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If you think it’s OK but you haven’t had your eyes tested for a few years – if ever, you should think about it seriously or risk losing your licence – instantly! Three constabularies are stopping motorists and asking them to read a number plate 20 metres away. If they can’t they are being prevented from driving by having their licence revoked on the spot.

The initiative is being run in Hampshire, West Midlands and Thames Valley. The results will be analysed and decisions made as to whether to roll out across England and Wales. Safety organisation Brake and Vision Express are calling for a vision test when car licences are renewed every 10 years. Joshua Harris, Campaign Director for Brake said, ‘It is frankly madness that there is no mandatory requirement on drivers to have an eye test throughout the course of their driving life.

Only by introducing rigorous and professional eye tests can we fully tackle the problem of unsafe drivers on our roads’. Research by the Association of Optometrists, published in November last year, found that 35 per cent of optometrists had seen patients in the previous month who were driving, despite having been told their vision was below the legal standard. Based on this figure, it is estimated that around one million people could be driving illegally.

There is a lot of evidence to show that accidents including fatalities could be avoided if there was a statutory requirement on all motorists to have an eye test. Campaigners have also called for a so-called Poppy’s Law, making it a legal requirement for medical professionals to report patients who are unfit to drive.

This followed the death of three-year-old Poppy-Arabella Clarke, who was killed in 2016 by a 73-year-old motorist who had ignored warnings from his opticians not to drive and was not wearing his glasses at the time. A disgrace and unnecessary tragedy. By Graham Hill

For those concerned about the environment, the new Worldwide harmonised Light vehicle Test Procedures (WLTP) were considered to be well overdue when you consider how easy it was to fiddle the emissions test under the old regime known as NEDC. It wasn’t just VW fitting equipment that could be switched over during the emissions tests to give a false reading.

Others fitted undersized wheels and stuck tape around doors, bonnets and boots in order to avoid any drag. So now we have the cars being properly tested we see emissions levels increasing. The cars are the same but the emissions levels have increased due to more accurate testing. Which is fine unless you happen to be a company car driver.

As an interim measure and so as not to sting company car drivers for driving the same car the revenue has applied a conversion equation to bring the CO2 emissions back to where they were under the old tests. However, the CO2 levels are still around 10% higher than previous thereby increasing the BIK tax on cars that drivers may have been driving for the past 2 years and the new cars are generally 20% higher so replacing a like for like car could increase your benefit in kind tax substantially.

Whilst the fleet industry has called on the Government to amend the BIK tax tables so as not to penalise drivers of company cars, as usual, they’ve done naff all. This has led to a move towards car allowances allowing drivers to select their own car, firstly to save the BIK tax but also allow them to potentially drive better cars. As I’ve reported before let’s say that a company negotiates preferential terms with a dealer to take 200 Ford Mondeos a year.

As a result, they receive 25%  discount on all cars that is fed into their contract hire rate. Normally the best a consumer would receive is a discount of 15% built into the contract hire rate but if a new model is coming out the dealer and the manufacturer may allow a discount and bonus of 35% to be built into the contract hire rates.

This means that a consumer could achieve a lower rate than some of the biggest fleets in the country. Or maybe a Vauxhall Insignia or Mazda 6 works out cheaper because for the same reasons the rates are incredibly low. So for employees, the time may have come when they hand back their company cars and take a car allowance then talk to me to get them into a low rate car. By Graham Hill

So you’ve been to a party, club or just down the pub and had a skinful. You responsibly get a lift or a cab home. You even have a Halfords special breath tester and test your breath. Great, you’re well under the legal limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood (England and Wales) so you jump into your car and off you go. But are you safe?

Scientists from the University of Bath say no. They conducted a meta-analysis (no I don’t know either) of 11 existing hangover studies, determining that ‘Sustained attention and driving abilities were impaired during hangover’. These are people under the alcohol blood limit but still in recovery.

