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Nearly 10% of car breakdowns are the result of drivers ignoring vital dashboard warning lights according to breakdown service provider, Green Flag. Their research revealed that drivers took an average of 71 hours to react to a light on the dashboard indicating a potentially serious problem.

One in ten continue to drive with a potential engine fault for nearly a week whilst ABS problems took 76 hours, on average, to address. A small percentage took over a month to take action to sort out a problem and 3% admitted that they had damaged their vehicle further by not reacting to a problem identified by a warning light.

As Green Flag pointed out the biggest problem is that drivers don’t know what the lights mean or even the difference between red, orange or yellow, green and blue lights. And many of the symbols are not fully understood. Nearly a quarter failed to recognise low tyre pressure warnings and 1 in 5 didn’t recognise an engine warning light.

Strangely, those aged 18 to 34 were the worst offenders. Nick Reid, the head of rescue at Green Flag pointed out that, ‘The majority of breakdowns across the UK each year are avoidable, so take time to check your car, ensure everything is working and pay attention to any warning lights on your dashboard.’

Dash warning lights can be anything from advisory, i.e. put on your seatbelt, to warnings that could cause serious damage to your car if ignored, such as low oil levels. You may also fully or partially invalidate your warranty as you may have moved from a cheap repair to an engine replacement through your lack of action. So if you don’t understand the warnings it would be wise that you check them out and remember the red warnings are urgent!! By Graham Hill

If you need to have your windscreen replaced you normally check with your insurance company first who has an arrangement with one of the national windscreen replacement services such as Autoglass. The replacement is arranged between your insurer and the replacement company and all you do is pay your excess to the windscreen replacement company at the time the work is carried out.

All pretty straight forward but did you know that after a modern windscreen is replaced, in many instances these days, the driver assistance systems need to be recalibrated. In a report prepared by Autoglass it was found that 68% of motorists were not following advice to have their safety systems, such as autonomous emergency braking and lane keeping assistance, re-aligned after a windscreen has been replaced.

Following a windscreen replacement Autoglass explained that the cameras needed to be re-calibrated to ensure that they were aligned properly. They went on to explain that as little as one degree out could prevent the car from reading the road correctly. It is anticipated that accurate systems have the potential to save 1,100 lives and prevent over 120,000 casualties over the next 10 years. In 2015 just 2% of cars that had windscreen replacements needed to be re-calibrated.

However, by 2020 this is set to rise to over 40% of all new cars having driver assistance systems fitted. They also reported that when drivers were told by them that a re-calibration would be required and they contacted their main dealer the dealer admitted to knowing nothing about this requirement.

As a result Autoglass has rolled out a nationwide calibration programme that means that their technicians will be able to re-calibrate 96% of all cars. Unfortunately the 96% had not included Britain’s biggest selling car, the Nissan Qashqai when a driver recently had a problem following a screen replacement and Autoglass couldn’t fix it. He visited his local dealer who didn’t know what he was taking about.

Fortunately, according to Auto Express, Autoglass came up with their own solution and the car is now working just fine. But it’s a question you must ask after a screen replacement, does the car need to be re-calibrated once the replacement has been carried out? If it isn’t done you could be putting yours and any passengers’ lives at risk. By Graham Hill

As I continue to wrestle with my decision as to whether we should stay in or exit the EU, I read something that kinda proves that the EU isn’t all bad. It’s been a worry of mine for some time as to what happens to all the data being collected as cars become what is being called ‘connected’.

It started with a warning that I issued a couple of years ago about your phone book that you upload into the phone memory in your car then forget to delete the numbers before you hand it back at the end of the lease or sell the car on to a dealer or private individual.

I reported a case whereby a premier league footballer’s wife part exchanged her car which contained the phone numbers of A listers which the car dealer then tried to sell on as he considered that he was now owner of the data as he now owned the car. He lost the case but we are now entering the murky world of what I referred to recently as Big Data.

You record your destinations via sat nav and with full connectivity to the Internet in many cars, expected to be in 90% of all new cars by 2020, what happens to your search history and data that is being recorded via your in car Internet connection? Not to mention facts and figures on the way you drive.

It is with regard to personal privacy that the EU has stepped in and tightened up on the controls governing personal data collected via the ‘Connected’ features of your car. Within the new rules laid down by the EU they state, ‘There will be a much higher standard for consent, the definition of what constitutes personal data will change and there will be tougher sanctions for anybody falling foul of the rules.’

