Salutes that warned of police, roadside phone boxes opened with a key and three clubs now owned in three very different ways.
Motoring clubs began as lobbying and mutual-help groups: AAA in 1902, the AA in 1905 and the NRMA in 1920. Today the AA is a company acquired in 2021, the NRMA is a member-owned mutual, and AAA is a federation of clubs with over 60 million members.
Britain's Automobile Association was founded in 1905 to help drivers dodge police speed traps, and after a 1910 court ruling its roadside patrolmen saluted passing members' cars unless a trap lay ahead. A patrolman who did not salute was the warning. From that odd start, motoring clubs grew into the breakdown services behind the AA in Britain, the NRMA in Australia and the American Automobile Association (AAA).
Why were motoring clubs started?
Each of the three began with a different grievance. The AA arose from the Motor Car Act 1903, which brought new penalties for speeding and reckless driving, including fines, endorsements and the possibility of jail. The act also required a driving licence, bought for five shillings at a post office with no test, and a registration plate on every vehicle.
AAA was born earlier, on March 4, 1902, in Chicago, as a reaction to the lack of roads and highways fit for automobiles. Nine motor clubs with a combined 1,500 members banded together, among them the Chicago Automobile Club, the Automobile Club of America and the Automobile Club of New Jersey. Winthrop E. Scarritt was the first president, and one of the first causes was a cross-country highway.
The NRMA began as the Australian National Roads Association in 1920. Its aim was not road service or insurance but "reasonable and just legislation" to pay for and improve roads. The 1919 Local Government Act had left such decisions to local councils, which judged them from the narrow viewpoint of local usefulness, and pressure on government was growing as road transport competed with the railways.
A salute from the patrolman meant the road was clear, and silence meant stop and ask why.
How did the AA's salute system work?
A 1910 test case, Betts vs. Stevens, put an AA patrolman and a possibly speeding motorist before the court. Chief Justice Lord Alverston ruled that a patrolman who waved a speeding driver down, and so helped the driver avoid a trap, had obstructed an officer doing his duty, an offence under an 1885 statute, the Prevention of Crimes Amendment Act.
The association answered with a coded system that lasted until the 1960s. A patrolman would salute any passing car that showed a visible AA badge, unless a trap was nearby. Because failing to salute was not an offence, the patrolmen could not be prosecuted for it. The AA Handbook told members that if a patrol did not salute, they should stop and ask why, since the patrol certainly had something important to pass on.
What did the early AA actually do for drivers?
By 1906 the association had erected warning and danger signs by the thousand, and it ran road signage until local authorities took over in the early 1930s. The count for 1926 stood at 6,500 direction signs and 15,000 village signs, though the Second World War saw most of them removed. Its first Members' Special Handbook of 1908 listed agents and repairers nationwide.
Services multiplied. AA Routes appeared in 1910, and from 1912 inspectors graded hotels and restaurants under the AA Star Classification. In the 1920s it added checks on cars before purchase and on repairs after accidents. In 1920 members were issued keys to wooden roadside telephone boxes, which they could use to call for help; the boxes had been put up from 1912 as shelters for watchmen or patrolmen, and almost 1,000 of them stood in their heyday until the 1960s.
From night rescues to Relay
Petrol rationing, which the AA fought in protests after the war, was repealed in 1950. In 1949 it launched a night-time breakdown and recovery service, first only in London and then across the country, and in 1967 it began its insurance brokerage. It moved from central London to Basingstoke in February 1972. The next year it put AA Roadwatch traffic bulletins on commercial radio stations and introduced AA Relay, which carries a stranded vehicle together with driver, passengers, luggage and trailer to any point in Britain.
The AA also campaigned for compulsory seat belts, which became law on 1 January 1983 under the Transport Act 1981, and for unleaded petrol. It has lobbied governments over what it calls unfair motoring taxes.
Who owns the AA now?
Not its members. In July 1999 the AA stopped being a member-owned body and became a private limited company; Centrica, owner of British Gas, bought it later that year. In 2021 a consortium led by TowerBrook Capital Partners and Warburg Pincus completed its acquisition.
Centrica sold it in July 2004 to the private equity firms CVC and Permira, which merged it with Saga under Acromas Holdings in July 2007. In 2006 Labour MP Gwyn Prosser told the House of Commons the firms were showing "greed" and "blatant asset stripping" by borrowing 500 million pounds against AA assets to fund a dividend for themselves. The AA said it was happy to have a reasoned conversation with him.
In June 2014 its shares began trading in London under the name AA plc, an offering in which Acromas sold every share it held. The consortium's offer was accepted in November 2020, and the company left the exchange when the sale closed in March 2021.
The committee nobody could stand against
Before demutualisation, in 1998, a member named James Birkin discovered that ordinary members were entitled to run for the executive committee, something that had never happened. The committee could veto candidates and had always appointed members itself. Birkin stood after a critical press release and was vetoed. Critics called the committee a "self-perpetuating oligarchy" after the May 1998 annual meeting, and chairman Sir Brian Shaw drew fire for saying unhappy members could vote with their feet.
The group today
Today the group runs several brands beyond breakdown cover and insurance. They include Beam, an insurance brand aimed at price comparison websites that started in 2022, the driving school British School of Motoring, which it bought from rival RAC, and DriveTech, which trains drivers for companies and for people the police refer to it. In 2015 it had around 3,000 patrol staff and added more than 500 Volkswagen Transporter vans to the fleet, and it counted 3.3 million paying members by mid-2017.
How does the NRMA differ?
The NRMA is a mutual company limited by guarantee and owned by its members. At the start of 1924 the National Roads Association was restructured and renamed, with a goal strikingly like that of the Royal Automobile Club of Australia (RACA).
