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Guess which is the most expensive toll road in the world? I’ll give you a little clue – it’s the M6. Correct, the M6 relief road which charges drivers £5 each way is indeed the most expensive in the world. Now I must say I have been on it and for the cost of a fiver it’s a dream to drive on especially as you just know that cars are moving at about 2 miles per hour on the main M6 whilst I’m cruising at, um, 70mph. The Read more »

As Europe attempts to run their cars on anything other than petrol or diesel including chip fat, wee and rapeseed oil, otherwise known as bio fuel, new evidence is emerging that it may not be as environmentally friendly as it was thought. Reuters put in a freedom of information request to the European Commission for information on bio fuel CO2 emissions and found that biofuels produced from rapeseed had an Read more »

The Department for Transport has released figures that show a decrease in the number of vehicles on the road during the first quarter of this year. Car traffic decreased by 3% while traffic on motorways fell by 2%. However light van traffic increased by 2%, most of whom were on their mobiles if my experiences are anything to go by! Congestion times also decreased with the inter-urban journey delays dropping from 3.9 minutes to 3.65 minutes per 10 miles. Journey times remained the same for urban trips at 3.34 minutes per mile. See, I’m an absolute mine of information! By Graham Hill

Weird idea of the week – OK, some students at Milan Polytechnic have come up with an idea to make potholes safer. Seems this is a massive Eurowide problem, what the local authorities do is lay asphalt inside the pothole coloured with a fluorescent paint before repairing it so that when the top layer of asphalt starts to break up again the bright fluorescent asphalt will shine through and alert motorists and the local authorities that a problem is about to appear! Hmmm, why not fix the pothole properly in the first place? Apparently the idea is being trialled and will come to the UK if successful, no doubt as an EU directive. By Graham Hill

We are all being forced to consider greener cars and the manufacturers have to be seen to be actively developing more environmentally friendly engines or face some hefty fines. So you may be forgiven for thinking that the cars being marketed as ‘green cars’ are much more fuel efficient than standard cars. Well according to latest research the differences can be minimal. For example the Skoda Octavia Greenline is Read more »

Has diesel had its day? For the first time in 10 years we saw a drop in diesel car sales compared to petrol sales. The proportion of diesels sold to petrol dropped to 41% compared to petrol, 58%. The proportion for the previous year was 43%, an all time high following 10 years of year on year increases. The move has been brought about by improved small petrol engine technology. Manufacturers have turned their Read more »

You would no doubt have followed my reporting of the major pot hole problem that local authorities face following the harsh winter with no money to spend. But it wasn’t just the bad weather that led to the problems, it was the increase in Johnny Foreigner trucks covering 600 million miles on our roads last year. The problem, according to the Department for Transport, is that these trucks use our public roads but Read more »

There are now 3 EU research projects under way to trial ‘talking’ cars, which can communicate with each other and road infrastructure such as traffic signs, lights and congestion management centres. Vehicles will receive information about hazards ahead such as congestion, accidents, oil spills, potholes, debris etc. Drivers will then be alerted by dashboard communications. Developed into prototypes by three Read more »

I revealed last week that the Hyundai i30 was voted the Auto Express Driver Power car of the year as voted by 23,000 drivers polled. This week I reveal the rest of the top 10. The cars were scored for 10 major features including reliability, build quality, running costs, performance, comfort, ride quality etc. The top ten were as follows: Read more »

I’ve got an electric tooth brush! No this isn’t a piece about the importance of dental care but I have to say that it is important! I plug my 2 pin plug into the razor socket  and put the toothbrush on the plastic stub that sticks out of the bottom of the charging bit. Now I don’t profess to know anything about electricity but if I do that at night, by the morning my toothbrush is fully charged and all set to give my gnashers a Read more »