The EU has given businesses 2 years to tidy up their act and comply with the new, stricter regime, which has been designed to deal specifically with issues arising from connected products and services, including amongst others, vehicles. Frans Timmermans, first vice-president of the European Commission said, ‘Individuals must be empowered; they must know what their rights are and know how to defend their rights if they feel they are not being respected.’

Whilst the rules apply to personal data various experts have suggested that the rules will extend to virtually all data as the definition of personal data is changing. According to legal expert Stephen Appt, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) makes it clear that information is considered to be personal data whenever individuals can be identified by online identifiers, including GPS information. Appt, a partner at Pinsent Masons, added, ‘Data that identifies drivers indirectly would be considered personal data.’

So in essence I agree with these moves as individuals need to be protected but it raises two questions in my mind. Firstly would our own Government have tackled this problem and if they did would they impose stronger or weaker rules than the EU? But taking this one step further if we voted out and took back control over our regulations and took a weaker approach would we still be able to sell into Europe?

I would suggest that unless we met their privacy regulations we wouldn’t be able to. So we will have to comply whether we are in or out or we couldn’t sell into our largest market, Europe. It seems to me that we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Take another example. If we decided that say the safety standards set down by the EU on fridges was too low and decided to improve the safety adding a £20 cost per fridge would our own manufacturers thank the Government?

We would no longer be competitive in Europe because of the added cost and it makes no difference anyway as the safety rules laid down by the EU represent a minimum, there is nothing to stop the UK, if we remain in, improving on the minimum safety standard if we felt it was necessary.

Of course we could drop the safety standard of fridges made in the UK if we were out but we wouldn’t sell any into Europe because they no longer complied and I would suggest that we would struggle to sell them elsewhere in the world as European manufacturers would declare UK product as inferior. Confused – yes I certainly am! But congratulations to the EU for tackling this growing privacy problem. By Graham Hill

We all like to save money on insurance and many of us make sure that we move companies annually in order to keep our premiums down but there are still many drivers who simply can’t be arsed and allow themselves to be ripped off. In a chat to an insurance ‘insider’ recently he explained that your existing insurer will generally auto renew your policy the first time with a very modest 5% – 10% increase in premium.

This teaser leads you by the nose into a false sense of security. You think they are a fair and honest company looking after their existing customers. In fact the next time your insurance is up for renewal is when they will load the premium because experience shows that you won’t check the rate so carefully on the second renewal and just accept the increase.

My premium jumped from £400 per annum to over £700 in exactly these circumstances. However, I searched the marketplace and ended up with a much better policy for less than £300 per annum. Case proven. Other revelations from my insider was don’t go direct to the insurer, go via a comparison site as the insurance companies will offer a better deal when they are in competition with others.

I have often suggested that you put a parent, husband, wife, partner or friend onto your policy as a named driver if they have a clean licence as in many cases your premium will reduce as a result. I have only suggested that you add just one name to your policy, even though they may never drive your car, but my insider suggested several named drivers to reduce your premium even further.

It is also annoying when you see that you could obtain a lower rate as a new customer than what you are being quoted as an existing customer by the same insurance company. He suggested that you could wait till midnight when your current policy expires then a few minutes later, rather than renew, you apply for a new policy through the old insurance company claiming the new customer discount.

Another piece of advice was not to simply apply for third party cover thinking you can save money on the premium as it is now becoming common knowledge that an insurer will quote a cheaper rate for fully comp than third party, fire and theft insurance.

When questioned he explained that rather than this being a rip-off there is a solid reason. It would seem that most people taking out fully comp insurance will tend to be older, safer, experienced drivers whereas those taking out 3^rd party insurance tend to be younger, inexperienced, less safe drivers. Hence the higher premium.

Finally, and this is one of my suggestions, if you park your car in the street at night as opposed to in your garage, don’t lie about it as the premium can often be lower if your car is parked in a well lit street as opposed to your garage in which a thief could take his time to steal your car once he has broken into the garage. As with many things in the motor trade they are often not as they seem! By Graham Hill

There is no industry that I know that surrounds itself more with mystery and ‘smoke and mirrors’ than the motor and associated finance industry. Emissions, fuel consumption, APR, PCP, warranty the list goes on. These are all provided by manufacturers, dealers and funders in ways to totally mislead you.

We are now being fed a pile rubbish as we see the growth in plug in hybrid cars. We are told that they are great for the environment and you get a zillion miles to the gallon, as a result the Government gives you a chunk of money off the new car cost as they ‘apparently’ create less carbon dioxides than diesel and petrol engine cars.

