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OK got my angry hat on so watch out! If it’s not APR it’s bloody MPG. I’m sick to death of the ridiculous arguments over MPG and I’m even more angry to read this week that the EU is to poke their nose into our affairs, yet again, and legislate on the way MPG figures are calculated.

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They are set to demand that vehicle emission and economy tests be carried out on public roads rather than in laboratories. I thought it was dopey enough when What Car decided to carry out their own tests on cars to establish a more ‘realistic’ MPG but simply ignored this idiocy as a ploy to sell more magazines but it’s now getting ridiculous.

First of all expect your road fund licence cost to increase along with your benefit in kind tax as it will show an increase in CO2 emissions but let me turn to MPG, which is about as accurate a measure as APR and Brake Horsepower. I think we would all agree that the MPG, achieved in a laboratory, under very strict test conditions, will not be achievable under normal driving conditions.

So we are all agreed so far. And MPG can vary as a result of the road conditions, the condition of the car and most important of all the way we drive. Agreed? So with such a mash up of so many factors it is virtually impossible to come up with a definitive MPG. Ask any driver how they drive and they will come up with numerous different descriptions, let’s think of a few, carefully, fast, slowly, safely, quickly, with care, legally, illegally, cautiously, erratically, carelessly, considerately and like a rabid monkey.

The fact is that we all drive differently, not only to each other but also in different road conditions. Some drivers drive more carefully when it is raining or if there is ice about whilst others see these conditions as sent to test their rally driving skills affecting the fuel consumption substantially.

Poor service and maintenance of the car can affect fuel consumption as can worn tyres or incorrectly inflated tyres which can make a difference of up to 15% in fuel consumption. Braking hard, braking late, racing away from traffic lights can all affect fuel consumption, even having a window open, continual use of air conditioning or the fitting of a roof rack can affect the fuel you use as well as carrying passengers and/or a load of unnecessary or even necessary weight in the boot.

Cars are also not manufactured with the same precision as a Swiss watch, the mechanics will vary slightly between identical cars produced on the same day providing different fuel consumption. I think you get the gist, it is absolutely impossible to establish ‘accurate’ real life fuel consumption figures for all the reasons mentioned. So why are we about to spend a fortune trying to fix something that ‘aint broke. At least with the way MPG figures are established at the moment all cars are tested consistently in laboratories.

The figures may not reflect genuine real life conditions but they provide a means to compare different makes and models of cars. So if your car choice is between a Ford Fiesta or a Vauxhall Corsa you will find that the Government controlled average on the Fiesta is 54.3mpg whilst that on the Corsa is 51.4mpg. So whilst you probably won’t achieve either figure when you drive the cars the Fiesta is likely to be a little better than the Corsa. So to change the method now would be a nonsense and a waste of money.

What inspectors found when they checked the way manufacturers established their MPG figures was doors being taped up and tests being carried out on very smooth surfaces. This is where action needed to be taken so that all tests are identical and we certainly don’t need the Europeans poking about and instructing us on how we should do things!

Oh and if it was possible to ‘manipulate’ the figures under controlled conditions in a laboratory I can only imagine the manipulation that will go on when attempting to replicate real life driving conditions. Nonsense, absolute bloody nonsense! By Graham Hill

Now here is something remarkably strange – and we’re not talking about my hair style! It’s white lines on roads! It would seem, following an investigation carried out by Transport for London (TfL) that white lines in the middle of roads cause drivers to drive faster.

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.

After re-surfacing three separate roads in London they decided not to re-paint the central lines (not just single lines but two parallel lines a couple of feet apart with cross hatch lines a couple of yards apart). As a result they noticed in every case a significant drop in speed. On the northbound Seven Sisters Road the average speed dropped by 2.5mph to 29mph and by 4.1mph on the southbound side to 28mph.

One theory was that no lines led to uncertainty and more caution as it was believed that drivers felt that with the white lines in place no one would encroach on their side of the road. Without lines separating the cars travelling in opposite directions it created more alertness and fear.

They also found that cars slowed down when cars were passing them in the opposite direction which confirmed an earlier survey in 2005. Having said that TfL will not be removing white lines from existing roads nor do they have any plans to not repaint the lines following re-surfacing even though it reduces the maintenance costs of roads. So I don’t know why it was ever bloody reported in the first place.

