Didn't Toyota already address this?

[Kacey Green]

what are they lobbying for?
got a link?
I'm really curious, as I was thinking about AAA for when I get my Prius

[TonyPSchaefer]

Yeah, what are they lobbying for?

I've been a member of AAA since I learned to drive. Gold Member for almost ten years. I have car insurance, home insurance, and roadside assitance with them. Just what organization have I been supporting all these years?

[jchu]

ckacey & TonyPSchaefer,
I remember back in the 70's during the oil crisis, AAA answering the call by lobbying for expanded exploration and drilling.

From a Eugene, OR newspaper article about 1.5 years ago:

Critics say AAA lobbied against airbags in the late '70s, against strengthening the Clean Air Act in 1990, and recently against increasing auto fuel efficiency standards. AAA is also seen to be unsupportive of public transportation and dedicated to promoting new road construction.

AAA responses:
AAA spokesman Mantill Williams accuses Better World of unfair tactics.

"They make accusations with no facts behind them," he says. "We make our money the old-fashioned way. We provide good products and services and we don't try to make others look bad." He says AAA last year had the most successful year for membership in its history and cites a 90 percent renewal rate.

Better World appeals to people who have extreme views, he says, people who think all roads are bad. "That's hypocritical," he says. "It's not realistic. Most people use the automobile, and that's not going to change in the near future."

Williams says that AAA mostly lobbies on safety-related issues.

Did AAA oppose the Clean Air Act? "There is no evidence that we did that," he says. "That is completely false." AAA did, however, issue statements arguing that the Clean Air Act would drive up the cost of new automobiles for consumers.

Does AAA lobby against public transportation? "Totally false. We lobby in favor of public transportation in certain situations," Williams said. AAA did, however, lobby against raising the federal gas tax in 1991 because some of the tax money would have gone to public transit.

Did AAA oppose airbags? "We just wanted to make sure the cost of the airbags was shared by manufacturers," he says.

Elliot Eki, public affairs director of the 606,000-member AAA Oregon/Idaho, says he's received a lot of calls lately about AAA's environmental practices.

He says there's a reason AAA generally favors highway construction: AAA wants to keep cars moving. "During congestion you have the most toxic emissions," he says. "The engine burns more efficiently when running at a steady pace."

Williams says AAA has also helped with environmental programs, such as collecting used car batteries, offering free diagnostic checks to make sure engines are tuned properly; and replacing switches that contain mercury, a toxic metal.

[prius04]

jchu

The quotes you site from Mantill Williams of the AAA sounds like "spin" to me and not at all an adequate refutation of the accusations. If you've quoted the AAA spokesman accurately, then his defense may have just incriminated himself as far as I'm concerned.

I'm going to do some research and I just may be changing to Better World.

Boy do I hate "spin".

[jchu]

Prius04,
I agree completely, (see my 9/3 post to this thread). The text comes from a Eugene, Oregon newspaper article published 3/2003. I posted AAA's reply as part of my last post for the sake of completeness. The quote come from the same Eugene article. It seems that the reporter was doing his/her due diligence. My wife and I gave up our AAA membership many years ago. We are grateful that Richard Schumacher was able to provide an alternative to AAA in the form of "Better World".

Jon

[daniel]

Did AAA oppose the Clean Air Act? "There is no evidence that we did that," he says

Hmmm. Someone asks if they opposed the Clean Air Act, and his reply is, "There's no evidence that we did." Sounds to me like the burglar telling the cops, "You've got no evidence against me." Why didn't he just say, "No, we didn't" if they didn't??? Then he goes on to say, "That's completely false," which sounds odd to me, when a simple "No" would suffice.

The legislative process is horribly complex. Bills are drafted, revised, voted on in various stages, there are procedural votes and committee votes, and lobbying at every stage of the way. As we see with the charges and counter-charges about whether a candidate did or did not vote for or against something. Vote against a particular draft of a bill that contained 101 distinct items, and they'll pick out one of those items and accuse you of opposing it; conversely, an organization can lobby tooth and nail to weaken a bill, but deny it opposed the bill.

I've never belonged to the AAA because they have nothing to offer me. I get my roadside assistance coverage for about a tenth of the cost through my regular auto insurance. But this whole thing makes the AAA look pretty reactionary.

[BobA]

DUH...have been a member for "over 25 years", so my card says...thought they were just a tow service...my best friend had a garage and was a AAA agent I drove his tow trucks, before I got my first car... I have relied on their service thru most of my driving career...

Bob

[richard schumacher]

You want links? We got links (Google: aaa lobbying -armenian -ambulance). Here is a smattering of the accusations against AAA:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...304/ai_85882846
(Harper's Magazine)

http://www.nrdc.org/amicus/01win/aaa/aaa.asp

http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/nijh...jhuis021103.asp

The same search turns up some of the AAA's responses, which in my opinion are rather thin (lobbying for redwoods in the 1920's, in favor of motorcycle helmets, promoting recycling drives for lead-acid batteries, etc.)

[daniel]

Thanks for those links, Richard. Looks to me like the AAA is one of the bad guys; an organization whose management has a very different agenda than its members.

I used to belong to a big national organization that provided some good services to its members, until I learned that it, too, was lobbying for an ultra-conservative agenda and investing its funds in the most socially-irresponsible companies. Sometimes you just don't look beyond the public face of these big organizations.

[Kacey Green]

I'm no longer looking forward to joining them, I'll have to look for an alternative