31st
January 2008 – Tank used to crush speed cameras
Drivers
who dislike the speed camera, and there are quite a few, can now vent their
anger out of these pillars of justice by crushing them with a seventeen ton
tank! But this is no anti speed camera campaign, so don’t expect to be able
to hire this tank and drive it your nearest speed camera and run it over,
this is a scheme set up by the owner of a paintball business Bill Bailey.
Drivers
can book up and visit the paintball centre, which is set in Vernon’s Hill
Quarry, Gurney Slase, Somerset, they then get the chance to drive the Abbott
433 self propelling gun, with the aid of an expert driving instructor.
The
scheme that starts at Easter and will offer different types of experience,
from having a ride in the back of the tank, to driving the machine itself
around the course that has been especially created for the purpose, at the
end there is the option to either run a speed camera over or the favourite
with many drivers, blow it up!
The cost
will be around £100 for an hour, plus if the speed camera finale is required
then it is an extra £60, which maybe well worth it and if a driver has three
or points on their licence there is a discount.
Source
[Auto Trader News]
----------
30th
January 2008 - Motorists being ripped off on fuel
It wasn’t
that long ago when the oil companies pushed the price of a barrel of crude
oil up to over a $100, for motorists this meant that almost immediately the
price of fuel at the pump went up leaving drivers having to fork out even
more money just to keep their cars running.
But with
the price of a barrel of crude oil costing around $90 this would seem to be
great news and it should surely follow that the prices at the pump would
reflect this drop in price, right? Wrong fuel companies now stand accused of
ripping the motorist off by not passing on the drop in price that they have
to pay.
This
means that while motorists are struggling to find the extra cash needed to
allow them to simply get to work, the fuel companies are reaping the rewards
of lower costs and higher pump prices. Whereas in the past the petrol
stations complained that their profits were cut to the bone, it would seem
that the $100 a barrel came as a good opportunity to exploit the situation
and keep the prices high.
Source
[What Car]
----------
29th
January 2008 - AA calls for more speed cameras
The AA
are calling for the government to introduce more average speed cameras into
areas where speed humps are being used to regulate the speed that driver
travel at, this is because research carried out by the AA’s own research
centre at the Millbrook Proving Centre in Bedfordshire has shown that fuel
economy falls sharply while carbon dioxide emissions rise sharply to almost
twice the normal level when drivers are forced to travel over speed humps.
To show
exactly what they mean the AA has released these figures, if you take a car
that achieves 58.15 mpg while travelling at 30 mph on a flat and even road,
and then drive it over the same distance but where the road has speed humps,
this car will return 30.85 mpg.
The
problems with speed humps is that they are an easy way of slowing down
traffic, but there has been no thought into the damage that can be done to
both the car and the environment. Their tests also showed that cars
travelling at only 20 mph give off around ten per cent more Co2 than when
travelling at 30 mph! This is because of the way that cars are produced;
they are optimised at 30 mph.
But there
are other costs to be considered, fifty speed humps will cost £150,000,
while covering the same area with speed cameras will cost £250,000!
Source
[What Car]
----------
28th
January 2008 - IQ tests for older drivers
Under new
plans by the government older drivers will be forced to undergo a series of
tests which will include an IQ test to prove that they are still mentally up
to the task of driving under today’s conditions.
The last
time the age of driving was looked into was way back in 1974, since then any
driver has been allowed to stay behind the wheel without any testing as such
until the age of seventy, but now the new plans could see many drivers
losing their right to drive at the age of seventy five, unless they agree to
take these new tests.
The
testing will involve an eye test and the IQ test which it is believed will
be a problem solving exam which will involve shapes etc. However they will
not be required to take the practical exam that learner driver have to take
these days.
It is
estimate that there are at the moment around one and half million drivers
over the age of seventy five, but this figure is set to rise which the
government believe could cause problems on the roads, but these plans have
not gone down well with the drivers of this group as the majority of them
have been driving for a long time and have never been involved in any
accidents at all.
The
government are due to make an announcement within a few weeks.
