McAllisters Recovery : Company Profile // The Industry

The roadside rescue and recovery industry as evolved a long way since its early beginnings. Initially the only motoring organisations were the likes of the AA and RAC. There were many thousands of local garages who had one or two trucks simply to do the 'odd bit of towing'.

As the years passed there has been the emergence of smaller motoring organisations such as National Breakdown (which evolved into Green Flag), Britannia Rescue and many others. It was these later organisations that started using independent garages as the primary resource to assist their members.

H.R.S Specialist LMC

D&G’s of Essex in Action

Around this time, the emergence of purely roadside rescue and recovery companies began. Membership of motoring organisations grew in line with the rise of car ownership until the present day.

The major players are still the RAC and AA, who run their own patrol forces to cover as many of their members calls for assistance as possible. However, when the level of demand exceeds their resource level, they rely on the independent recovery companies to provide the shortfall. These larger organisations run contracts for designated areas and contractors are measured on the performance that they provide, primarily on response times.

In recent years, the industry has since the entrance of corporations into the market place, particularly amongst the motoring organisations and operators in the South East. Acquisitions and mergers are now common place as the number of operators continue to reduce, and the family run business is slowly replaced by corporate images.