On the other hand, in the same report it was pointed out that an extra 900 miles of road capacity will be added to the road network over the next 7 years at a cost of £24 billion which is also to include the cost of re-surfacing! That’s good news then eh! Umm, think I’ll get a cup of tea! By Graham Hill

Did you know that as of 1^st October 2014 tax discs exist no more? It would seem that half the drivers in the UK are unaware of this fact so let me explain what is happening. But before you get excited it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to tax your car it simply means that you don’t have to display a disc which is expected to save the DVLA £10 million each year in this move to go paperless.

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.

It also means that as of the 1^st October, if you already have a disc, you can take it out of your windscreen, all part of the announcement made by the Government in the Autumn statement. In addition to no longer being required to display a tax disc there is another move over which car traders and dealers may not be so happy.

Cars used to be sold or part exchanged with a bit of tax left on it either giving the buyer some refund to trouser or giving the seller something to negotiate with when selling her pride and joy. In future, as soon as the DVLA are notified that a car has been sold a refund for the balance of unused tax will be sent to the previous owner. As before refunds will only be issued for complete months that are unused whilst the new owner must apply immediately for the tax using the relevant portion of the V5C.

Another, somewhat strange change, given the way that road tax has been coming down as CO2 emissions continue to reduce, is the ability to pay monthly. Paying monthly will increase the annual cost of the licence by 5% but drivers will be able to pay by direct debit to avoid forgetting and receiving a fine. In what I thought was a funny twist, paper tax discs are still being sent out till the end of September but the DVLA ran out of perforated paper so drivers are having to cut them out themselves.

I can just imagine the dog’s dinner that some have ended up with after attacking the disc with a pair of nail scissors or garden shears! So to sum up: You can still pay for your disc at a Post Office, online or monthly and you’ll still get a reminder. You can no longer transfer the tax, it is automatically refunded when the car is sold or scrapped and the DVLA advised. You will be able to check the tax status of any car by going online and typing https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax then typing in the car registration and make.

In future you won’t see traffic wardens peering through car windows unless they are being nosey or are perverts. In future tax checks will be carried out by police with plate recognition cameras, wardens will have access to the DVLA database and static plate ID cameras will crop up and will enable the authorities to raise instant fines to those drivers whose cars are captured without tax or insurance.

Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And don’t forget that you need to do nothing other than remove your tax disc on the 1^st October and maybe keep hold of to hand down to your grandchildren for posterity. By Graham Hill

Related articles

• DVLA about to ‘run out’ of tax disc paper (telegraph.co.uk)

Sadly we are coming to the end of what wasn’t a bad summer other than August that was complete rubbish! Nights are drawing in and whilst we are still enjoying some late sunshine we should be making plans for the winter months ahead.

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.

Fleet News has provided a few pointers and given us a few things to think about. Inevitably there will be a few days when it will be difficult, if not impossible, to either drive to work or use public transport (bit of wind, snow, leaves on the train line, volcanoes erupting, landslides etc.) so do you have a back up plan that enables you and/or staff to work from home in the case of an emergency?

Don’t forget if you employ staff you are responsible for their health and safety and could leave yourself exposed if you insist they come to work when the authorities or experts have advised against it. With regard to your car, have you considered swapping to winter tyres to reduce tyre wear and increase grip. Many of the national tyre fitters now offer a service whereby they will swap over tyres for you between summer and winter and store your summer tyres till spring.

Fleet News also suggest that you consider 4WD cars but I disagree. I don’t recall one day last winter when a 4WD car would have avoided taking any time off work and I have to say that unless you have taken a 4WD course the chances are that you will be no better off driving a 4WD car than a 2WD car. Oh and a little tip if you are stuck in snow, try letting a little air out of the drive tyres to increase grip or better still buy a set of snow chains and a spade to dig yourself out.

Make sure that your car has been serviced and there is enough anti freeze in your radiator and plenty in your windscreen wash. In fact make up some anti-freeze screen wash and keep it in a bottle in the boot, it is so easy to run out of screen wash on a trip and end up not being able to see out of the windscreen. Give yourself a few minutes to sit in the car with the engine running in order to warm up the heater.

If it is cold or raining and you drive straight off you will find the windscreen heavily misting up before it starts to demist making it impossible to see where you are going. Remember it is an offence to drive a car if you cannot see through the screen due to either dirt or mist. Oh and another tip, get yourself some Marigold rubber gloves and stick them in the boot.

