Gone are the days of RAA Patrols just fixing cars on the roadside. Now they’ve moved onto the footpath to get another type of vehicle going again.
Bike, skateboard, roller blades? No. Mobility scooters are the mode of transportation that many RAA members are switching to.
“Almost 40 per cent of RAA’s members are aged over 60, and this segment of our membership base continues to grow,” says Mark Borlace, Senior Manager Mobility and Automotive Policy.
“With this in mind, we knew we needed to investigate new ways to ensure we could continue to meet their changing mobility needs throughout their lives.”
While you might not need to think about it yet, your parents or grandparents could be considering a switch to a mobility scooter.
Mobility scooters are a great option to keep older people active and independent, helping them to get to the shops, medical appointments or to see family and friends.
But if your parent or grandparent’s mobility scooter won’t start at home or breaks down when they’re out – what are they meant to do?
Just as they’ve relied on RAA to get their car started again, they can now trust that we’ll be there to get their mobility scooter working again.
In the event of a breakdown, RAA Road Service Members can still call RAA for help the same way they would have if it was their car that had broken down.
“In the past three years alone, mobility scooter sales in our shops have increased by 110 per cent, so we knew this was a service our members needed,” said Mr Borlace.
“We’ve always been focused on helping our members stay on the move with roadside assistance when their cars break down, and we thought, why not take it one step further to mobility scooters?
“We ran a pilot over 12 months to see how the service would go and we had a fantastic result with the pilot program participants.”
In the majority of cases, the Patrol attended the member’s home after the member found their scooter had a flat tyre or a flat or faulty battery before they were about to leave their house.
“We still helped quite a few members who had broken down on the side of the road, and we’ll do everything possible to get the mobility scooter going again, or make arrangements to get the member and scooter home or to a place of repair,” said Mr Borlace.
Click here for more information or call 8202 4600.