One study showed reaction times to be 20% slower in hungover subjects, while another revealed ‘the ability to control a vehicle, as measured by deviation from a set course was impaired’ following a night of ‘heavy drinking’. Lead author Dr Sally Adams told Auto Express, who reported the findings, hangovers affect two key elements for driving, the first is our ability to concentrate on our activity for sustained periods of time and the second, psychomotor skills(our brain’s ability to control physical activities).

She went on to explain. ‘Your body works hard to metabolise alcohol and produces acetaldehyde as it does so’. And with current research indicating acetaldehyde ‘mimics the neurological effects of alcohol’ she suggested that ‘It may be time we consider if you have to drive the next day, perhaps a heavy night of drinking the night before isn’t a good idea’.

Whilst Government is considering lowering the limit to 50mg per 100ml in line with Scotland and many other European countries this won’t stop the ‘hungover effect’ If you were bladdered the night before. The NHS advises that the body takes 3 hours to break down the alcohol in a 250ml glass of wine and 2 hours to process a pint of normal-strength beer.

Adams finished off by saying that it may be possible in the future to have detectors that will detect if you are suffering from the ‘hungover effect’ and could lead to prosecutions and may be used in evidence in serious or fatal road accidents. You’ve been warned! By Graham Hill

When I first started to write my report on Personal Contract Purchase I did it as an aid for viewers of the Rip Off Britain programme that featured me as their expert dealing with cases involving members of the public who had been treated poorly by either dealerships or finance providers.

It was to be two pages of bullet points at most. 10 months of investigation and re-writing later and we now have a 200-page report stored under the heading of Rip Off Britain Crib Notes – it’s more like War and Peace. But the one main message that comes through is the lack of clarity, probably because of a lack of education on the part of those selling the product as well as those taking out PCP contracts.

The second seems to be the need to be dishonest. If you download the report by visiting www.grahamhilltraining.com you’ll see what I mean. You’ll also have one over on the dealers as you will probably end up knowing more than them. I don’t know what it is, whether it is considered to be good marketing or simply meant to confuse customers in order to make the sale.

Take my latest battle over the extension cost of my Mercedes with MB Finance who rather foolishly have decided to take me on. I won’t go into detail yet, it will get reported in the press when I get a result, but in order to prevent the case going to the Financial Ombudsman Service they offered a sum of money as a ‘Gesture Of Good Will’. Instead of admitting that what they were doing was illegal and simply come to an arrangement they offer a ‘Gesture Of Good Will’.

The fact is that I never ever accept a ‘Gesture Of Good Will’, because I’m either right or wrong. If I’m right – and it is normally over a legal matter – I expect an apology and a full payout. If I’m wrong I will stick my hands up and admit to being wrong and pay any penalty but offering a ‘Gesture Of Good Will’ will only get my back up!

What really got me started on this subject was an announcement in Business Car in which 2^nd biggest Contract Hire company in the UK, LeasePlan, announced that they were to start remarketing used ex-lease cars online under the name of carnext.com. Nothing wrong with that I was a director of Carsite that eventually was re-branded Tesco Cars that did exactly that but 10 years ago.

What annoyed me was that they say in the piece:- that every car comes with a 14-day money back guarantee as though they are offering some special benefit. As the cars are bought online and delivered to you the cars are automatically covered by the Consumer Contracts regulations, formally known as the Distance Selling regulations which means you have a legal right to return any goods you don’t want for any reason within 14 days. Not an exceptional added benefit. Just be honest.

They then go on to say that every car comes with a 1-year warranty. No, they don’t sunshine each car has a 2 year EU Guarantee attached to it. Whilst we are in the EU the 2-year guarantee is still in force which means any trader selling any product, new or used, must come with the EU 2 year guarantee. So not only have they turned a legal obligation into an added benefit but understated it! Grrr – winds me up! By Graham Hill

Latest casualty figures released by the Department for Transport are for 2016. They show a year on year increase of 7% over 2015. The figures include those either injured or killed in incidents involving drivers over the drink-drive alcohol limits.