Snow chain at the front wheel. Photographer: Devchonka. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The best type of gloves to wear when clearing snow or frost off the car or even to wear when fitting snow chains or digging out the snow. They are totally waterproof and surprisingly warm. I’ll add a few more tips into my next newsletter as the countdown to winter continues. There are lots more tips to come so make sure you read them and stay safe! By Graham Hill

As you know my car reviews are legendary due to the fact that the manufacturers stopped sending me cars to test drive many years ago, so I thought ‘sod ‘em’ I’ll say exactly what I think as I don’t have to suck up to them in order to have a car to drive for the weekend.

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.

Unfortunately, whilst not a big fan of 4WD cars, I have to say that I’m impressed with the soon to be launched Discovery Sport that replaces the somewhat leggy Freelander and brings the Discovery style into the 21^st century.

It will come with 7 seats as standard and has adopted some of the latest Range Rover Sport lines, still popular with drug dealers (I’m told), premier division football players (new), 1^st division football players (used) and accountants (new). For some strange reason Jaguar Land Rover have decided to fit the new car with an old engine whilst launching at the same time the Jaguar XE with the new Ingenium engine.

I understand that the new engine will find its way into the new car later next year so might be worth waiting. The car will come with 2WD and 4WD powered by the eD4 and SD4 engines via a 9 speed auto or 6 speed manual gearbox. Improved tech spec. and style will no doubt appeal to lovers of 4WD cars although I have to say that the leather seats look like venetian blinds and the headrests on the back 2 seats look dopey.

I wait with interest to see the replacement full sized Discoveries which currently remind me of a hearse! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself! By Graham Hill

Telematics is a fairly new word that started its life within the terminology used by fleet managers wishing to track drivers of their vans to ensure that drivers were not driving too many hours and using the most economic routes. It normally takes the form of a tracking device that records everything from time spent driving to the routes taken by the driver, fuel consumption and even the driving style of the driver.

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.

The process was intended to improve driver safety, improve efficiency and ensure that the driver was involved in as few accidents as possible. But these days the same technology has moved into the consumer market with insurance companies prepared to give discounts to drivers who fit telematics type systems to their cars providing greater discounts to those who drive least and most carefully.

But this has led to legal questions about what data is provided and how it is used. Basic tracking information used for health and safety or economic reasons may be all well and good but what about the times when the company vehicle is being used for personal use and if information is fed to your insurer when is the data likely to cross over into an infringement of personal privacy?

Marc Dautlich, head of information law and partner in the technology, media and telecoms team at international law firm Pinsent Masons, believes employers using such technology need to tread very carefully. It is also believed that Insurers and those collecting data on their behalf need to be equally cautious. Legal issues stem from data protection and employment law, as well as article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, under which an individual has a right to ‘respect for one’s private and family life, home and correspondence.’

Not only could telematics systems leave drivers vulnerable to the miss-use of data but as cars now have access to the likes of Google, Facebook, Emails and your mobile address book how is the information that may be stored in your car protected? I reported quite recently about the case of a celebrity’s wife selling her car and the new owner finding the previous owners phone list still stored in the car’s memory, including the home and mobile numbers of numerous famous people.

There are many advantages to having telematics fitted to your car, especially when proving a driver’s speed just prior to an accident but this could all fall apart if data is found to be miss-used by employers or insurance companies. Anyone using the data collected must make it clear to the driver what information will be collected, how it will be used and how long it will be kept for. By Graham Hill

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• Do You Really Want Your Insurer Monitoring Your Driving Habits? (cheapautoinsurance.org)

You may not have heard the name Marina Usaceva but a court ruling, following an accident in which she was involved, could change your attitude to what you do whilst driving.      Marina was considered responsible for a fatal accident in which the other driver involved died. She had been using a mobile phone but not at the time of the accident.

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.

Her barrister explained that there was a 6 minute difference between the time it was shown she was using the phone and when she had the accident. Described as ‘clear water’ and provided as mitigating evidence the plea was still ignored by the judge when he sentenced Marina to 6 years imprisonment.

Evidence showed that she had sent and received texts on two phones during the 20 minutes before the accident. In summing up before sentencing Judge Sean Enright said, ‘If you were not sending texts at the time, then you were fiddling with your phone and that is what caused the collision. Mobile phone use whilst driving is a plague on our society,’

This is a clear warning that the courts will consider the use of a mobile phone whilst driving as a contributing factor to an accident, even if not being used at the time of the accident. Labour Peer Lord Ahmed was jailed for 12 weeks after admitting to texting at the time he was involved in a fatal accident on the M1 in 2009. Since then the law has tightened and sentences greatly increased.