We are told that the Government applies a grant of £2,500 if the electric part of the drive unit can achieve a range of up to 70 miles. More than 70 miles and you can have a grant of £4,500 but you have to bear in mind that the hybrid car is much more expensive than its petrol or diesel equivalent in the first place, certainly much more than the grant provided as an incentive.

Plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) look very impressive, low fuel cost and tax incentives are grabbing the attention of fleets as well as consumers but the problem is that not all drivers are driving these cars as they should be. The most common omission is the recharging of the car on a regular basis. This in itself can increase the whole life cost by 15% according to Wayne Millward, Fleet Consultant at contract hire company Arval.

For fleets the low benefit in kind tax is very attractive to employees but equally the employees aren’t that interested in efficiency. Even more so if fuel is provided as part of their employment package so they don’t ever plug in their cars to an electric charger. There are of course others who don’t have regular access to charging points, either at home or in the street where they park, making it virtually impossible to charge the batteries using the plug in option.

Either way, when the car moves over from the electric motor to the petrol engine, fuel efficiency plummets and CO2 emissions increase. So unless you or your company drivers use the cars as intended you could be vastly out of pocket. From a running cost point of view if a PHEV is not used as was intended the costs soar and the atmosphere suffers. You would be better off driving a normal diesel or petrol.

So why don’t the car manufacturers do anything to address this issue? I’ll tell you why, because the more hybrid cars they sell the lower the declared average CO2 emissions of all the cars they provide across Europe. In 2015 they had to get the average emissions down to 130g/km which most did.

However, this was based on the manufacturer’s claimed CO2 emissions for PHEV’s being included in the mix, assuming that the cars were regularly plugged into the mains. The fact is that very few were and is yet another con trick perpetrated by the car manufacturers as they know this is what happens! By Graham Hill

Now here is something really interesting that proves you can learn something new every day! And this piece of information could affect every single driver with his own insurance as well as companies running fleet cars. It all came about after I read a question regarding 3^rd party damage, following a car accident, when the damage is caused to local authority owned property.

For example if you were to hit a road sign or street light or maybe smash into a bollard or worse still damage barriers or even the road surface. I was shocked to read that a company running a fleet of vehicles was billed £46,000 for barrier repairs without realising the length of the replacement barriers.

The warning was raised by claims management company actually called Claims Management & Adjusting. They had found that in particular fleet operators were being targeted by local authorities for some obscene repair costs. As it turned out the claim mentioned was for a much shorter stretch of barrier as the authority had claimed in yards but the length was only a third as the measurement was actually in feet, not as stated in yards.

After pointing it out the claim was written off. The claims company also claimed a success when an invoice for £56,000 worth of re-surfacing work was challenged after obtaining information under the Freedom Of Information Act that showed a larger stretch of road had been repaired for £750.

It would seem that not only are there a few disproportionate claims for damage but Highways England has allowed certain contractors to decide upon charges and repairs without further reference as long as the claims were under a threshold, commonly £10,000. This caused me to look further into this situation and what a can of worms it turned out to be.

Most people are of the opinion that you only have to report an accident to the police and your insurance for the following reasons; if someone has been injured (report to police and insurance), there is a claim going to be made against you by another motorist (insurance only) or you are going to make a claim on your insurance for damage repairs to your own car or your contents/passengers (insurance only).

However, knock down a bollard and cause little or no damage to your car you may think that this is the responsibility of the local authority and simply drive off. In fact you have caused damage to a third party’s property so by driving off you could be committing a criminal offence. But then you may think that no-one saw you so where is the evidence but with CCTV cameras and people with mobile phones everywhere you may find that several weeks later you receive a bill for the damages.

But having not reported the accident to your insurance company within a certain period (see your policy) they may no longer be obliged to pay out. It seems  that it can take several months for a local authority to make a claim against a driver. Whilst I’m told that every car insurance policy will cover you for third party damage, that isn’t just someone else’s car or someone’s front wall, it also covers you for what is known as ‘street furniture’ which includes road signs, bollards, hoardings etc.

But if you fail to meet the terms and conditions of your insurance policy or they can prove contributory negligence you could be facing a hefty repair bill. In addition you are obliged to stop after an accident and pass your details to anyone involved or the owners of property that has been damaged. If there are no casualties you don’t have to involve the police.

However, if you have damaged privately or authority owned property you must report the accident to the police if the owner of the property is not available to take the details from you. So as you can see this is a bit of a minefield and what may have seemed like a minor accident could potentially leave you thousands of pounds out of pocket! By Graham Hill

Back in March of this year Ford made a fairly major announcement at the Geneva Motor Show that few newspapers or car journals picked up. They announced a new service scheme that would initially be rolled out to fleet customers but could finally be made available to all customers of Ford cars and vans both new and used.

