So, yesterday in Florida, while driving my 13 year old daughter and me to Orlando, the brakes on my rental car failed. On the Interstate. In the fast lane.
We’re OK. Thanks to my daughter’s cool head in working the problem with me (“Mum, do you think you can get over to the side?”), a break in the traffic and a kind man from Florida Highway Patrol (thank you, Max), we got ourselves out of a very dangerous situation. However, the litany of failures that came, before, during and after the event, should be a huge warning sign for all of the car rental companies.
I won’t say which of the rental companies it was – but it was one of the big ones, one that you have undoubtedly used. Nor which car, other than that it was an American mid-size car. I will be taking it up with them directly, but I believe the issues apply more broadly and point to systemic risk in the car rental space that needs to be managed.
What happened
When we picked up our car at Orlando airport, we faced a queue of 90 minutes, and one, poor, solitary guy who was doing his best to get people paired up with cars and on their way. “The problem is, we don’t have the cars”. There was no choice of car and, after an hour and a half, I didn’t object to the fairly old, basic car we were given. It smelled of weed a bit. We used the car (lightly) over two weeks and were on our way back to Orlando when the incident happened.
I was in the left (fast) lane when I suddenly felt the brake pedal go stiff on me. I pressed it. Nothing happened. I thought I’d imagined it. I tried again. Nothing. I gasped. My daughter asked me what happened. “I have no brakes”. Proper Sandra Bullock stuff. I pressed down really hard. A very small reduction in speed. We carried on a short distance. “Can you move over to the side?”. I saw a gap in the traffic over my right shoulder. Hazards on, move across one lane, move across another, move onto the verge. Press down on brake with all my strength. Slowing. Move from Drive into Park, car jerks to a halt. Adrenaline pumping.
10am. We make the first call to emergency roadside. We give all our details, car rental agreement, names, details, my phone number (“It’s an international phone number, you have to add +44 to the number” etc.).
We tell her what’s happened. “Are the brakes squishy or mushy?”. No, more like stiff and unresponsive, I answered. “In which case, we need you to drive to the nearest airport (almost 50 miles away) to exchange the car. Because I had answered “No” to her pre-set question, she wanted me to drive the car. Imagine if I had tried. I said No, absolutely not. A guy from Florida Highway patrol had stopped to check on us and he concurs. No way we can drive. He tells us it sounds like the brake booster has gone.
I gave her my location. I-4 East, one mile before exit 41. She arranged for a tow to Tampa airport (52 miles back in the direction we had come from). It would take 90 minutes for the tow truck to come. I said we were two people – I had my daughter with me – and we had luggage as we were on holiday. This seemed fine. We wait in the car at the side of the road with the car shuddering every time a vehicle in the right lane passes us. It’s 96 Fahrenheit outside, but we have air con and water.
10.30am. We’re looking at it on Google maps and it really doesn’t make sense to go back to Tampa. Orlando airport is eight miles closer, and in the direction we need to go. It was going to add over 80 miles to an already fraught journey to go back to Tampa, rather than forward to Orlando. We call again. In spite of the details I had given, they had got our location wrong, so the tow truck was being sent to the wrong location.
The agent updates our location and says we will be taken to Orlando. The 90 minutes from 10am timeline still holds. I remind them about my daughter and the luggage.
11.45am. No sign of a tow truck. We make our third call. “The pickup truck is nearby but he’s having trouble finding you. He’s not able to call your number (I guess the international thing was too much to deal with). Can you call him directly?” I get the number and call him.
We call the guy. We had been told that AAA would be towing us, but this appears to have been outsourced to another, smaller company. The guy is nowhere nearby. He estimates another hour. They’re dealing with 56 other tows simultaneously and are completely overwhelmed. He will only be able to take me. Not my daughter or our things. When I get upset at this point, he threatens to cancel our pickup.
There is a branch of the rental company 20 minutes away, back in the direction we’ve come from. The company had refused to consider this as an option – they only tow to the airports. I ask the kind Florida Highway Patrol man to drive me, my daughter and our stuff there. We lock the car and leave it.
When we get to the rental office, the two staff there do their best to help us. Together we call the Emergency Roadside team and tell them what’s happened. We need a tow ticket number in order for them to issue us a new car. The guy in the office is being helpful, but he mis-hears the tow ticket and case number – I have to correct him. We get issued a new car. On one level, problem solved, but nobody is able or willing to process the bigger issue of what’s just happened. “You can make a complaint on the website” is all we get.