The figures showed a total of 9,040 deaths or injuries and has led to calls by road safety charity, Brake for the Government to reduce the legal limit from 80mg/100ml of blood to lower than the 50mg/100ml limit imposed on drivers in Scotland since 2014.

The DfT revealed that approximately 230 people died in drink-related incidents compared to 200 in 2015. Surprisingly the DfT described the higher figure as ‘Not statistically significant’. Going on to say that the data ‘continues a period of stability since 2010’.

Joshua Harris, the director of campaigns at Brake hit out by saying, ‘Today’s figures show that drink-driving is an increasing blight on British roads, and yet the Government sits on its hands and refuses to address the issue.’

Something needs to happen, reducing the limit is only a deterrent if we have enough police testing drivers. If drivers think that they can get away with exceeding the drink-drive limit, wherever it’s set they will continue to drink and drive. By Graham Hill

Things in the world of motoring are completely unbalanced when I find myself agreeing, more than once in a decade, with commentator Mike Rutherford. Not only that and just to show that I think about my blog, this item follows on from the last entry explaining that we are suffering a terrible underspend in our roads infrastructure in Britain.

As Mike points out we are around number 70 in the list of countries around the world when it comes to miles of road per capita. In this country, we have around 67 million inhabitants with a road network of jus 263,000 miles. In France, they have 66 million inhabitants with an eye-watering 640,000 miles of roads.

No wonder we spend disproportionate amounts of time sitting in traffic queues! Even Italy with a population of 61 million inhabitants has more miles of roads than us at 300,000. It’s an absolute disgrace that successive Governments have disregarded our roads.

Traffic jams cause increased pollution, make travel times longer and use more fuel but even worse is the way that it makes us all less efficient. The Government has expressed concerns about our efficiency but part of the problem is our road infrastructure. We can’t be doing anything if we are sitting in traffic for hours on end.

Getting back to the statistics, Spain has a population of 47 million with 424,000 miles of roads. Even Scandinavia with a population of just 10  million Swedes has created 330,000 miles of roads. 5 million Finns had a massive 282,000 miles of roads to speed along – that’s a population of 90% less than us with more miles of road than GB.

Australia with a bigger area but fewer inhabitants than GB has 500,000 miles of roads. Finally the US with a population of 328 million has 4.4 million miles of roads. As Mike points out this situation is not only a disgrace it is becoming a joke and extremely embarrassing. We are so bad we are behind Namibia and Estonia.

Now whilst some of the roads aren’t of the highest quality in some countries and some roads are pavementless we are lagging behind most other sophisticated countries buy a large margin. It can take years just to build a few miles of motorway so we really need to get our fingers out now and agree some heavy spending on our roads infrastructure or run the risk of the whole country grinding to a stop.  By Graham Hill

OK, I have this great new way of charging you for the electricity that you use. In future, you will be assessed by the amount of hot water you use per annum. The more hot water you use the more you will pay for your electricity. As a result, the Government will expect you to use less water and less electricity to heat the water. Makes sense?

Probably a bit of a silly example but the point is that linking the two items doesn’t seem like an obvious way for you to pay for your electricity. You pay for electricity as you use it – seems like a bloody obvious thing to do! So what’s this got to do with cars?

Well, a lot of what we spend on roads and the roads infrastructure is collected in various taxes. First Registration, Road Fund Licence and Fuel Excise Duties being the three main ones that come to mind (congestion charging, scaled parking charges are others). So how do we work out the charge? We charge based on CO2 emissions! No allowance for other emissions just CO2.

It just doesn’t make sense and even with the CO2 emissions, it’s simply assessed on how much comes out of the exhaust pipe over a kilometre. I might be travelling just 5,000 miles a year in a relatively high CO2 emitting vehicle but still pay more in RFL than someone travelling 40,000 miles a year in a car with CO2 emissions that are slightly lower. Again – makes no sense! What does make sense is charging per mile for the use of our roads – a bit like using electricity!