As the manufacturers compete against large networks of independent service providers and small garages they have come up with a cheap and competitive option, mobile servicing. Specialist mobile service vans have been around for a few years to service commercial vehicles, that are often parked for hours on site or outside buildings, in which the drivers are working, saving the owners time and cost by having their vehicles serviced by a mobile unit during down time.

Initially Ford have successfully rolled out 8 mobile service units, as a pilot scheme, within the M25. They have now been operating for over a year. Ford’s chairman, Andy Barratt, announced that he plans to increase this number within the M25 to more than 100 operating out of Ford Stores and Transit centres. The scheme will be extended nationally if seen to be successful.

The first cars that will be included in the scheme will be the Ford premium brand, Vignales, sold through their 68 Ford Stores. It’s an interesting concept that other manufacturers will be looking at very carefully. By Graham Hill

I don’t know about you but speed cameras totally confuse me. Many have been shut down around the country because they were too expensive to keep going which is strange because I would have thought anything more than a couple of fines a week and they would be in profit.

I’m a believer in speed cameras being installed near danger spots such as schools, old people’s homes and play areas but as we know they were often put up behind a bush, tree or building where there was no extra danger to pedestrians or other drivers, they were there to catch motorists and boost the coffers of the local authority or those managing the cameras.

Well that’s what I thought but I clearly got that wrong with so many shut down. On the other hand those who argue against speed cameras would claim that they are unnecessary as the number of detected motoring offences more than halved between 2004 and 2014, from 4.33 million to 1.62 million, in their minds proving that cameras are unnecessary. Really?

Maybe it has something to do with the huge drop in active speed cameras. Having reviewed the situation a committee of MP’s have suggested that relatively low cost average speed cameras should be used more widely. These would help to replace the large drop in traffic police who not only caught those speeding but also acted as a deterrent parked at the side of motorways or simply cruising our roads.

The committee have recommended that revenue generated by fines should be re-invested, through road safety grants, rather than kept by local authorities. Even with the shut down of many Gatso’s 90% of all Fixed Penalty Notices in England and Wales are detected by cameras. Exceeding the speed limit resulted in 254 fatal accidents in 2014, 16% of all fatal accidents, as well as 1,199 serious accidents.

Whilst the committee has recommended the use of average speed cameras there are some experts that have said that you have to ask why people speed and in many instances it is a result of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs, so these people get away with a fine and points for speeding when in fact they were committing a much more serious crime.

Speed cameras also allow those driving carelessly or without due care and attention to get away with a relatively small fine and 3 points. Personally I’m not sure what the answer is but time will tell if the roads are made safer through the installation of average speed cameras on motorways and A roads. By Graham Hill

The number of plug in car grants could reach the Government’s latest target much quicker than expected after 11,000 applications were made in February. The surge came about because the £5,000 Government grant was to be replaced by a new grant structure for Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEV) as of 1^st March.

The new structure, consisting of 3 tiers, is now in force. For cars with zero emissions and a range of more than 70 miles (category 1) there is a grant of £4,500 on offer from the Government. Vehicles with a lower zero emission range than 70 miles (category 2 & 3), such as plug in hybrids, with either a petrol or diesel engine there is a £2,500 grant.

There is also a price cap, so category 2 & 3 cars costing more than £60,000 will receive no grant although category 1 cars with a zero emission range of over 70 miles will attract the full £4,500 grant. According to the Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) a total of 16,000 low emission plug in vehicles were ordered in January and February compared to 14,500 for the whole of 2015.

So clearly zero and low emission cars are gaining acceptance helped along by some very attractive deals from the leasing companies. OLEV explained that the new grants are set to run till March 2017 or until 40,000 sales of category 1 vehicles and combined sales of 45,000 category 2 & 3 vehicles have been reached. To date a total of 67,000 grants have been provided and on current trends the Government targets could well be reached before the end of the year.

The Department for Transport would not confirm that due to the increased pace of hybrid and zero emission car sales they would review their targets but given their ultimate objective that all vehicles should have zero tailpipe emissions by 2050 it is highly likely that they will continue to encourage the sale of low emission vehicles with grants, albeit that they are likely to reduce in time.

On the other hand support is likely through improving lease rates as manufacturers aim to hit their lowering emission targets across their vehicle ranges. So if you are looking to help save the planet keep an eye out for my great hybrid deals as a preference to buying outright. There could be even greater savings than the grants offered by the Government. By Graham Hill