The AA’s craziest callouts of 2014

Snakes, raccoons, guinea pigs and toddlers have all been rescued by the AA from locked cars during the past 12 months. 

Motorists called the recovery organisation 2,410 times after they’d inadvertently locked their children in the car, and a further 1,014 times after trapping their pets, too. 

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The bizarre requests make up just some of the AA’s three million callouts in 2014 – and Auto Express can exclusively reveal some of the stories behind the statistics.

Mark Spowage, AA patrol of the year, said: “One of the more unusual callouts we get is to release animals accidentally locked in the car or when they do a ‘Houdini’ and escape, often getting stuck behind the dash. We’ve had everything – although they’re not always grateful when we get them out.”

Mondays were the busiest day of the year, with an average of more than 1,000 extra cases per day. The busiest day of the year was Monday 24 November, where the AA dealt with 14,501 breakdown cases. That’s up from the 2014 daily average of 9,337.

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The longest recovery in 2014 took an AA van on a 615-mile trip from Morden, South London to Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Mark added: “Although a breakdown is inconvenient, it makes the job worthwhile when we help people on their way.”

2014 AA callouts in numbers

2,410 have locked child in a car1,014 have locked a pet in car40,072 incidents of misfuelling615 miles longest recovery

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AA’s Five MOST common callout issues in 2014

Our table shows the problems patrols most regularly had to sort this year...

Have you ever called out the AA for a less than routine reason? Tell us all about it in the comments section below...