or media liaison team who made them finally get their act together? But it is not "internalised misogyny" to point out to you that there were things you weren't aware of when you said "I don't do Twitter". Bully for you. I appreciated the extra effort they went to of making a statement to the thread, which is why I responded to Becky MN. I think your comments are uncalled for.

And I felt much the same way.

Maybe we are both having an off day!?

Maybe so. I think it's all getting a bit personal.

I'll forget I ever posted if you will 🙂

Glass of ?

I mean I am offering one as a peace gesture, if not clear!