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Hi

First trip tpo France with caravan on Friday and well, just trying to cover all the bases. Anyway - I have Motoring cover by Red Pennant.

In the booklet it says recover on motorways is organised by the police. Now, do I need to pay anything or is this all covered as I got Pennant if I did break down as dont want to be hit with a huge bill.

Any advice appreciatde

Scott

when we broke down on the motorway in france a couple of years ago, the phones on the motorway ring direct to the police, who then send out the recovery people for you. there was no extra charges - everything was covered by the breakdown company.
was funny tho (in hindsight) trying to explain to the police, where we were and what was wrong - in french and with all the traffic whizzing past, it was so noisy!

we didn't have to pay out anything on the spot - wonder why?
they also towed us to a garage and worked on the car till they found the problem and fixed it.
when all was sorted they led the way back to the motorway for us too, to see us on our route

i can't remember too many details now - it was about 3 years ago, but i wonder if it could have anything to do with phoning from a mobile instead of the motorway phone?
all we did was use the motorway phone for the police and then used our mobile to phone the breakdown company to tell them what was happening. the police sent a mechanic out to us, he towed us to the garage and sorted out the car. the breakdown company phoned us twice to see if we were recovered yet, and once we were in the garage they phoned and spoke to the mechanic - maybe they paid it over the phone by visa, or maybe they made an agreement for the invoice to be sent to them??

OK I expect they did some kind of electronic payment or agreement to pay.  May be being taken to a garage made this possible? I do remember the first breakdown person to arrive with us did look at the engine and promptly agreed with my husband that nil compression was fatal! So maybe a quick look/something simple labour wise is standard in the price, and we had to pay because all that could happen for us was for that car to be recovered to the UK.

We've had the misfortune of having 2 accidents/breakdowns in France. Apparently the reason you need to use the emegency phones or if you have a direct number is because the police are the only peolpe who can give authority to the breakdown service to enter the motorway system.

On the first incident we were towed to a garage and when the car was repaired we paid the bill which included the recovery, which from memory was very reasonable. The second incident was more serious and meant the car was eventually returned to England on a trailer. We were covered by Red Pennant and they just paid for everything.

Have a good time

Steve