AA Roadwatch – 21 This week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AA ROADWATCH!

AA Ireland is offering €21 off its Membership, Home & Motor Insurance all of this week to mark the 21^st birthday of AA Roadwatch. Ireland’s travel and information service was launched in September 1989 and celebrates 21 years on air this week. The very first report was aired on Morning Ireland on 4^th September 1989.

For over two decades, the friendly voices of AA Roadwatch have been talking Ireland through the traffic jams with over 11,500 live traffic bulletins per year on Rté, 2fm, Today fm and Lyric fm. The AA Roadwatch traffic reports are also read out on Newstalk, 4fm, iRadio, all Dublin radio stations as well as regional stations around Ireland.

AA Roadwatch has proven a springboard for many young Irish broadcasters who have gone on to become famous in other fields. TV personality Lorraine Keane, Weather broadcaster and celebrity bainisteor Nuala Carey, RTE’s Trevor Keegan, 2FM’s Louise Heraghty and Ruth Scott all cut their teeth as broadcasters in the pressurised environment of AA Roadwatch. Ireland’s foremost adventurer and world record-holding mountaineer Ian McKeever also broadcast with AA Roadwatch.

Nicola Hudson currently runs the AA Roadwatch service and is the familiar voice to listeners of Radio 1’s Morning Ireland.

“It has been a remarkable 21 years in Irish history, and I guess you could say that our timing was perfect.” Says Nicola. “The service was launched just as the Irish economy was taking off; car ownership and the numbers of people at work began to grow very rapidly. By the mid 1990s traffic congestion had become one of the biggest challenges facing the country.”

The website AARoadwatch.ie was launched in 2000, and since then, both the site and the AA Route Planner have become essential aids to Irish drivers.  The site was consulted more than 400,000 times last January alone by commuters looking for up to the minute traffic reports, bus, rail, flight information, fuel prices and info on events.

AA will offer €21 off the price of any car insurance, home insurance or AA membership taken out this week to mark the celebration.  The offer is available via www.theaa.ie or at 01 6179950 and will run until midnight on Sunday 5^th September.