At the time the case was ground breaking because the judge didn’t link the texting directly to the accident but described the texting as ‘prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous.’ So the warning, as repeated by Lucy Whitaker of legal firm Rothera Dowson, is that courts are now increasingly willing to consider the use of a mobile phone, prior to an accident, as a contributing factor.

As the law stands at the moment if a driver is found to be using a mobile phone whilst driving he will usually receive a fine of £100 and 3 points on his licence. Using a mobile when involved in an accident causing a serious injury or fatality would be considered to be driving without due care and attention with a maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment along with disqualification and potential fine.

Beyond that, death by dangerous driving carries a maximum jail sentence of 14 years and a minimum disqualification of 2 years, a discretionary re-test and possible fine. Whilst there is still no suggestion that telephones should be switched off whilst driving, if you have an accident, even whilst using a hands free phone, this could still be considered by a judge to be an ‘unnecessary distraction’ and be treated the same as if you had been using a mobile phone without hands free.

As pointed out by Lucy Whitaker, ‘There is no real ‘safe time’ to use a phone, hand held or otherwise, whilst driving.’ Be warned that it is standard practice for police to confiscate mobile phones from drivers at the scene of very serious accidents as part of the information and evidence gathering process. Casually using mobile phones without consideration of the consequences is irresponsible so stop it now.

Driver in a Mitsubishi Galant using a hand held mobile phone violating New York State law. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the first 3 months of this year 380 people lost their lives in accidents attributed to the use of a mobile phone, up 13% over the same period in 2013. Campaigners warn that mobile phone use could become a bigger killer in 2015 than drink driving – a sobering thought! By Graham Hill

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• Driver who used two phones at the wheel jailed for killing man (telegraph.co.uk)

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I recently answered a frequent question in one of my standard mailouts which received a massive response so I am reprinting it on my blog for you to come back to if needed. Part 2 will be a further blog when sent out to my database, here is part 1:

I live just outside Brighton, a newly formed city that I rarely visit during the summer because of the traffic and the inability to park, but I had cause to pop down there last week and ended up parking in Hove Actually and walking back into Brighton. It was a pleasant walk but as I was passing cars parked at the side of the road I started to notice that people had left nickable items on clear display inside the car.

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.

I saw all sorts from laptops to tablets, mobile phones, sat navs, piles of shopping spread across the back seat and several bags of all sizes, from handbags to sports bags, left on display on the front passenger’s seat or on the back seat. It made me think because I had only just read a report by Mike Waters of Arval who, in my opinion, stated the bloody obvious when he explained what people should do to prevent car thefts.

He was commenting on the number of prestige cars that were being stolen on a regular basis and what measures you should take in order to avoid your car being stolen. Having witnessed what I saw I thought that maybe I should share this nugget as some readers (not you of course) could be dopey enough not to understand the basic rules of protecting your car.

The first rule is of course to leave nothing on display. Anything of value should be left at home and if that isn’t practical lock it in the boot. You may not be too concerned about the loose change left in the centre console for use in car parks but that £2 contributes towards a can of Special Brew to some.

They are 2 quid better off and you are £75 worth of glass insurance excess the worse off.  Mr Waters says, ‘Always lock your vehicle and close the windows and sunroof. I have to say this seems obvious but how often do you or people you see leave their car on a garage forecourt whilst they pay for their fuel with windows open and the car unlocked?

There are thieves who target garage forecourts to either steal cars or their contents. Keep car keys out of sight, never put them down and even at home make sure they cannot be seen from the outside through a window or letter box. It is easier to break into a house and steal the keys than break into the car and have to hotwire it to get it started. Secure your number plates with tamperproof or clutch head screws.

Not sure about that one. False plates with a bit of double sided on the back can be stuck to the old number plate in seconds. Another suggestion that I don’t necessarily agree with, lock your car in a garage and lock both the car and the garage. I have found, and reported in the past, that if you show that your car is parked in a garage overnight when applying for insurance it can be more expensive than parked in the street. It can be easier to steal a car if the thief can carry out the theft whilst the car is in a garage rather than out in the street.

When away from home, try to park in a well lit, open location, or a police approved ‘ParkMark’ car park. I would add – in sight of a CCTV camera. Finally fit a tracking device to your vehicle and have the car registration number etched on all windows. By Graham Hill