A near miss and a lesson on operational risks in car rental

Yesterday, when I was driving to Orlando with my 13-year-old daughter, the brakes on my rental car failed in Florida. On the highway. In the fast lane.

We’re OK. Thanks to the cool head of my daughter who cleared the issue with me (“Mommy, do you think you can pull over to the side of the road?”), a traffic stop, and a friendly Florida Highway Patrol man (thanks, Max), we were able to get out of a very dangerous situation. However, the long list of failures that occurred before, during, and after the incident should be a major red flag for all car rental companies.

I won’t say which car rental company it was – but it was one of the big ones, one that you no doubt used. Nor what car it was, other than it was an American mid-size car. I will raise that with them directly, but I think the issues are broader and point to a systemic risk in the car rental sector that needs to be managed.

What happened

When we picked up our car at the Orlando airport, we were faced with a 90-minute line and a poor, lonely guy doing his best to assign cars to people and get them on their way. “The problem is, we don’t have any cars.” We had no choice of cars and after an hour and a half, I had no objections to the rather old, basic car we were given. It smelled a bit of weed. We used the car (lightly) for over two weeks and were on our way back to Orlando when the incident happened.

I was in the left (passing) lane when I suddenly felt the brake pedal stiffen. I pressed it. Nothing happened. I thought I’d imagined it. I tried again. Nothing. I gasped. My daughter asked me what had happened. “I don’t have any brakes.” Real Sandra Bullock stuff. I pressed down really hard. Just a very small reduction in speed. We drove a short distance. “Can you pull over?” I saw a gap in traffic over my right shoulder. Hazard lights on, change lanes, change lanes, pull onto the shoulder. Slam on the brakes with all my might. Slow down. Change from drive to park, car jerks to a stop. Adrenaline rushes through.

10 O `clock. We make the first call to roadside assistance. We give all our details, the rental agreement, names, details, my phone number (“It’s an international number, you have to add +44 to the number”, etc.).

We tell her what happened. “Are the brakes spongy or mushy?” No, more like stiff and unresponsive, I replied. “In that case, you’ll have to drive to the nearest airport (almost 50 miles away) to have the car replaced.” Since I answered “no” to her preset question, she wanted me to drive the car. Imagine if I tried. I said no, no way. A guy from the Florida Highway Patrol had stopped to check on us and he agreed. There’s no way we can drive. He tells us it sounds like the brake booster is broken.

I gave her my location. I-4 East, one mile before exit 41. She arranged for a tow to the Tampa airport (52 miles back the way we came). The tow truck would take 90 minutes. I said there were two of us – I had my daughter with me – and we had luggage since we were on vacation. That seemed fine. We waited in the car on the side of the road, and the car jolted every time a vehicle passed us in the right lane. It’s 95 degrees outside, but we have air conditioning and water.

10:30 a.m. We look at it on Google Maps and there really is no point in driving back to Tampa. Orlando airport is eight miles closer and in the direction we need to go. The already arduous trip would be over eighty miles longer if we drove back to Tampa instead of continuing on to Orlando. We call again. Despite the information I had provided, they had our location incorrectly recorded so the tow truck was sent to the wrong place.

The agent updates our location and says we are being taken to Orlando. The schedule of 90 minutes starting at 10am is still in effect. I remind them about my daughter and the luggage.

11.45 a.m. No tow truck in sight. We make our third call. “The pickup is nearby, but they’re having trouble finding you. They can’t call you at the number provided (I guess the international thing was too much). Can you call them directly?” I get the number and call them.

We call the guy. We were told AAA would tow us, but that seems to have been outsourced to another, smaller company. The guy isn’t local. He estimates it’ll be another hour. They’re dealing with 56 other tow companies at once and are completely overwhelmed. He’ll only be able to take me. Not my daughter or our stuff. When I get angry at this point, he threatens to cancel our pickup.

There is a car rental branch 20 minutes away in the direction we came from. The company had refused to consider this as an option – they only tow to the airports. I ask the nice 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 car office, the two employees there do their best to help us. Together we call the roadside assistance team and tell them what happened. We need a tow slip number so they can issue us a new car. The guy in the office is helpful, but he gets the tow slip and case number wrong – I have to correct him. We get a new car. On one hand, the problem is solved, but no one is able or willing to deal with the larger issue of what just happened. “You can file a complaint on the website,” is all we get.

