The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

Every year traffic wardens, now known as civil enforcement officers, issue close to £1 billion of parking tickets. The Freight Transport Association (FTA) claim that additional administration charges add a further £100 million. However, Neil Herron, founder of parkingticketsappeals.co.uk, says that before local authorities issue parking tickets they should get their own house in order. But far too Read more »

If you drive a car and thought you were being singled out in the past to pay off the National Debt single handed through all the various stealth taxes, you aint seen nuthin yet as the saying goes. As local authorities form a disorderly queue behind Nottingham, the first to announce at work parking, to put forward their own schemes for Government approval, others are looking at ways to Read more »

Warnings about stone chips have been issued as we move into winter. With local authorities operating on reduced budgets more roads will remain unrepaired as frost causes pot holes to appear. So when the roads start to get gritted, causing the usual stone chips on windscreens, drivers have been warned to have the chip repaired rather than run the risk of hitting a pot hole which can often result in an instant crack. Don’t forget Read more »

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 »

Hopefully as we move into spring we will see some warmer weather but following one of the coldest winters for years many local authorities now have the job of sorting out the damaged roads left behind. The increase in potholes has resulted in an increase of 13% in pothole related axle and suspension damage. Insurer Warranty Direct suggested that the repairs may be slow to fix with some roads being left as there is Read more »

It looks as though things are happening to make it easier and cheaper to park in our towns and cities although hopefully we won’t be following the French who have a much greater problem with parking than we do. So they are introducing intelligent parking meters linked to the parking bays. The clever French get the meters to assess whether a driver has exceeded his allotted time and if so an alert is sent to the Read more »

As many councils stand to lose millions of pounds following the collapse of the Icelandic banking system they will be looking at ways to recoup some of the losses by cutting costs. One area could be road maintenance and gritting and another could be street lighting in the name of saving the environment. However, the AA has warned councils against the turn off policy Read more »

Warnings have been issued with regard to illegal parking in spaces reserved for disabled people. Many local authorities are now removing cars that are illegally parked in these bays including those showing a disabled badge where the person named on the badge had not been in the car when parked or being picked up. The officers are removing all doubt by calling the person named to see if they are at home and if they are the car is being removed to a pound and a stiff fine imposed. Drivers who argue that they are on an errand for the disabled person will receive no sympathy as drivers are only permitted to park in the bay if they are transporting, dropping off or picking up the disabled badge holder. By Graham Hill.

I certainly notice less drivers using mobile phones whilst driving, possibly as a result of more prosecutions and fines, but we now see local authorities turning more of their attention to smokers in company vehicles. Whilst some issue warnings many are starting to issue more £30 penalties. A recent case saw a self employed painter and decorator, Gordon Williams fined £30 by his local council for smoking in his van, even though it is privately owned and he wasn’t working at the time. Read more »

The police are fighting back against vehicle cloning through the use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras located in the roadside and in most fuel stations. currently 50 million vehicle movements are recorded by ANPR cameras every day. The new software being tested by officers in Durham will identify when cars with the same number plates are moving at the same time and alert officers. The analytical ability of the software will enable the police to Read more »