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When it comes to fuel saving the RAC Foundation has pitched in asking commuters to car share. It said that 25 million people commute daily to a fixed place of work, 71% of whom use a car (bloody big car that’s all I can say – the old ones are always the best). “Car sharing has the potential to reduce the financial, environmental and congestion costs associated with some of these 18 million work-related journeys” it said. Look, I know that’s pretty obvious but it’s not me who’s treating you like a moron – I’m just reporting what they said! Good grief!

There has been a great deal of talk recently about extending the use of tachographs to all vehicles used for business as it seems unfair that the driver of a commercial vehicle is covered by European driving hours directives whilst sales people and service engineers driving small vans or cars aren’t but are just as likely to fall asleep at the wheel. However, many are not aware that the law already applies if the car, or 4×4, plus trailer plated gross weight exceeds 3.5tonnes. If this is the case the vehicle should be fitted with a tacho and drivers Read more »

With fuel prices constantly hitting record highs Peter Hollinshead, head of vehicle finance at HSBC Bank, has provided the following advice to motorists and companies in order to try to contain the soaring fuel costs.

•  Is the journey necessary? It could be that meetings can be carried out via video conferencing or webinar – a web based seminar or presentation.
• If the journey is unavoidable work out the shortest route to the destination before leaving. Read more »

Do you suffer with hay fever? Are you taking anything? If you take antihistamines in order to relieve the symptoms of hay fever they can cause drowsiness which can increase the risk of an accident. Not only that if you take any drugs at all, prescription or non prescription that can make you unfit to drive the penalties are the same as drink driving. You don’t have to be snorting crack cocaine to be considered to be driving under the influence of drugs it can simply be something that relieves pain! Be careful and don’t lose your licence – or your life!

A subject dear to my heart is the way that this Government taxes larger cars as a means to reduce the carbon emissions with no consideration given to the mileage that these cars are covering. A 25,000 mile a year repmobile is much worse for the environment than a 10,000 mile a year big 4 wheel drive jobee. But my belief that companies should make greater use of communications technology has been supported by the RAC who Read more »

If you are a regular reader of my newsletter you will know how I love the way the press and various bodies roll out statistics that are totally meaningless but are meant to enlighten us drivers – well I have a great set of stats this week which may well change your mind over the colour of the next car you will drive. Apparently white cars are more likely to be stolen than any other colour according to someone who has access to the police national computer and far too much time on mis hands! And even better, Read more »

Staying on these two misleading articles they also point to the dangers of taking finance on cars and the problems faced by those who want to get out of their current large or gas guzzling cars and into smaller more efficient cars but are unable to because of the negative equity position with the settlement costs being far in excess of the resale value of the car on finance, ie. negative equity. The drivers are therefore left with cars that they don’t want to drive because they have no way out of the finance. Again this is a generalisation that simply isn’t Read more »

If you are one of those that has downloaded my introductory video on my vehicle finance training you will know that I have very little faith in the ability of the press to provide proper advice on vehicle finance, in fact I said that some of their advice is criminally misleading. However you expect the Times and Telegraph to at least do some basic research before throwing misleading information onto their online sites. You expect rubbish from the popular press but not from the more upmarket news and information providers. So what is it that has made me so angry? Read more »

This piece of research is aimed at one of my customers in particular – you know who you are! Swansea Metropolitan University found that a windscreen chip had an 80% chance of developing into a crack, requiring the whole windscreen to be replaced, if not treated immediately and repaired. Get that windscreen repaired!

The police are fighting back against vehicle cloning through the use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras located in the roadside and in most fuel stations. currently 50 million vehicle movements are recorded by ANPR cameras every day. The new software being tested by officers in Durham will identify when cars with the same number plates are moving at the same time and alert officers. The analytical ability of the software will enable the police to Read more »