And that is what will have to be considered if we move over to either very low emission hybrids or zero-emission electric cars. To leave things as they are will mean drivers will pay nothing towards the upkeep of our roads infrastructure. So the first out of the blocks is the Republic of Ireland, working on a scheme whereby drivers pay to use roads by the mile in order to fill what could potentially be a fairly large black hole in the finances.

Our government is keeping an eye on what the Irish are proposing, to see if theirs is a model we should copy.  Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, announced earlier this year that whilst he acknowledged that many people felt that pay per mile was the way forward he had no immediate plans to change from the current method of funding our roads.

Unfortunately rather short sighted! Having said that I’m not sure how we would go about collecting the data and making the charges on motorists. By Graham Hill

Probably the most common question asked at the moment without a simple answer. Most lenders will extend their leases these days so the option is there. Most will ask for your current mileage then calculate the extension based on your contract mileage, your average mileage or they may ask what mileage you will cover over the extension period.

In most cases we are seeing an increase in monthly cost so be prepared to pay either the same as you are currently paying or an increase. Some will offer a casual extension whilst others a fixed period extension of 3, 6 or 12 months – or all. The casual extension means that you continue to pay for the car until such times as you no longer need it.

This is particularly useful if you can’t coordinate the collection of the old car with the delivery of the new car or if the delivery of the new car has been delayed. This can often be the most expensive method so expect to pay 20 – 25% more than you are currently paying per month.

A fixed extension may possibly see a reduction in rental, especially if you are under mileage. You will need to contact either the funder or if you have an agreement through me we can sometimes organise this for you. You will receive a quote and from that decide what period you would like to extend for.

This now brings us to the next very vexing question – should you extend simply because you can’t find a suitable car on an acceptable rate or, if you were to replace your current car with exactly the same car, the rate is currently substantially more? Either way, should you extend in the hope that the rates will reduce in the future? And if you do that how long should you extend for?

We are now in very turbulent times. The industry faces two main challenges. Real world emissions tests and Brexit. With regard to the first challenge the old test procedures (NEDC) and standards have been dumped to be replaced by the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP).

The tests are still carried out in laboratory conditions but now take twice as long under tighter scrutiny as a result of cars being tested under NEDC test conditions previously being capable of being ‘fixed’. I’ll mention no names  but VW. Manufacturers have had to carry out substantial design and production modifications in order to make their new and existing models compliant with Euro emissions regulations which has and will increase the cost of new vehicles.

Since September last year till the end of August this year (2018) current models tested under the old NEDC procedures could still be sold but if they remained unsold at the end of August could be forcibly scrapped. As a result, some big discounts have been given away to sell the cars before getting to the point where they had to be scrapped or pre-registered. There has been a little relaxation of the rules whereby a small % of annual sales, if remaining in stock at the end of August, could still be sold in September.

The WLTP tests included options fitted to the car. As we know if a car is fitted with bigger wheels it increases the drag coefficient and, in turn, increases fuel consumption whilst also increasing emissions. The next phase of testing that starts from September 2018 is Real Driving Emissions testing (RDE). This entails the connection of measuring equipment to the car on test and driving it on public roads, measuring the real results, then comparing them to the results achieved in the WLTP tests.

All of this is costing money and could be increasing the cost of new cars as well as delaying deliveries. Land Rover shut down its order book for 3 months and I’m hearing that low sales, because of lack of cars and not so keen finance deals, has resulted in dealerships facing closure. So these uncertain times are causing rates to be very unstable.

We then have Brexit.  On the 29^th March 2019 we officially leave the EU with many suggesting that we could well leave without a deal which means we fall back on WTO rules. The effect of this has been an estimated increase in car costs of 10% or an average increase per car of £2,400. Unknown by many is the level of discount we currently enjoy when we lease our cars.

