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In a bizarre new legal ruling if you go to court and defend yourself against a speeding offence, and get acquitted you will still have costs to pay under new Government rules. The new Ministry of Justice scheme will result in a defendant acquitted in the courts to only be reimbursed at current legal aid rates, regardless of their actual level of costs. In many instances this could lead to innocent people paying Read more »

I reported recently that the Committee for Climate Change had submitted a report suggesting that there should be wide scale introduction of road charging in order to reduce car usage and emissions. However, quite unexpectedly the Government has stated that it would ‘not be proceeding with a national road user charging scheme in the next Parliament’. Not that I’m complaining but its yet another instance of asking experts for their opinion then totally ignoring them. By Graham Hill

Whilst the Government has said that they would not be introducing road pricing until after the next parliament at the earliest, the Conservatives have kept the idea completely off its agenda and the Liberals of course would like action immediately the influential Committee on Climate Change has put road pricing  firmly back on the agenda for immediate consideration. They have dropped the idea of Read more »

Will electric cars ever take off? It’s pretty difficult to say but the Government looks hell bent on supporting the new green technology even though you will only be able to travel about a mile on each overnight battery charge! OK I lied about that, the standard batteries will take you 100 miles on a charge and the upgraded and larger pack will take you Read more »

 Warnings have been issued, especially to companies who have a duty of care for those who drive on company business, about the new Government campaign to reduce the amount of drug-driving especially amongst younger drivers following research that shows 1 in 10 young male drivers admit to driving after taking illegal drugs. The £2.3 million campaign has been launched which will no doubt be complimented by increased police activity. Road safety charity Brake has also adopted the anti drink and drug driving theme for its Road Safety Week – Not A Drop, Not A Drag – taking place from November 23^rd – 29^th. By Graham Hill

It looks as though local councils are now to launch the publicised workplace parking levy. First to make the move is Nottingham City Council, much to the annoyance of one of their biggest employers, Boots, who have 3,000 affected parking places that will incur an annual charge of £253 per car rising to £350 per car after 2 years. The rule, approved by the government to start from Read more »

In times of recession is there any good news? Yes there is. According to the Department for Transport there are fewer cars using the roads resulting in quicker and safer journeys. According to the DfT motorists travelled 3.1 billion less miles last year which has got to be good on so many fronts, fewer accidents, less CO2 in the atmosphere, less wear and tear on our roads, less of our precious fuel used. The number of Read more »

It would seem that we are still waiting for some sort of bailout of the car finance sector in order to get people back into new cars but are the Government at risk of doing what they have done with banking and put the money in the hands of the wrong people. There are many lenders other than banks and they should have been helped before the banks who have simply bolstered up their balance sheets in preparation for Read more »

MOT test changes are coming. Of course this won’t affect those hugely sensible people that lease their cars from me but will affect those that still like to drive cars beyond their three year old birthday. If you are one of my clients then now would be a good time to make that cup of  Earl Grey and crack open the Hob Nobs, for those that may have a car that is MOT’d the changes probably won’t affect you anyway unless Read more »

In an effort to reduce car usage, the Government and indeed all parties led by the Greens tried to encourage more people to work from home. Whilst there was a small increase at the time latest statistics show that the number of employees working from home has stalled since 2002. Just 3% of workers work from home although 7% do so at least once a week. These results were recently reported in the 2008 National Read more »