It soon competed with the club as well as working alongside it. Its own road service "guides" were returned servicemen of exemplary character who patrolled places such as Coogee, Bondi Beach and Bronte, or waited at congested points on the roads out of the city to receive messages.
By 1925 it had 7,637 members, nearly double the year before, and that year it formed NRMA Insurance. Cars multiplied from the 1950s, membership passed one million in the 1970s and had doubled by the late 1980s. In August 2000 the insurer was demutualised and separated from the association, later taking the name Insurance Australia Group. Today NRMA and the listed insurer are independent companies that share a brand.
Former prime minister Chris Watson was president from 1920 until his death in 1941. When the Second World War began, the NRMA formed a Transport Auxiliary of 500 drivers able to move troops quickly, and a Women's Auxiliary Transport Corps trained 506 women to drive trucks, ambulances and motorcycles. After the war RACA stopped its road service, and its members were covered by an agreement giving them full NRMA services.
How do the three compare?
| The AA | NRMA | AAA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1905 | 1920 | 1902 |
| Home territory | Britain | Australia, roadside service in New South Wales | United States and Canada |
| Ownership | Private company since 1999, acquired in 2021 by a consortium | Member-owned mutual | Federation of clubs, not-for-profit |
| Size quoted | 3.3 million paying members (mid-2017) | Over 2.8 million roadside members in NSW in 2024 | Over 60 million members |
| Beyond breakdown | Insurance, driving lessons, loans, maps | Batteries, driver training, vehicle inspections, travel accommodation | Road maps, hotel guides, driver education |
What does a membership cover in practice?
With the NRMA, roadside assistance in 2024 reached more than 2.8 million members in New South Wales. Outside the state, other clubs such as RACV, RACQ and RAA serve NRMA members, and the NRMA looks after their members who visit. It will also come to you to replace a car battery, run driver training, inspect vehicles, issue International Driving Permits and give car advice. A rewards program, My NRMA Rewards, gives discounts on groceries, fuel, fashion, movie tickets, experiences and accommodation.
AAA works through reciprocity. Members belong to individual clubs, and the clubs own AAA. A member of any participating club can receive services from any other affiliate club, and member dues finance both the clubs and the national organisation. Roadside assistance is among the services offered to its more than 60 million members.
The AA's breakdown cover sits alongside insurance, driving lessons, loans, road maps and other services. Its older roadside inventions remain part of the story: the night breakdown service, the Relay recovery and the telephone boxes that members once opened with their own keys.
How has AAA changed since 1902?
Its first road maps appeared in 1905 and its hotel guides in 1917. The School Safety Patrol Program began in 1920, giving local schools badges and identity cards so pupils could be organised as patrols. Historian Peter Norton describes that wave of safety campaigns as an effort to shift the blame for pedestrian deaths away from motorists. AAA's first driver education course for high schools came in 1936; it is now called How to Drive and is in its 15th edition.
AAA's Racing Board, set up in 1902 to officiate the Vanderbilt Cup, later sanctioned the Indianapolis 500. In 1909 AAA banned women from competitions it sanctioned after Joan Newton Cuneo beat several leading male drivers. After the 1955 Le Mans disaster it decided racing distracted from its main goals, and the United States Automobile Club took over.
During the Second World War AAA put its mapping facilities at the Army's disposal, backed synthetic rubber and a scrap rubber campaign, and ran a scheme to teach veterans with prosthetic limbs to drive. After its 1946 "Take It Easy" campaign, deaths fell to a level 20 percent beneath their pre-war mark. In the 1960s it had a hand in drafting a major 1966 federal law on safety standards for cars, tyres and equipment. In 1997 only eight states had graduated licensing laws when AAA launched Licensed to Learn; since then every state and the District of Columbia has passed one in some form.
A history that included exclusion
In the Jim Crow era AAA turned away African Americans, who were unable to become members, and guides such as The Negro Motorist Green Book appeared as alternatives to its own.
From county clubs to five groups
As late as the 1970s, dozens of AAA clubs covered just one county apiece, especially in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Consolidation since the 1990s has left five big groupings, which clubs have either merged into or joined: Auto Club Group, the Automobile Club of Southern California, AAA Northeast, AAA Mountain West Group and AAA Club Alliance.
What else do the clubs do besides rescue cars?
All three lobby. The NRMA calls advocacy for motorists its foundation activity, and the Sydney Morning Herald described it in a 2022 editorial as the motorists' lobby.
In a 2013 submission it said motorists already pay enough, opposed a congestion tax and put the backlog of New South Wales road infrastructure at $115 billion. In 2022 it said a confidential report's congestion tax plan might not be the best idea. It backs 30 km/h speed zones only where risk is ultra-high, judged case by case, opposed 40km/h limits in Canberra and Sydney, and in 2022 said a proposal for 30 km/h neighbourhood zones does not work.
Critics have pushed back. In 2008 Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, argued that the NRMA, in common with large oil companies, has a stake in promoting car use, and Greens MP Lee Rhiannon accused it of an anti-cycleway agenda. In 2024, as road deaths rose 10.2% year on year, more than 100 senior Australian transport and urban researchers put their names to an open letter asking for slower limits on local streets.
The NRMA also co-funded the Pedestrian Council of Australia in 1996 and, in 2012, switched on free public EV chargers in Sydney and Canberra.
Where this goes next
In 2026 the NRMA led a campaign for registration and identification requirements for e-bikes, saying their use is largely unregulated, and it supports more enforcement powers, including possible confiscation for illegal use. It keeps growing its travel arm too, operating 50 sites nationwide as NRMA Parks & Resorts as of September 2026. At the AA, the new main headquarters at Plant, Basingstoke opened in December 2024.