Some have discounts of up to 45% factored into the rental rates. So one could argue that with so much fat to play with, will we see any major change in the rentals? This brings me to the crucial question, If the rates aren’t where you would like them to be when changing your car now, should you extend your agreement in the hope that you will achieve a better deal in a year’s time?

This is pretty much an impossible question to answer. The real answer could lie in attitude! For years we have been the only European country to embrace leasing as an option to fund cars both personally and through businesses. This has resulted in a lot of ‘dumping’ of cars into the UK for them to be leased.

The beauty of leasing is that the price paid by the leasing companies for their cars don’t affect the price of used cars on dealership forecourts. So manufacturers have used this to move cars that are on run out and even, on occasions, new models that aren’t selling well to put more cars on the road to give the impression that the cars are popular.

As an example, I won’t give makes and models, but some £22,000 (retail cost) cars were offered to me at £11,750 prepared and delivered anywhere in the UK by a main dealer as long as they were only supplied on contract hire. This discount made the cars very cheap to rent on contract hire but the good news for dealers was that by supplying new cars on say £170 + VAT per month lease deals it didn’t affect 12-month-old used cars on their forecourt for £17,000. Imagine what would happen to their used cars if the new cars were offered for cash at £11,750?

So the fact is that we could do without the increase in costs due to no deal being struck. In addition, we are already seeing attempts by manufacturers and leasing companies to push their finance products throughout Europe which will divert extra discounts away from the UK, increasing the pain further as more European countries take on leasing as a product.

So whilst we are so unsure about the future my advice has to be to consider the worst case and if there is anything available that is on an attractive deal at the moment snap it up – even if the car isn’t your first choice. Mine and the feeling of the industry is that we will have to go through some pain, certainly in the short term, that could put the replacement cost of like for like cars well beyond their current rates.

Extend for 12 months and you may see rates through the roof but if you take out a new 3 year lease I’m hopeful that things would have stabilised by the end of the 3 year lease period. But what do I know?

Whilst the Government appears to be concentrating on the big issues such as free trade, immigration, security etc. work is still being done on the detail. Auto Express has been asking experts about some of the areas that are worrying Brits travelling abroad.

The first area of concern is driving licences. Will we need a special licence to enable Brits to drive in the EU? Some leaked EU presentation slides suggested that UK licences would no longer be recognised across the EU Bloc. Lawyer, Laura Newton who specialises in motoring and transport, for Rothera Sharp said that this is unlikely.

She believes that the UK driving licence will continue to be acceptable across the EU without additional paperwork required. As she pointed out the UK driving licence is already acceptable outside the EU in Commonwealth countries such as Australia as well as China and the USA where you can use your UK licence for 6 months before it has to be re-issued.

With that system working perfectly well Laura believes that there is no reason why the scheme could not continue post-Brexit. Expecting every driver to apply for an International Driving Licence to permit drivers to drive in each EU country would simply not be desirable or make sense. Added to this is the fact that we will be embedding EU law into UK laws post-Brexit, as they are at the moment, even from a legal viewpoint there is no reason to introduce additional controls.

Even if the UK wants to change or introduce new laws it is estimated that it will take 10-15 years with any changes most likely to be technology related – say automated or driverless cars rather than changes to existing motoring laws. So it’s unlikely that there will be too many arguments against allowing us to use our GB licences in Europe.

The next issue was car safety, would being outside the EU have an effect on safety standards applied to new cars? Well according to the secretary general of the Global New Car Assesment Programme (Global NCAP), David Ward, it will render the UK a ‘Second-hand Dealer’ in car safety. I’m not sure what he meant by that but he went on to say that Brexit meant withdrawing from a complex eco-system of vehicle regulation’, with the UK’s influence in vehicle safety diminishing. Not sure about that either but it looks pretty bad!

On the other hand Matthew Avery who is director of research at Thatcham Research assured us by saying that Brexit won’t reduce vehicle safety because the UK is a signatory to the UN type approval agreement which is the main process governing vehicle safety. He explained to Auto Express, ‘It has almost identical test procedures to those in the EC.’ ‘So even when we leave, our vehicles will still be aligned to the rest of Europe.’