Source
[This is London]
----------
25th
January 2008 – A million drivers on the verge of a ban
With the
increase in speed cameras around the country the chances of being fined and
getting points on your driving licence increase all of the time, and for
people who for a living this can be more serious than just losing their
licence, its their livelihood too.
It is
estimated that around one million drivers are one ticket away from a band
and over five million drivers have six points on their licence. With amount
of speed cameras se to reach 12,000 within three years, the future is not
looking good for them.
But
surprisingly there is insurance available for drivers and should they
receive a ban they can claim between £500 and £6,000 per month for the
duration of the ban depending on the type of policy held.
Features
of the beatyourban.co.uk policies:
The
policy covers motorists, motorcyclists, and van & HGV drivers even if you've
already got up to 11 points on your driving licence
You
choose - we pay you either £500 or £1,000 per month with up to £6,000 to
spend as you wish to cover the duration of your driving ban
A free
legal helpline & up to £1000 of legal expenses to fight your ban - a £250
excess applies.
No
complicated claims process
No need
to keep receipts or fill in detailed expense forms
No need
to prove how much you've actually spent on transport
Employ a
driver, pay for taxis or find other transport solutions that suit you
Really
convenient - everything is online
Policies
start from £49
All of
this is fine, but is having this sort of cover encouraging drivers not to
care about a driving ban?
Source [TNN]
----------
24th
January 2008 - Clampdown on blue badges
There has
been an increase in the amount of forged blue badges being used by drivers
to park in disabled parking places and to make use of the current rules that
apply to holder of the badge.
So in
order to prevent the illegal use of this system, the Department of Transport
will be announcing new measures to prevent this abuse from continuing. It
has been estimated by local authorities that there could be as many as fifty
per cent of the current badges on display that are being used fraudulently,
and the most common problem found is where a motorist is using the parking
privileges of a relative.
But the
only real way of stopping this is to catch the user actually abusing system,
which means using surveillance teams to attempt to catch the driver red
handed. With over two and half million blue badges issued this task is
enormous and it is only possible to monitor those drivers who have been
flagged for some reason.
A stolen
blue badge can be sold for anything up to £500, and there are also some very
good forgeries that have been copied by computer; however the new badges
have a hologram which makes it a lot harder for the badge to be forged.
How the
government are going to tackle this problem is not yet known, but there are
calls for a dedicated central authority to be created.
Source
[The Times]
----------
23rd
January 2008 - How far would you go to avoid a parking fine?
Well one
man who clocked up three speeding tickets over a short period of time went
to extremes when decided to fake his own death in order to get away with his
driving errors.
Shafkat
Munir was caught doing 66mph in a temporary 50mph zone on the M55 in
Lancashire on the 23rd January 2007; his second offence was
driving at 36mph in a 30mph zone on Preston New Road in Blackpool. Finally
he clocked up a third penalty by driving at 41mph in a 30mph zone in
Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
For these
offences he would have been looking at a fine of around £180 and maybe nine
points on his licence, which would mean that he could still drive anyhow.
But after
failing to challenge the police over the fines, he assumed a new identity
Rashid Hussain and claimed that Shafkat Munir had died in Pakistan five
years earlier, he even produced a death certificate, which was written in
Urdu to prove it.
However
the police were having none of it and after a little bit of research, they
soon discovered that Shafkat Munir was alive and well, he was arrested at
home and charged with perverting the course of justice. After pleading
guilty to the three offences he was sentenced to a year in prison for each
offence to run concurrently, disqualified from driving for 18 months and
fined £180!
Source
[Auto Trader News]
----------
22nd
January 2008 - Motorways to get new signs
New signs
will be appearing on the UK motorways over the next month or so, which are
supposed to inform drivers exactly where they should they have a problem
with their vehicles or if there has been an accident. This follows the
problems that emergency and breakdown services have finding the exact place
where there has been an accident or breakdown.
