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In the town in which I live they have been building houses like they are going out of fashion. Virtually every piece of free land is being built on which I guess is pretty good news, especially if you’re a first time buyer. But the downside is that each new development needs electricity, water, phone and sewage facilities which means roads have to be dug up.

This in turn means that temporary traffic lights are erected and currently at the end of my road is a set of 4 way lights. As you can imagine I can wait what seems like 10 minutes to get out of the end of my road. I then have at least 1 if not more sets of temporary lights to contend with before I reach my destination elsewhere in the town.

My complaint isn’t that we have temporary traffic lights but that no bugger ever seems to be working on the bit of road that the lights are protecting, especially at weekends. As a result the Government is going to take action. They plan to fine local councils and utility companies £5,000 a day for road projects left unattended at weekends that unnecessarily inconvenience motorists.

So work would have to continue at weekends or the roadworks lifted at weekends until work resumed on the following Monday. Also fines will be imposed when lights are left in place after work has been completed. Arguing against this Peter Box, a spokesman for the Local Government Association, said that there are often reasons why roadworks are left unattended, for example when concrete has been laid it takes time to dry.

He can see that if the rules come into force people will be employed at weekends to watch concrete dry rather than receive a fine. As a final word, before you get over excited about driving freely around at the weekends the rules will only apply to A roads and not rural B roads or residential streets – damn. By Graham Hill

How often have you been driving down a stretch of road that has been coned down to 2 or just 1 lane only to find a couple of workmen fixing a few meters of damaged crash barrier right at the very start of the 10 mile stretch of coned off road with another couple close to the end?

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Having a bottleneck is bad enough but having several miles of bottleneck can cause huge jams and very frustrated drivers. As a result the Government is taking action and limiting road works to no more than 2 miles at a time. So in future when highway engineers have a substantial repair/resurfacing or widening project they must break it down to 2 mile projects instead of, as happened recently with some projects, restricted road use for more than 20 miles.

A spokesman for Highways England said, ‘We want to provide a better, safer experience for road users on England’s motorways and major A roads, including throughout road works where major upgrades are being carried out.’ So there you have it, no more shutting off half the M25 when we run out of space and have to add another couple of lanes. By Graham Hill

Following on from my notes on the change in law regarding Brits breaking motoring laws in Europe, it would seem that Jonny Foreigner is more likely to get away with offences over here than we are over there as the number of traffic cops in England and Wales has dropped by 23% over the last 4 years.

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In March 2010 the number of traffic cops stood at 5,635 but by March 2014 the number had dropped to 4,356. Some areas have been cut back dramatically, for example Devon and Cornwall have dropped from 539 to just 57 in 2014, a drop of 76% with Essex declining by 71%. The figures have angered the RAC who have said, ‘These figures make a mockery of motoring law.

If there are not enough police on the road, we can introduce all the new rules we want, but those breaking them just will not get caught.’ And to prove the point some figures were recently released that showed the worst speeding culprit to be a moron driving at 128 mph in a 30mph zone exceeding the limit by a mind blowing 98 miles per hour.

The highest recorded speed in the UK was recorded on a camera on the M25 in Kent with two cars hitting 146 miles per hour – twats! The frightening figures were revealed following a Freedom of Information request made by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) following which all but 6 of the 36 police forces across England and Wales responded.

Each force that replied had at least one case of a driver exceeding 110MPH. Sarah Sillars, IAM chief executive, said, ‘It was disheartening, to say the least, that some road users are showing such disregard for the safety of all other road users. At speeds of 140 MPH it is simply impossible for an individual to react to anything that might happen in front of him.’ By Graham Hill

Road markings are in a terrible state of repair. So says a report prepared by the Road Safety Markings Association (RSMA). Yep there is actually an association for road markings. They explain that nearly 50% of lane markings on major roads need replacing with only 16% of motorway lines considered to be excellent.

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The study was carried out over 2,500 miles of English roads which came to the conclusion that pot holes are not the only issues on our roads. The report suggested that 52% of markings on motorways, 42% on dual carriageways and 48% on single carriageways should either be replaced right now or scheduled as a matter of urgency.

National director of the RSMA, George Lee, said, ‘It’s shameful that half England’s road markings are so worn out.’ The worst road in England isn’t far from me, the M3 between Bagshot and Camberly in Surrey where they found 94% of white lines in need of work.

As usual the Department for Transport kicked out a spokesman who explained that the country’s roads were among the safest in the world, and that the Highways Agency took prompt action to repair markings as part of a planned maintenance strategy.

Apparently not Mr DfT spokesman or there would have been no need for the sodding report! Good grief, when will we ever see action rather than excuses? By Graham Hill

M65 Junction 5 - geograph.org.uk - 1187545 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t know if you have seen the advertising offering lower ‘drive like a girl’ car insurance but it hasn’t half caused a stir. You know that the EU told the insurance companies to equalise the cost of insurance between men and women, which they did, but argued that insurance was a risk assessed product.

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.

And statistically young men between 17 and 25 were a much greater insurance risk than girls of the same age. So why charge them both the same for insurance? The counter argument was that you could keep breaking down statistics saying that girls in the north of England were more likely to have an accident than those in the south or that girls born in January were least likely to have an accident so their insurance should be cheaper and so on.

In fact why not just charge everyone a flat figure of £350 per annum and be done with it. That might sound far fetched but fleets have operated that way for years. The insurer would be told that the company had 400 company cars and they charged a flat fee of a fixed sum for all the cars and drivers. If claims went up then the flat rate  insurance premium went up also. Not rocket science.

But now, in order to fly in the face of the EU, and insurance company called Drive Like A Girl is offering cheap insurance not just to girls but lads also between the ages of 17 and 25 – provided they ‘drive like a girl’. Cars are fitted with a black box which assesses your driving style and from this information the insurer can assess whether you should be paying more or less premium.

The company argues that black box stats show that young men are 60% more likely to drive at night than women, are 49% more likely to speed and trigger twice as many aggressive braking alerts. So if young men drive in the same way as women they will receive the same insurance costs.

The same rules apply to women, if they drive in the same way they will achieve maximum discount. They are treading a fine line in my opinion but their low rates are achieving a lot of business. By Graham Hill

For years I have campaigned for the inclusion of ‘personal finance’ into the National Curriculum. It is tragic to think that our youth are now expected to stay on at school till they are 18, an age when they can legally sign a contract, without the slightest knowledge as to how the finance systems work and how to manage their debt.

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.

They are seduced into taking out loans and HP for all sorts of goods from phones and computers to cars and even mortgages without fully understanding the commitment they are entering into and the consequences.

In my book Car Finance – A Simple Guide I have a whole section relating to ‘when things go wrong’. It shows you what your rights are and how to deal with debt, something that most lenders would prefer you didn’t know. But it is important that everyone knows, especially school leavers.

So I am delighted that personal finance has now been included in the new National Curriculum for England. This move means that financial education will be included in Mathematics and citizenship education lessons in all maintained secondary schools from September 2014.

This will make a huge difference to the future lives of millions of youngsters. The only downside is that it isn’t compulsory in all schools. Academies and free schools are not bound by the National Curriculum, we need to work on them to complete the circle and encompass all of our youth.

In my opinion financial health is as important to kids as physical health, both can destroy you if you don’t take good care of it.

Related articles

• ‘Money’ to be taught in schools – with lessons on state spending (telegraph.co.uk)

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