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Last year Direct Line carried out a survey into car vandalism and found it to be at epidemic levels. They found that most people (64%) that had their car vandalised knew the person who vandalised their car. They questioned offenders as well as victims and found an ex boyfriend or girlfriend to be the top target.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

This was followed by a current or ex boss and even the ex’s new partner! Next door neighbours or people living in the same road were also offenders. So much for the assumption that all vandalism was caused by testosterone charged young males high on Special Brew and crack cocaine! So what was the type of damage caused I hear you ask?

In top place is keyed or scratched paint, followed by damage to door mirrors then smashed windows. In fourth place is radio aerials snapped off then snapped windscreen wipers. Tyre slashing is in 6^th place, stolen badge next and in 8^th place smashed lights, in 9^th dents from Car Surfing (whatever that is) with graffiti or paint on car at 10^th. So there you have it, if you are going to fall out with any of the above make sure you lock your car away! By Graham Hill

Bits & Pieces: Ageism still exists it would seem! Insurance companies can still turn you down for insurance based on your age and this happened to over 100,000 last year. However, to help the elderly keep mobile the Government introduced a scheme that meant that if an insurance company would not provide cover due to age they must refer the driver to an insurer who will and apparently it worked as they are all happily still driving. Stop complaining about old drivers – you’ll be there one day!

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

For those who enjoy the occasional spliff then jump into their car and weave their way home in the belief that they won’t get ‘done’, think again as the Government has announced an investment of £120,000 for cannabis screening devices to be installed into police stations in an effort to tackle drug driving. It is estimated that drug driving is responsible for 200 deaths on the road each year – no laughing matter.

On the earlier subject of age there are now over a million drivers on UK roads aged over 80 and amazingly there are 195 aged over 100. The Institute of Advanced Motorists added that older drivers are actually safer with fewer, in terms of percentage, having points on their licences. By Graham Hill

Bus Lane (Photo credit: didbygraham)

Years ago, at the age of 21, I worked for the International Perfume manufacturer Faberge as their cost and management accountant. For those old enough to know they were the creators of world changing Brut, the first ever unisex fragrance. One of the advantages of working there was access to cheap bottles of Brut and any other product they sold at the time.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

Perks of the job, in the same way that my dad and my brother in law received big discounts on air travel by working for British Airways. But what benefits do those men and women that drive around all day in dayglow cars with flashing blue lights all over them. Not many I would suggest.

They don’t even get to take the company car home for private use in the evening and weekend, the wife might not agree but the kids would love it. One of the few benefits I can see is that motorists seem to get out of the way when they see a police car waiting to move into traffic or are cruising through the centre of town.

You might also assume that they have free access to restricted areas where only busses, taxis and cyclists are allowed and of course bus lanes. After a busy day of chasing around after cracked up 15 year old joy riders, stopping robbers who are likely to pull out a sawn off shotgun from under their seat after being forced to stop by one of these brave boys and girls in blue, you would think that they are entitled a little bit of privilege, such as nipping down a bus lane in order to get home to their bangers and mash.

If you thought that and you live in Birmingham you would be wrong. Birmingham City Council actually send out fines to the police for improper use of their bus lanes. Have you ever heard of anything so amazingly bloody ridiculous. Since last September more than 400 notices were served on the police amounting to £24,000 after putting up signs barring all vehicles, other than buses and taxis of course.

They then used CCTV to catch those driving down the bus lane and issue £30 fines that double after 14 days. So far about a quarter of the tickets issued to the police have been cancelled as the police have proven that the cars were on emergency calls. They have had to use valuable resources to prove that the car was on a shout at the time.

The police have also confirmed that they will be looking into all remaining fines to see if the car was on an emergency call. WHAT??? Instead of stopping villains from duffing up old people and nicking their life savings the police will be busy checking their telemetrics and video footage to see if the drivers were on emergency calls at the time of being caught in a bus lane.

Is it me? Please tell me it’s not me that doesn’t get it? Whoever is responsible in the council for this ridiculous situation, and I don’t care whether you are a man or woman – you are a total knob! By Graham Hill

Related articles

• Councils not amending bus lane signs (bbc.co.uk)

You know you are starting to morph into your dad when you are told about new technology and you start asking why rather than when. I recall the introduction of power steering and my dad saying, ‘Why?’ Followed by his reasoning, ‘You can’t feel your way round bends, it’s dangerous and will lead to accidents.’

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

Next came electric windows, again my dad’s response was, ‘Why?’ ‘Just something else to drain the battery and go wrong, it’s the beginning of the end – mark my words!’ Not sure what it was going to be the end of but here I am reading about the latest technology that will be used to control your entertainment system.

No not touchscreen, that is so yesterday’s technology, we are talking eye technology that by 2017 will be used to control your stereo system. Australian manufacturer Seeing Machines is developing the new technology based around a smart camera on the dashboard focused on the driver.

It can monitor the driver’s head movements and how open their eyes are. It can also track what they are looking at so instead of having to reach over to the touchscreen to say switch on the radio you simply have to look at it! Why?? Ken Kroeger, CEO of Seeing Machines said that the camera was accurate to one degree over 1.5 metres.