The
problem arises from drivers who call in to both the breakdown companies and
the even the emergency services, this makes it a lot harder for them to
pinpoint exactly where an incident has taken place, before the increased use
of mobile phones a driver would have used one of the emergency phones that
are placed at regular intervals along the road and which made finding the
driver much easier and therefore faster.
The new
signs which contain the road that a driver is on, the direction that they
were travelling in and the exact distance from the start of the motorway in
kilometres, these will begin to appear throughout January and will be seen
first on the following roads, M4 from junction 13 at Newbury until its end
in Wales, the M5 from junctions 15-31, and on sections of the M48 and M49.
Using
these sign will dramatically cut the time it takes for the appropriate
service to arrive to the aid of the driver.
Source
[Auto Trader News]
----------
21st
January 2008 - Random breath testing to be announced
It is
believed that within a couple of weeks the government will be announcing
that they intend to allow the police to set up random road blocks where they
can breath test all drivers to see if they have been drinking and driving.
Currently
the police can only ask for a breath test from a driver who has been driving
erratically, speeding, been involved in an accident and or if there is a
fault with the car like the tail lights etc. this is set to be the biggest
shake up of the drink driving system since it was started over forty years
ago.
Plans
like this have been hatched before but never got past the idea phase, as it
may have be seen to be an infringement of the drivers liberty, which is to
be able to travel around freely. However things seem to have changed
recently and now motoring organisations are backing the scheme. The idea is
to prove that this offence will not be tolerated and anyone who takes the
risk will be caught.
Road
blocks can be set up under the instructions of a senior police officer where
there is a reasonable belief that drink and/or drug driving has been taking
place, further more these road blocks can remain in place for up to twenty
four hours. However this could erode any faith that drivers have in the
system and may even cause ill will, if this stops normal law abiding drivers
from going about their day to day business.
Source
[Telegraph]
----------
18th
January 2008 - Today is the most dangerous day for driving
Today
January 18th is statistically the most dangerous day in the UK to
be driving, and what makes it worse is when the 18th January
falls on a Friday. In research done by the motor insurer Admiral, they
checked through all of their 1.8 million motor accident claims to see what
days stood out more than any other, which is how they have come with these
figures.
The worst
days for driving:
1. Friday
2.
Thursday
3.
Wednesday
4.
Tuesday
5. Monday
6.
Saturday
7. Sunday
Top 10
worst dates for driving:
1.
January 18th
2.
December 20th
3.
October 27th
4. March
22nd
5. July
20th
6.
October 1st
7.
October 21st
8.
November 1st
9.
December 15th
10.
October 30th
Today is
particularly dangerous simply because it is a Friday, the end of the working
week for most people, they are tired and looking forward to getting home for
the weekend. These distractions make people careless, maybe they are prone
to taking a chance on how they drive and thus end up becoming one of the
numbers that are filling an accident claims form for the damage that has
been dome to their car or somebody else’s!
So as the
saying goes, “Let’s be careful out there!”
Source
[My Finances]
----------
17th
January 2008 - Festive drink driving falls
As the
figures come out for the Christmas drink driving campaign come out, there
appears to be some good news regarding the how many drivers that were found
to be over the limit. According to the Association of Chief Police Officers
(ACPO) there were a fifth less found to be in drunk in charge of a vehicle,
which is very encouraging.
The
actual figures show that 7,800 driver failed the breathalyser compared to
the figures from 2006, when 9,700 drivers failed. The was also a drop in the
amount of drivers who failed the drug and driving test there 251 in the same
period in 2006, but in 2007 the figures had fallen to 153. However the
figures are even more encouraging because there was in fact a six per cent
rise in the amount of drivers stopped and tested, in total there were over
155,000 tests carried out.
Although
these figures are encouraging the ACPO have stated that they will not be
easy up on the prevention of drinking and driving, and despite what was
previous thought, there was no real difference in the age groups that were
found over the limit, so whether young or older some drivers will still take
a chance and drive after having a drink.
Source
[BBC News]
----------
16th
January 2008 - UK roads criticised
In a
report by the research group Policy Exchange, the UK road network has been
labelled unable to meet the needs of a modern country. Most drivers who sit
in the long tail backs every day would probably not need anyone to inform us
of this fact!