The other office worker is trying to help another customer. She is diligent, but her computer keeps freezing. All computers keep freezing. She looks exhausted. I wish the CEO of the company was here to see how bad this all is.

As we drive back down I-4, our old car is still there with its hazard lights flashing. There is no sign of a tow truck.

Impacts (real and potential)

The actual impacts of the event include:

– Costs for towing the car

– Cost of a replacement car for me

– Costs for repairs and vehicle downtime

– Costs of dealing with me, refunding my fees and damages (trust me, I will pursue this)

– Lost day at Seaworld for me and my daughter

Possible effects:

I am extremely lucky that instead of reading this post about multiple deaths from a pileup on a US highway, “Tourists die in tragic accident.” I probably would have been blamed for driving into the car or truck in front of me.

Root causes

Some of this is just speculation, of course, but it’s the most likely scenario I can imagine.

The likely cause of the problem was a failure of the brake booster in the car. From online research, it appears that this may be due to not having the regular oil change done. I only had hand brakes (like the ones you have on your bike) which explained why I was eventually able to bring the car to a stop on the edge.

The car was a 2020 model, which is actually very old for rental cars in Florida. The agent who replaced the car for me said this and that all cars should have a full service every 10,000 miles. Given what happened and the problems I saw at the Orlando airport, I assume the cars were not serviced or checked between rentals.

We know that during the Covid pandemic all car rental companies have sold much of their fleet and are struggling to rebuild. “Efficiency measures” mean that companies often overbook and expect some customers not to show up. This is horribly exposed during peak times (eg in Orlando during the summer holidays). The lack of more experienced staff on site means there is no one to talk to, no escalation, no one to see the bigger picture. Efficiency increasingly means stripping things down to the essentials.

Saving Graces

– We were lucky that we had telephone reception and were able to call for help

– Florida Highway Patrol, a free service funded by the federal government where a team of rangers patrol the highways looking for anyone in trouble. What a service. This man was an angel.

-The two men whose job it was to clear debris from the highway stopped twice to check on us to make sure we had water and that someone was coming to pick us up.

The “Breakdown Assistance” experience

We dialed the number in the email for emergency assistance. We had to sit through the message “For best service visit our website,” then navigate through three menus (including options for points/loyalty programs, inquiries about new rental cars, and other irrelevant options) before being told “All of our staff are busy.” On an emergency number. To be fair, the call was then answered promptly.

We spoke to three agents: Rebecca, Candy and Britney.

Everyone asked if we were in a safe place before we left. Rebecca (call 1) was the one who wanted me to keep driving because my brakes weren’t spongy or squishy. Candy (call 2) was smart enough to pull up all of our information on the phone number we called from and notice the incorrect location – kudos. Britney (call 3) had me look up all of our information again and repeat it. She also told me the tow truck was nearby. Everyone missed or ignored the part about me having my daughter with me.

The towing of the car was outsourced to AAA, a large US roadside assistance company that had apparently outsourced this to a smaller operator. This small company was clearly overwhelmed. The one man I spoke to said he had handled 56 (!) tows at that point.

All operators thanked me for my loyalty and wished me a nice day. 😐

No one recognized the seriousness of the incident. The best I could get from them was a reference to the online complaint form.

What needs to happen

There is so much wrong with the above that it is hard to know where to stand. I am not sure this company is worse than the others, which is why I did not mention them by name. But these companies need to seriously look at the following:

– Fleet management including maintenance and control between rentals

– Booking, inquiry, scheduling

– Field staff

– Protocols and questions regarding emergency assistance

– Outsourcing of towing

– Maintenance of computer systems in the offices

– Customer service

– Your humanity and willingness to react when something goes wrong

I am happy to talk to all the automakers. Yes, I am angry, but I also don’t want to see this happen again, perhaps with even worse consequences. And my risk and operational mentality demands that the problem be fixed.

Last word

Eventually we got a replacement car (newer car) and I was able to complete our trip to Orlando without incident. As I pulled into the parking lot and turned off the engine, a message appeared on the dashboard: “Service 332 miles overdue.”