Summer holiday essentials: car hire and driving abroad

Everything you need to know, every day this week

When choosing a car hire firm, compare like with like by factoring in all the charges (Shutterstock)

When you rent a car, the standard 21st-century travel rule – book online in advance for the best rate – applies. But the internet is full of traps for the unwary. Intense competition and price-comparison websites can make a toxic combination - as many people who have spent much more than they expected on hiring a car will testify.

The car-rental landscape is complex. Large companies such as Hertz (hertz.co.uk), Avis/Budget (avis.co.uk) and Europcar (europcar.co.uk) own millions of vehicles worldwide, and in addition have franchise networks of independent operators. They are supplemented with many smaller enterprises - from a Greek garage with a couple of elderly 4x4s and a beaten-up Fiat, to expanding companies such as Goldcar of Spain.

Some of their bookings come through firms such as Holiday Autos (holidayautos.co.uk) and Rentalcars.com; the next layer is price-comparison websites such as TravelSupermarket (travelsupermarket.com) and Skyscanner (skyscanner.net), which search for the best deal. On a test booking I was delighted to see an online offer for a car for £3 a day in Spain, though search as I could it proved elusive.

The best quote I could find for a 48-hour deal from Malaga airport was a very reasonable £35. It also had the only refuelling policy that works from the customer’s point of view: “out full, back full”. The two alternatives - “pay for the tank” deals, or “out empty, back empty” policies - invariably benefit the company.

So is there a catch? Well, yes. The car-hire firm will demand a credit-card deposit of €850 at pick-up, and says: “The deposit will be returned after the rental, as long as all conditions have been met.” If you are lucky enough to have a cushioned credit limit that can cope with a “hold” of over £700, be warned: “The car-hire company cannot be held responsible for any difference between the amount paid and the amount refunded.”

The subtext to this is that I would expect to be pressurised into buying an expensive collision-damage waiver. Even if I present a policy from one of the growing number of insurers who sell excess waiver policies, such as Carhireexcess.co.uk or Insurance4carhire.com, the local rental-car operator may insist on a credit-card deposit as well.

Make sure also of the location of the office – sometimes cheaper companies are some miles from the airport, with no easy transport.

With stiff additional charges often levied for drivers with less than three or four years’ experience, additional drivers, baby seats and sat-navs, you may prefer to revert to global chains, which have offices in the UK you can yell at if things go wrong. Use a price-comparison site, by all means, but once you have established the approximate price level, see what firms such as Avis and Hertz will offer if you book direct. Ensure you compare like with like by bundling in all the necessary charges.

Finally, some car providers require you to do some tricky pre-planning. Until a year ago, travellers with the standard photo driving licence had an accompanying green piece of paper, known as the counterpart, on which all motoring misdeeds are written. This allowed car-rental companies to check your driving record. But the green counterpart is now waste paper, with a complicated new system to verify your record.

First, go online to the right part of the DVLA site (bit.ly/DVLApp). Fill in your driving licence number, national insurance number and postcode, then click on the “Share your licence information” tab followed by “Create a code”. You get an alphanumeric code, which some car-rental firms say you need to supply when you rent a car; you may need to print it out and take it with you. The code is valid for 21 days.

Before deciding to rent abroad - or, indeed, to take your own car - it is worth assessing the risks of driving in your destination.

The good news is that the past decade, fatalities have fallen by one-third thanks to safer cars and closer adherence to traffic laws. The bad news: in some parts of Europe, death rates are still way too high.

The latest figures (for 2013) from the UN Economic Commission for Europe show that the UK was second only to Sweden in the standard indicator for road safety: fatalities per 100,000 of population. The roads in Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Germany and Malta are around one-third riskier than those in Britain. Turkey, France, Italy and Canada suffer death rates above 50 per cent worse than the UK. Things get progressively more dangerous in Portugal, Belgium, Greece and Croatia. And the country where a crash is least likely to be fatal? One with no maximum speed limit: Germany.

To help drivers to nearby countries stay safe and keep the right side of the law, the AA sells a Euro Travel Kit for £29.99 (theaa.com/shop). It contains a set of headlamp beam converters, a universal bulb kit, a hazard warning triangle, a reflective emergency jacket (to protect drivers if they break down and leave the vehicle), a first-aid kit and a breathalyser (as required by France). The kit also contains the AA’s European Driver’s Handbook, with detailed information on the different rules of the road, including road signs and legal requirements.

“Before you can go cruising down Route 66, you may need an International Driving Permit – available for just £5.50 from the Post Office.” So says the Post Office. Well, if you are cruising down Route 66 you definitely won’t need an IDP, but you will for Egypt, India, Japan and Thailand. For a complete list, see bit.ly/IDPermit.

The Foreign Office provides useful advice for motoring in nations beyond Europe; just search “FCO” and the name of the country. For Sri Lanka, for example, you are told to obtain “a recognition permit at the AA in Colombo” before you can drive around the island, and that “There have been cases where security forces have opened fire on vehicles that don’t stop when asked.”