However
in the report which is optimistically titled “Towards better transport” the
suggestions to improve this problem is a road charging scheme, which is not
going to down well with all of the people that use the roads on a daily
basis. A charge of 5p per Km for cars and 10p per Km for commercial vehicles
would bring in an estimated £1.5 million a year; this could then go towards
road building and widening schemes.
But road
users paid over £32 billion in motoring taxes, yet only £8 billion was spent
on improving the roads. Yet if we look at the railways they have invested
£6.5 billion in making improvements, but the trains only carry around six
per cent of the travelling public.
Clearly
there is a huge difference between the money that comes in through taxes
etc, if a greater percentage was spent on improvements this would make the
road system more attractive and therefore make the whole road network more
effective as it should be in a country like ours.
Source
[Autocar]
----------
15th
January 2008 - Rural
driving should be taught to learners
That is
the idea being put forward by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) the
reason behind this is simple, at weekends and other days off from work,
there is nothing a town driver likes more than taking a drive out into the
country. But at these times the accident rate rises dramatically and in fact
throughout the UK, on average there are three times as many deaths on the
road as there are in towns and cities.
The
problems that face a town driver are completely different to what they would
expect to be seeing on an urban road, these hazards can include walkers,
animals like deer, farm transport such a tractors towing machinery, horse
riders, cyclists and many other road users that would not be seen on a urban
street.
The
common element is speed, on a rural the top speed is sixty miles per hour,
but because it is set at that, it does not mean that a car has to be moving
at the speed, you would have thought that this would be a young problem but
this is not true, it is drivers of all ages who find themselves on clear
open road and just cannot resist putting their foot down. But they will
sooner or later come up against a sharp bend and sitting in the road could
be a tractor travelling at ten miles an hour!
Source
[IC Wales]
----------
14th
January 2008 - Car vandalism on the increase
It turns
out that over two in five car owners have experienced some sort of vandalism
to their vehicle in a survey compiled for the motor insurer Direct Line, it
was also found that over seven per cent of those that said they have been a
victim of this nuisance, have suffered from it during the past year.
With an
estimated cost of repairs running at £659 million for 2007, which is up on
the year before by over £100 million, this is an expensive crime that is
affecting both the car owners and the insurance business.
The most
common act of vandalism in the past year is where deep scratches have
appeared along the side of the car, which is sometimes attributed to the
work of a car or house key, but can also be caused by cars and other objects
too. This type of damage actually makes for forty three per cent of all of
the events during 2007. Among the other problems are smashed windows and
damaged wing mirrors.
Some of
the other conclusions from the survey were:
Two
thirds of vandalism incidents are at night.
49% of
incidents occurred to cars parked outside owners' homes.
58% of
victims over the last 20 years have not reported the most recent incident to
police.
77% did
make a claim on their insurance for the damage caused.
This is
just a small sample of UK car owners, so the problem could be a lot worse
than these figures state.
Source
[Auto Trader News]
----------
11th
January 2008 - Checking your tyre pressure
How many
times have you pulled into a garage or petrol station with the intention of
checking the pressure in your tyres, only to find that the machine is “Out
of order”? Well if you have then you are not alone because in a survey
undertaken by the auto magazine Auto Express, they found that an astonishing
thirty nine per cent had machines that were either damaged, out of order or
worse of all, giving the wrong readings.
Some of
these machines that were faulty were giving readings that were between one
or two pounds per square inch out from the reading, but the worst one found
was out by fourteen pounds per square inch. Amazingly there is no legal
obligation for the garage owners to ensure that these machines are working
properly.
As far as
the legal position stands, it is estimated that a third of drivers stopped
by the police have at least one tyre that is around fifty per cent out on
what the pressure should be. In one case a tyre was found to be out by a
massive seventy six per cent out. In same situation a third of the tyres had
either an illegal thickness of tread or was in fact bald in places, with
some drivers claiming not to have checked them for over a year!
