A woman said she was an "accident waiting to happen" after being "abandoned" overnight by the RAC.
On Friday, July 29, Hazel Foreshaw, 34, from Crosby, was on her way back from the gym at around 7pm when her car "stopped dead" in the middle of Moor Lane, which she describes as the "busiest road in North Liverpool." Hazel said everything in her car stopped functioning, including lights, brake lights, and even the locks for the doors.
Hazel called her roadside assistance company, the RAC, and a patrolman arrived by 8pm. After an initial inspection, Hazel claims the patrolman told her he'd left his equipment on his "last job" and drove away, leaving her in the middle of the road in her unlocked car.
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Hazel claims the patrolman told her someone else from the RAC would be along shortly to help, but no-one ever did. Despite calling the breakdown service 'five times', Hazel said she was still stuck on Moor Lane more than eight hours after the man left. At 4am on Saturday, she called the police, who drove her to her home on Hale Road and took her car to the police compound.
Hazel, who is due to get married this month, told the ECHO: " Moor Lane is one of the busiest roads in North Liverpool. When the car first broke down it was really busy. But even past midnight there were cars going down [the road] dead fast.
"I was pretty much abandoned. We called the RAC about five times, each time someone said they would call us back with an update.
"Moor Lane at that time of night? I was literally an accident waiting to happen. As each hour went by we were getting nowhere when we were calling up. Then at about 4.30am a lady [from the RAC] called us.
"She said she's just come on her shift now and she could see nothing had been done with our case. She then asked us what was going on - we were like 'we don't know, we were waiting for you guys'."
"There was a couple who were walking into Crosby village at about 9pm. Then when they were walking back at about midnight they realised that we were still there so we chatted to them for a bit and then they just went off and the woman came back later with a little packed lunch, she'd made us some sandwiches and a coffee."
Hazel said she was left with no other option than to call the police after a "drunk man" entered her car. Though he was "harmless" she was left shaken.
She said: "The reason why I called 999 was that a ll the power had gone in my car, all the lights had now stopped the locks weren't working, this man, who was obviously harmless, but drunk, just opened the passenger side door.
"He said he used to work for the police and don't be scared. Obviously that scared me, and then I called 999 because it was like 'look, I'm out here, my fiancé's coming back and forth trying to help but I'm on my own and I've got a drunken man letting himself into my car now because I'm unable to lock the doors, and because I'm unlighted on a dark road and there were fast cars going down'."
The police arrived 40 minutes later and after unsuccessfully trying to contact the RAC themselves told Hazel they would have to take her car to the police compound. She would have to pay a fee to have it removed as it was a "police call-out."
She added: "I was able to get into my partner's van then, but police took the car but because it had been a police call-out its procedure to take it to the police compound. It's been a nightmare because I get married in two weeks time. You can imagine the amount of jobs I've got to do and now I've got no car.
"The next day when we called up and said to the RAC we need to speak to a manager because our car is now in the police compound. All they said was well that's a police problem and not ours.
"I saw red over that because it was like no it was your fault we having to pay for it to be in compound but we are going to give that bill to the RAC."
A spokesperson for the RAC said: "We attended Hazel quickly, but found her car needed to be recovered on a flatbed. Despite asking lots of independent contractors to help we were unable to find a flatbed. We’ve apologised to Hazel personally for the experience. We’ll also be reimbursing her costs and agreeing a suitable gesture of goodwill."
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