In purely practical terms it wouldn’t make sense to have our own set of safety standards with so many of our cars being sold in Europe and vice-versa. Future EC directives, such as the proposed mandatory fitment of new tech such as autonomous emergency braking are likely to be adopted by the UK anyway. It wouldn’t make sense to have different designs for different countries. Thatcham, at the forefront of safety in the UK, will continue to be a member of the voluntary programme, Euro NCAP whilst possibly setting the bar higher putting pressure on manufacturers to achieve a new UK five star rating.

As was pointed out we don’t have to be a member of the EC to be a member of Euro NCAP. So Brexit will have no effect. Although, not being a member state when safety is being discussed by the remaining members, means that we will no longer carry the same weight as we did as a leading safety member of the EU influencing decisions.

What will happen to car insurance? As it currently stands all UK motorists have basic insurance cover while driving through EC member countries. The question is will Brits have to pay for extra cover if they drive around various EU countries post Brexit? Initially, it was felt by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), that motorists would need to revert to the old ‘Green Card’ system, whereby they had to apply for and pay for a special cover note before travelling to the continent. However, Ben Howarth, ABI’s senior policy advisor, motor and liability, said the paperwork would not be necessary.

The Government has made it clear that it wants to keep us within the Motor Insurance ‘Free Circulation Zone’. He explained that this would mean that drivers and hauliers should not have to pay for Green Card documentation from insurers when they travel in EU member states after Brexit. Apparently, this is a significant development, and once the Commission has agreed it, which is expected, it means that drivers, haulage operators and insurers will not face the considerable administrative disruption associated with the issuing of Green cards and also avoid border checks.

The ABI advises that drivers check their policies post Brexit as they may not carry the same level of cover that they are forced to carry whilst part of the EU. What is it they say? The devil is in the detail – and so it is with Brexit! By Graham Hill

I was reading a report prepared by road safety charity Brake, about the mental health of company car drivers the other day. The report was rather worrying because it was calling for companies to up their game in this area and identify earlier mental health problems that could affect their drivers.

However, as I read the report I started to think that this situation affects all drivers not just company car drivers so whilst companies could have checks in place, what checks are there when it comes to non-company car or business drivers? The report points out that whilst a happy driver with a positive attitude is not necessarily a safer driver, nor does it mean that a driver with mental issues will not make a perfectly good driver but psychologists have shown that poor attitude and a negative state of mind can adversely affect driver safety.

There is also little information regarding the state of a driver’s mind following an accident. So when an accident occurred as a result of a car going out of control the blame is often put down to tiredness or distraction rather than a sudden attack of depression. This can take the driver into a very dark place leading to suicidal thoughts. And this is worrying.

Companies have and will encourage employees to talk about mental issues which still carries a stigma. Brake wants companies to take this further and in the same way that businesses ensure that their vehicles are properly maintained and roadworthy similar checks on their drivers should also be put in place with drivers’ mental health assessed.

In a response reported in Business Car, Alison Moriarty, road risk and compliance manager for Skanska agreed with the views expressed by Brake but added potentially risky conditions for drivers which included depression, that could make them unconcerned for their own and others’ safety, and anxiety, which could cause sufferers to experience periods of unintended helplessness close to a state of paralysis – potentially dangerous when drivers may need to take split-second decisions to avoid a crash.

A string of recommendations was made to make it easier for employees to discuss mental problems and the importance for businesses to understand and react to the issues when identified. All good news which will hopefully make driving safer but the same checks and balances should also be applied to non-business drivers. Whilst it is believed that business drivers spend more time alone with little interaction with others with whom they can discuss their feelings the same must apply to those who don’t drive as part of their job.

I find it all very worrying. Maybe crashes need more investigation into the mental health of those involved and in-car telematics could be used to check for erratic behaviour. More certainly needs to be done in this area until all cars become driverless. By Graham Hill