The article then bangs on about reconfiguring instruments so icons would be closer to the straight ahead eye level position, even embedded into the windscreen but I’m going to stop here because I’m now bored because I cannot for the life of me think why this could be of any help whatsoever.

I drive down the motorway in my Mercedes and after 10 minutes of driving I often hear a ping and a small picture of a coffee cup appears on my dashboard because apparently I’m suffering from fatigue and am in urgent need of a stop and a cup of coffee. Sod off! I know when I’m feeling tired and it isn’t 10 minutes after getting behind the wheel after 8 hours sleep.

Is this a joint venture between Mercedes and Costa? For goodness sake – as my dad would say, and I agree with him, Why? By Graham Hill

New moan started, a few years ago a journalist with about as much knowledge about all things financial as a garden fork started a blog. In fact it was started about the same time as I started mine.

The difference was that I didn’t allow every John Henry and his mate to post things on my blog, unlike my charismatic friend. If anyone wanted to post anything on my blog I would mediate and if what they wanted to post was incorrect or simply trying to sell their pet insurance policy I would trash it.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

On the other hand many other blogs would allow complete (but often well intentioned) doughnuts to express opinions online which others would then take as absolute gospel. For example I have seen someone desperate because they are facing a £1,500 charge to repair a PAS pump, 3 weeks after the manufacturer’s warranty has run out on his car, seeking advice because he’d been told the repair was outside the warranty and therefore fully chargeable.

As you know from postings on my blog this isn’t unusual. In this case the car had only covered 15,000 miles but some numbnuts said, oh dear, sadly as you are outside the warranty there is nothing you can do, chat to your bank manager and arrange a loan. Which is what the poor sod did!! So this ill informed do-gooder just cost the driver with the problem £1,500.

The truth is that under the Sale of Goods Act the driver had a legitimate claim against the supplying dealer as the goods have to be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality. The ABS pump should last as long as the car, at least 8 years, so the dealer should make at least some contribution towards the cost of repair as the item concerned would appear to not be of satisfactory quality.

Oh and notice I said dealer and not manufacturer, the claim is against the company that sold you the goods, not the manufacturer. It’s up to the dealer to seek compensation from the manufacturer. This is just one of many pieces of advice given by ignorant subscribers with no legal knowledge whatsoever.

Sometimes on this and other blogs the advice has been accurate at the time it was given in say 2009 but the law has since changed and the advice is now wrong. So if you are one of those people that searches through blogs for accurate information, tread very carefully, the advice you follow could cost you a fortune.

It’s about time that blogs were properly policed before too many people catch a serious cold. 2^nd moan over! By Graham Hill

I think we all agree that the Internet is a great British invention but like all great inventions there is often a price to pay, the spread of child porn, online bullying, identity theft to name but a few.

But generally the Internet has enriched our lives, we can communicate much quicker and when family live abroad you can now talk to them on Skype as though they are in the same room with the help of a large TV and X Box gadgetry. Whilst there are some great tools that appear to make life easier and cheaper (I’m thinking price comparison sites here) are we actually getting true value for money or is it leading to some sort of price fixing.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

My background is in accountancy, more specifically Cost & Management Accountancy. When my old company wanted to land a contract they would take the spec. provided by the customer and cost it in terms of materials, labour and overhead. Add a contingency for unexpected costs, a bit of profit and submitted the quote. You then rather unscientifically crossed your fingers and hoped for the best.

Whilst you didn’t always get to see what the competitors were quoting you would occasionally find out that you were 30% less than the closest bid. From the client’s point of view this was great but supposing we knew what all the other companies were bidding, wouldn’t we tend to bid a lot closer to the closest bid, maybe undercut by say 5%?

Well my fear is that this is happening in the car insurance industry which is in desperate need of a shake up. Online comparison sites allow every insurance company to see what each other is quoting and it is surprising how close the top 5 companies can be when you run a quote.

The insurance companies can differ greatly in size with completely different levels of overhead and staff costs to recover and yet they all quote within £20 per annum. You may think that this may be a way to make insurance companies reduce their rates but all we ever hear is that high cash for crash claims have increased premiums or bad weather leading to increased crashes have increased premiums – then they all follow suit, increasing premiums, acting like a massive cartel.

This lack of competition has led to laziness with lack of control. Poor cost controls lead to increased premiums which means that we all end up paying for super inefficiency. The insurance companies impose few controls on the body repair shops accepting wildly inflated repair bills, incredibly inefficient claims handling add to the cost and inconvenience to all drivers.

I’ve seen insurers pay accident management companies over £100 per day for a Ford KA replacement, they simply don’t care, they just increase the premiums. Even then they don’t do it directly. The rates on the comparison site may seem quite close but then come all the addons, legal cover, breakdown insurance etc. etc.