Having
defective or wrong pressures in any of the cars tyres, can be dangerous and
in some cases fatal. It is recommended that tyre pressures should be checked
at least once a month.
Source
[Auto Express]
----------
10th
January 2008 - 10 mph driver banned
A woman
driving on the M32 motorway near Bristol at up to ten miles per hour has
been banned from driving for just seven days. Stephanie Cole, 58 from
Fishponds, Bristol was seen driving partly on the hard shoulder and the
inside at speeds that were at time barely above the average walking pace,
when the police stopped her.
She said
that she had no intention of getting onto to the motorway in the first
place, she just happened to find herself driving along the road where other
drivers reach the national speed limit. She was crawling along the road
drifting in and out of the inside lane and the hard shoulder while other
drivers who were travelling at normal speeds were taking action to avoid
her.
In the
back window of her car she has a poster which reads:
I don’t
do fast
Don’t
hoot
Just
overtake!
However
if you were driving at 70 mph and all of a sudden come across a near
stationary car, would not really do you any favours!
She has
been told that in order to get back on the road will need to take another
driving test; hopefully this will include some motorway testing and how to
drive over 10 mph!
Source
[Reuters]
----------
9th
January 2008 - Drivers who kill can escape jail
At the
moment a driver who kills by careless or dangerous driving could find
themselves facing a jail sentence, but this rarely happens and so due to the
growing campaign to make drivers accountable for their mistakes has meant
that there are to be some changes to the death by driving offence.
It is
expected that the Sentencing Guidelines Council will recommend that the
penalties for drivers who are convicted of killing someone to be reduced, in
fact it is entirely possible for a driver to get off with a community
service order.
In 2005
the government made changes for this offence, which meant that a driver
convicted of death by driving could face a jail term of up to fourteen
years, and the penalty for careless driving had a maximum fine of £2,500.
Under the
new sentencing rules, there would be a jail term of up to five years, but
where a driver has got a clean driving record and is found to have had a
momentary lack of judgement or has simply made a mistake, they would then be
looking at a community sentence.
Even
drivers who kill and have no insurance could escape a jail sentence, despite
the fact that there will be a new offence of causing death while driving
with no insurance, unlicensed or disqualified that will carry a two year
jail term.
Source
[BBC News]
----------
8th
January 2008 - Women who drink and drive on the rise
There has
been a lot publicity on famous women who drink, drive and have a good time,
apart from when they are sent to jail, like Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan
who have both been in jail for driving offences and party until they
literally drop, but this sort of behaviour is limited to just famous women,
here in the UK there has been a huge rise in the amount of women drivers
being caught drinking and driving.
In the
past ten years the amount of women that are actually convicted of drinking
and driving has gone up by a massive sixty per cent in only the last ten
years. More serious than it, is the amount of women drivers who had been
involved in an accident and have failed a breath test has risen by twenty
per cent in the same period.
Ten years
ago the amount of women being convicted of being in charge of a vehicle
while under the influence of drink or drugs has risen from seven per cent
ten years ago to twelve per cent presently. However in same period the
amount of men being convicted of the same offences has actually dropped by
three per cent.
As a
result of these findings, there are now calls for anti drink driving
campaigns to be targeted to just women, as they seem to behaving in a
similar manner as men nowadays by drinking pints and in the way that they
drive.
Source
[What Car]
----------
7th
January 2008 - Jeremy Clarkson for PM!
There is
a growing movement to support Top Gears Jeremy Clarkson to become the next
Prime Minister, and going on the current governments support it may not be a
bad idea!
This has
come about through one mans vision, Ed Johnson founded a group on the social
networking site Facebook and he is not alone as there are over 260,000
members who have signed up to join and fight for the cause and there has
even been a petition started on the Prime Ministers own number ten petition
site, where over 30,000 people have signed in agreement.
