The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

If you are one of those that use the Dartford Tunnel/Bridge you will know that either side of the Thames can get a tad congested from time to time. This is annoying and can cause a wait of anything up to half an hour (my experience) but you know when the congestion is likely to occur so you try to avoid those times.

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.

Foreigners and truck drivers don’t seem to know these times so if you find yourself in one of these tailbacks or even whilst cruising at reasonable speed towards the toll booths you can find yourself flapping whilst trying to dig your change out of your pocket ready to throw into the bin located at the toll.

This isn’t helped when you have a juggernaut on one side of you and a foreign driver on the other side, all doing the same. But amazingly very few run into each other and the delays, as far as I’m concerned are minimal.

However, they could do one thing that would speed things along and that is to take those who have pay as you go Dart Tags fitted to their vehicles that enables them to simply drive through the toll without stopping to have a type of bus lane (Dart Tag Lane) reserved for them, about 2 miles before the crossing.

To segregate at the last minute, as happens at the moment) means that these people are sitting way back in the queue, adding to the congestion whilst the Dart Tag booths sit mainly unused until the Dart drivers peel off. Now that to me would be an excellent solution. Not so according to the Highways Agency who will be removing the booths from October 2014.

The booths will be replaced by a remote system similar to the congestion charge. As with the congestion charge anyone not paying the fee will receive a penalty charge. But the good news is that you can pay online, by text, at shops and by phone. A pre-pay option will also be available which, according to the Highways Agency, will save users up to a third of the fee.

Hmmm, this all sounds good if you are a regular user but it seems to me that instead of fumbling in your pocket for a few coins drivers will be busy calling and texting whilst driving or stopping short of the tunnel/bridge in order to prevent a penalty charge. I think we have some interesting times ahead on the M25! Or again, is it just me? By Graham Hill

Graham Hill’s gadget of the week is an app for iPhone and iPad. It provides traffic updates. The app provides details of congestion on the roads for a one-off fee. It is called UK Traffic and it sells for less than £2. It covers the whole of the UK with a map, route checker, incident list and traffic radio. You can search for delays en route, see them on a map and get info on how long the queue is, the length of the delay and even the cause. Live traffic radio can be paused and rewound to take a call or left playing in the background. Amazing value for money. By Graham Hill

Think about this? A crossroads with no right of way! This could be the future, no more irritating traffic lights or mini roundabouts to contend with just common courtesy will keep the traffic flowing around our towns and city centres. This idea has been imported from the States where they have traffic jams to beat all traffic jams but believe this to be the answer, where every road entering a junction has give way signs Read more »

You know what it’s like when you come to a set of traffic lights that have stopped working, from my experience it causes total confusion because there is no specific right of way for drivers and pedestrians appear to close their eyes and run across the road in blind hope of reaching the other side. It’s a nightmare, fortunately most pedestrians seem to have an overwhelming will to live so they use a sixth sense Read more »

You won’t believe the next piece of advice offered by Peter Rodger, Chief Examiner at the Institute of Advanced Motorists! He is suggesting that we queue jump when there are holdups on motorwaysand multilane carriageways. He suggests that where there is an obstruction, such as an accident or work being carried out that shuts down one or more lanes, that instead of forming an orderly queue, like us Brits always do, 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

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 »

This is becoming a real technology week, we’re now onto Sat Navs that save you fuel! Yep, I kid you not. Whilst the sat nav on my last car, a BMW 7 Series, insisted on taking me round in a complete circle in the middle of London for a good ¾ hour last Christmas and after averting a traffic jam on the M25, on many occasions, insisted on re-routing me straight back into the midst of the logjam, they think they have the technology to calculate the route that saves most fuel! Bosch are currently Read more »

GE Capital Solutions Fleet Services has suggested that we could reduce our running costs by up to 10%. They suggest that better fuel management could reduce fuel cost, extend service intervals on some cars and reduce tyre wear. Move away more gradually from traffic lights, turn the engine off in traffic jams and drop your speed to the legal limits would have some dramatic affects. Check tyre pressures Read more »

Plans have just been announced to use the hard shoulder on motorways to avoid congestion. The first of the plans was to charge £5 per car to those joining a traffic jam on the motorway by driving along the hard shoulder. Other plans involve the use of hard shoulders on the M3, M4, M5 and M27 as a type of toll lane with sensors mounted on gantries above the motorway to Read more »