I understand that the Competition Commission is looking into car insurance, not before time, but will they make any difference? Time will tell and I will report it! Moan over – happy New Year! By Graham Hill

Meerkats (Photo credit: quisnovus)

Department for Transport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The news of the moment relates to the raft of new driving laws that could end up with on the spot fines of £100 and 3 points on the offender’s driving licence. In addition the old bill’s powers have been increased when dealing with existing offenders in order to reduce the number of cases going to court.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

Much of the industry feels that this may be a bit of a cash cow and with targets set for the number of tickets issued it could also cause tickets to be issued in a somewhat ruthless manner even though lives are not apparently put at risk.

So what are the changes? First of all it is illegal to now hog the middle lane of the motorway. It is also illegal to tailgate, either of which will attract a fine of £100 and 3 points on the offender’s licence. In the case of serious offenders the police can still opt to issue a ticket that will require the driver to attend court.

There will also be a degree of flexibility as the authorities will be able to provide training as an alternative to the points on the licence, as currently happens with speeding first offenders. As with other fixed penalties drivers will still have the right of appeal through the court system.

Some fines will increase such as using a phone whilst driving, up from £60 to £100 as will also be the case with less serious speeding offences. Non endorsable offences such as not having a visible tax disc or failing to give way at a junction will attract fines of £50, up from £30.

Not wearing a seatbelt will now cost the driver £100 and 3 points, up from £60. Finally driving without insurance will increase from £200 to £300. Defending the new fines the Department for Transport said that fines hadn’t been increased since 2000 and were now out of step with other non vehicle related offences.

My personal view is that some of the more serious offenders may get off lightly with a fine when previously they would have ended up in court which is much more of a wake up call than a fixed penalty ticket which is simply an inconvenience for many offenders.

Mobile phone laws need to be tightened, I’ve seen so many potential accidents whilst drivers have tried to negotiate a roundabout or weave their way through parked vehicles with disregard for pedestrians, that something more needs to be done but will an increased fine be enough – probably not!

Let’s see what happens in 12 months when I report the road accident statistics. I suspect they won’t be any different to now. We need education, not random penalties.

Related articles

• New Powers Given to the Police to Issue Fixed Penalty Notices to Careless Drivers (sbwire.com)

Possibly not but it might be useful to know what you are likely to face in the future. I can help there because Auto Express has carried out a survey amongst 46,000 readers to come up with the best and worst dealers by manufacturer.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

I can’t reveal all but I can give you a rundown of some of the best and worst dealers. In the best category Lexus heads the list for the second year running. Suburu and Toyota come in at positions 2 and 3. Honda was 4^th and Jaguar 5^th. Porsche, Skoda, Mitsubishi, Renault and Kia finished off the top 10.

Strangely not many Germans achieved a top 10 position. But what abouth the bottom of the list, the last 10 places. At the bottom was Seat at position 31, Chevrolet was 30, Ford at 29, Fiat 28, Citroen 27, Peugeot 26. Next up the list were a few Germans, at 25 was VW, just above was BMW at 24, Audi 23 and Chrysler/Jeep at 22.

A few surprises there and very interesting. Probably won’t influence too many buying decisions but interesting to know all the same.

The RAC has brought itself up to date by fitting out their patrol vehicles with state of the art diagnostic technology in order to increase the number of roadside fixes it can carry out.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

The RAC has invested £6 million in Scan+ diagnostic software that will enable patrols to interact with a broken down vehicle’s own diagnostic system and on-board sensors to identify faults.

The technology will allow technicians to do a repair on parts that often need electronically adapting before they will operate – even battery replacements need computer ‘coding’ after replacing. No I didn’t know that either!

RAC Technical Director, David Bizley said, ’The RAC has always utilised the latest technological advances to ensure we offer the very best repair for motorists.

RAC Scan+ will give our patrols the very best information from the vehicle’s own diagnostic equipment to enable them to repair the car.’ Over to you the AA!

Bits&Pieces: I think most of my readers know my feelings about statistics, most of them leave me scratching my head thinking – so what? Someone, whoever decided to carry out the survey, needs to get a life.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

For example did you know that Seat drivers are most likely to make an ‘at fault’ insurance claim? Really??? Oh there’s more, Kia and Mini owners were next most likely to claim with Subaru, Smart and Fiat owners putting in the least claims.

Astonishing or what? So who carried out this totally pointless survey? Money Supermarket that’s who. Totally bloody pointless – Money Supermarket – get a life!

The AA has warned that fuel prices are set to rise by 5p per litre over the summer months. Apparently petrol stations have already started to pass on higher wholesale prices to customers at the pumps.

They said that costs had already increased by 1p per litre in July – not at my bloody Tesco, more like 3p!

Who do you use to insure your car? Think twice about Swinton as they were fined £7.4 million for miss-selling policies between April 2010 and April 2012. They were found guilty of using an ‘aggressive sales strategy’  over the phone and failed to tell customers that some of the add-ons were optional extras.

I can see that it won’t be long before we start to see congestion charges in all towns and cities. Cambridge, who dropped the proposal for a congestion charge 3 years ago, are now considering this as an option to reduce traffic gridlock. Before going ahead they will need to convince local businesses.