The other office member is trying to help another customer. She’s diligent but her computer keeps freezing. All the computers keep freezing. She looks exhausted. I wish the CEO of the company was here to see how bad this all is.
When we drive back along I-4, our old car is still there, hazards flashing. No sign of a tow truck.
Impacts (real and potential)
The actual impacts of the event include:
– Cost of towing car
– Cost of replacement car for me
– Cost of fix and car being out of service
– Cost of dealing with me, the refund of my fees and damages (believe me, I’ll be pursuing this)
– Lost day out at Seaworld for me and my daughter
Potential impacts:
I feel exceptionally lucky that, instead of this post, you’re not reading about multiple fatalities due to a pile-up on a US interstate. “Tourists die in tragic accident”. It probably would have been put down as my fault for driving into the car or truck in front of me.
Root causes
Of course, some of this is supposition, but this is the most likely scenario I can pull together.
The likely cause of the issue was failure of the brake booster in the car. From online research, this can be caused by regular oil changes not being performed. All I had was manual brakes (like the ones you have on your bicycle), which explained why I could eventually bring the car to a stop on the verge.
The car was a 2020 model, which in rental car terms, in Florida, is actually very old. The agent who replaced the car for me said this, and that all cars are supposed to undergo a full service every 10,000 miles. Given what happened, plus the issues I saw at Orlando airport, I am guessing that the cars were not being serviced or checked between rentals.
We know that, during Covid, all of the rental companies sold off much of their fleet and have struggled to build it back up again. “Efficiency” measures mean that the companies often overbook, expecting a few customers not to show up. This gets horribly exposed during peak times (e.g. Orlando during the summer holidays). Lack of more senior staff on site means there’s nobody to speak to, no escalation, nobody looking at the bigger picture. Efficiency looks more and more like paring things back to the bone.
Saving graces
– We were lucky to have phone service so we could call for help
– Florida Highway Patrol, a free service funded by the US federal government, whereby a team of rangers patrol the interstates and check on anyone in trouble. What a service. This man was an angel.
– The two men whose job was to clear debris off the interstate stopping twice and checking on us, to ensure we had water and that someone was coming to get us.
The “Emergency roadside assistance” experience
We dialled the number on the email for emergency assistance. We had to go through the “for the best service, go to our website” message, then select through three menus (incorporating options for points / loyalty schemes, new car rental requests and other irrelevant options), before being told “All our agents are busy”. On an emergency line. To be fair, the call did get answered promptly after that.
We spoke with three agents, Rebecca, Candy and Britney.
All asked if we were in a safe location before we started. Rebecca (call 1) was the one who wanted me to continue driving because my brakes weren’t squishy or mushy. Candy (call 2) was clever enough to pull up all of our information using the phone number we were calling from and to notice the incorrect location – kudos. Britney (call 3) made me dig out and repeat all of our information again. She also told me the tow truck was nearby. All of them missed or ignored the bit about me having my daughter with me.
The towing of the car was outsourced to AAA, a large US roadside assistance company, who appeared to have outsourced it to a smaller operator. This small company was clearly overwhelmed. The one guy I spoke to said he had 56 (!) tows that they were dealing with at that time.
All operators thanked me for my loyalty and hoped I was having a great day. 😐
Nobody processed the seriousness of what had just happened. The best I could get from them was to be pointed to the online complaint form.
What needs to happen
There is so much that’s wrong with the above, it’s hard to know where to stand. Anecdotally, I’m not sure this company would be any worse than any of the others, which is why I haven’t named them. But these companies need to take a serious look at their:
– Fleet management including servicing and checking in between rentals
– Booking, demand, scheduling
– Front-line staffing
– Emergency assistance protocols and questions
– Outsourcing of towing
– Computer systems maintenance in the offices
– Customer services
– Their humanity and responsiveness when something goes wrong
I’m happy to speak to any and all of the car companies. I’m angry, yes, but I also don’t want this to happen again, with perhaps worse consequences. And my Risk and Operations mindset wants this fixed.
Final word
So, eventually, we were given a replacement (newer) car and I completed our journey to Orlando without incident. When I pulled into the parking space and turned off the engine, a message comes up on the dash – “Service overdue by 332 miles”.