There is
also a proposed cabinet which feature some familiar names:
Prime
Minister - Jeremy Clarkson
Chancellor of the Exchequer - James May
Foreign
Secretary - Richard Hammond
Home
Secretary - Hugh Laurie
Deputy
Prime Minister - Hugh Grant
Trans
Secretary - The Stig
Health
Secretary - Jonathan Ross
Education
Secretary - Stephen Fry
Defence
Secretary - Boris Johnson
Trade
Secretary - Simon Cowell
Culture
Secretary - Peter Kay
Customs
and Excise - Charles Kennedy
UN Rep -
Michael Palin
NATO
Permanent Rep - Gordon Ramsey
Head of
Bank of England - John Cleese
Policy
Coordinator - Stephen Merchant
Minister
to EU - Rowan Atkinson
Chief of
Defence Staff - Dick Strawbridge
Obviously
not all of these people would be happy to sit around the same table as each
other, but no doubt there will be some suitable replacements waiting in the
wings.
Source
[Auto Trader News]
----------
4th
Jan 2008 - Business drivers fight fatigue
A recent
survey by the road safety group Brake, has found that people who use their
vehicles for business are over twice as likely to feel tired or even fall
asleep at the wheel, than any other driver on the road.
What is
even more worrying is of those that answered the survey around one in ten
drivers actually admitted that in the past year alone they have actually
fallen asleep at the wheel, however of those drivers that do not drive for a
living this figure is greatly reduced to one in twenty five.
It seems
that sleep is main factor with this problem as around half of those driver
who drive for business said that they regularly only get five hours sleep,
yet this figure is not much different for other drivers too, with thirty
five per cent of other driver also admit to only getting five hours sleep at
night.
There is
an incentive for businesses to sort this problem out as new laws coming into
affect in April could mean that employers could face prosecution under the
new corporate manslaughter act, which will mean employers need to prove that
they are taking enough steps to ensure that their staff are fit to drive
safely.
Source
[What Car]
----------
3rd
Jan 2008 - 25% of drivers want a new car
In a
survey performed by the car sales website Auto Trader asking drivers what
their New Years motoring resolutions would be, it seems that a quarter of
those who responded would like a new car for the New Year.
This is
great news for car dealers and private sellers, as normally the first few
weeks of January would normally be fairly quiet on the sales front.
Other
findings from the survey may cause some people including the authorities a
little concern as there are some drivers who are willing to ignore the
recent dangerous driving rules that have been announced, even though they
can lead to a guilty driver spending some time in prison.
The full
results are as follows:
1. Buy
another car – 25 per cent
2. Drive
less – 23 per cent
3. Wash
the car more often – 15 per cent
4. Not
speeding – 9 per cent
5. Carry
out more checks and maintenance – 7 per cent
6. Not
using my mobile while driving – 5 per cent
7. Be
greener – 5 per cent
8. Stop
eating or drinking behind the wheel – 2 per cent
9. Stop
smoking while driving – 2 per cent
10. Avoid
tailgating other drivers – 2 per cent
This of
course is a mere snap shot of the thoughts of some drivers, but the top
being to buy a new car and drive less, sounds rather difficult!
Source
[Auto Trader News]
----------
2nd
Jan 2007 - Worst day of the year for breakdowns
Now that
the Christmas and New Year festivities are over, it is now time for the
nation’s drivers to get back into their cars and head off to work once more,
but they should be aware that today may hold something in store for them,
for today according to the RAC is the worst day for car breakdowns.
Lack of
use over the last week or so is the main reason for this, plus the cold and
damp weather can all have affect on the performance of the car and it
actually means that odds are as high as seventy three per cent more today
that there will be a car problem than any other day.
For the
breakdown service their records show that there as been around a fifty per
cent increase in callouts over the last five years.
However
there are a few things that a motorist can do to help lower the odd of them
becoming one the statistics, these are:
Check
tyre pressure and examine for signs of wear or damage.
Check oil
and water levels and ensure the anti-freeze content of the cooling system is
sufficient.
Make sure
you are confident using the car's jack and wheel brace and if possible,
practise changing the wheel.
Making
these checks will significantly improve their chances of a hassle free
journey, especially as temperatures are set to drop over the next couple of
days.
Source
[BBC News]
