Founded in 1905, it provides vehicle insurance, driving lessons, breakdown cover, loans, motoring advice, road maps and other services.

In 2002 the AA Motoring Trust was created to continue its public interest and road safety activities.

[5] The act also required drivers to hold a driving licence (which was obtained without a test on payment of five shillings at a post office) and to display a registration plate on their vehicle.

[6] By 1906, the AA had erected thousands of roadside danger and warning signs, and managed road signage until responsibility was passed to local authorities in the early 1930s.

[8] In 1908, the organisation published its first AA Members' Special Handbook containing a list of nationwide agents and repairers.

[13] In the following year it began broadcasting AA Roadwatch traffic reports on commercial radio stations.

AA Relay was also introduced in 1973, a service that will deliver a broken-down vehicle, its driver and passengers, luggage and trailer to anywhere in Britain.

Birkin stood for the committee in 1998, having first issued a press release reported in the London Evening Standard highly critical of way the system operated.

Criticism followed at the annual general meeting in May 1998, describing the executive committee of behaving like a "self-perpetuating oligarchy.

"[14] The meeting repeatedly criticised chairman Sir Brian Shaw for having said that members who were unhappy with this arrangement could "vote with their feet".

[23] Bob Mackenzie was Executive Chairman from June 2014, having led the buy out from Acromas, until August 2017 when he was removed for "gross misconduct".

[24] The company accepted a takeover offer from a consortium of TowerBrook Capital Partners and Warburg Pincus in November 2020.

Additionally, a number of marketing, finance and digital functions operate from a London office, firstly at 90 Long Acre in Covent Garden, and from 2021 at the Blue Fin Building near the River Thames.