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You may think this is a daft question – simply replace the tyres that are worn – right? Front tyres generally wear out quicker than rears if your car is front wheel drive and rears wear quicker if rear wheel drive, so wouldn’t it be correct to replace the tyres that wear fastest with the new boots? No!

Most safety experts ignore the wear element or whether the car is front, rear or all wheel drive and suggest that you always put freshest tyres on the rear of the car. This is because if the car loses grip in a corner, it will either oversteer or understeer.

Unless you are an F1 fan you may not understand what this means. Understeer is when the front tyres lose grip in a corner causing the front of the car to slide out whilst oversteer means you lose grip at the back of the car, causing the rear of the car to swing out.

It’s actually easier to control a car that is understeering than one that is oversteering – simply slowing down should help to regain grip if the car is understeering. This is why it is important that you should maintain the greatest grip at the rear and fit your new tyres at the rear of the car. This will minimise the chance of potential oversteer and minimise the chance of a serious accident. Great advice eh! Graham Hill

I’ve mentioned the level of recalls that haven’t been carried out on many occasions but nothing seems to have been done to sort it out. Not all are critical so it’s worth explaining again the three levels of recall. The most dangerous is a ‘Stop Drive Recall’.

This is very rare and described as the equivalent to an aircraft being grounded That’s the official line but we’ve seen many instances of cars catching light and the manufacturers dragging their heels over a recall and even then not issuing a ‘Stop Drive Recall’.

The second and most common level is a ‘Safety Recall’. The line from the DVSA here is: ‘where a vehicle or component is deemed by our engineers, usually along with the manufacturers’ engineers, to present some safety risks’. Drivers can continue to use cars affected by a Safety Recall while waiting for the issue to be fixed – “Unless informed otherwise,” Neil Barlow of the DVSA explained.

The third level is less critical. The DVSA is sometimes involved in ‘non-code actions’ and ‘service campaigns’, where it will assist manufacturers in contacting owners regarding defects that do not present a serious safety risk.

The problem is that a large number of recalls remain outstanding which can put drivers, passengers and other road users’ lives at risk. It’s a disgrace. There are some that have suggested that recalls should be part of the MOT test and if there is an outstanding recall the car should fail. That’s fine but the first MOT isn’t due for 3 years so what happens in the meantime? I would suggest that recalls should be checked by those carrying out services.

At least there will be some checks before the car gets to 3 years old or possibly the road fund licence should be withheld if there is a recall outstanding. The reason why I’m raising this again is that BMW has just announced a recall on 1.6 million diesel cars that include 268,000 cars affected in the UK.

The risk is of fire as a result of the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system leaking coolant. In combination with the high temperatures present in the EGR module, this can result in smouldering soot particles. In turn, this could lead to a fire – in very rare cases.

The cars affected are 3 Series, 5 Series, saloon and estate, 4 Series and 6 Series Coupe’s and convertibles. The problem is that many of these cars won’t be taken to a dealer for the recall, either because the car has changed hands and the DVSA has failed to reach the new driver, or drivers have ignored the notice.

There could be other reasons but this should not stop the lawmakers making it an offence to continue to drive a car that could cause an accident. New laws are needed to make drivers more responsible when it comes to safety recalls. You can check to see if your car is subject to a recall by clicking this link: www.check-mot.service.gov.uk By Graham Hill

Hyundai and Kia (one and the same company, by the way), are to fit solar charging panels to selected models from next year. Sounds like a good idea to me. From the pictures I’ve seen it looks like it will just be the roof that will become a solar panel but why not make the whole of the car a solar panel?

Seems to make more sense but what do I know? I guess the cost of repairs would sky-rocket. Anyway, I wasn’t aware of the fact that this has been tried before but technology in this area has moved on considerably making it cheaper and more efficient than when first trialled.

The two companies will be offering it on petrol and diesel engine’d cars (not sure why) as well as hybrid and fully electric cars. First to have the technology will be hybrid cars. The manufacturers reckon that the solar panel will be capable of charging 30-60% of the battery during a day in the sunshine.

This stored energy can then be used to reduce the engine use and thus fuel consumption. A thumbs up for this one! By Graham Hill

If you ever fly from Gatwick Airport and travel there by train you will arrive at the South Terminal. If you then have to get to the North Terminal you jump on the very efficient shuttle that travels between the two terminals. It’s all electric, it’s driverless and it travels on rails at a speed just north of a healthy walking pace.

And even then, in the firm knowledge that no-one can step in front of the train, there are no road signs to read, no traffic lights to watch or emergency road works to negotiate I still get nervous. So it was a shocking injection of reality to find that there are very serious plans to move the UK to the front of the driverless car development by proposing legislation that would allow self-driving cars loose on our roads.

Trials have been taking place since 2015 in parts of London, Milton Keynes, Bristol and Coventry but not to the levels being proposed by the Department for Transport who have probably never sat on the Gatwick shuttle. To date all cars had to have a driver in the car when being trialled but proposed new legislation will allow completely driverless cars to be trialled on public roads without a rail in sight.

They believe that there will be completely driverless cars available by 3035 with the industry worth £52 billion in the UK and £907 million globally – could I have hit on the real reason for wanting to be first out of the blocks. Matthew Avery from Thatcham Research who have a bit of knowledge about car safety said, ‘Safety must not be compromised to achieve leadership position’.

And if you are really looking for assurances and comfort the DfT said that companies and organisations wishing to conduct driverless trials must liaise with police and local authorities, and experiments must be paused, scaled down or stopped ‘during investigations or following an incident’. So if I understand that remark they are expecting ‘incidents’, how reassuring is that?

Call me old fashioned but this is one development that I’m certainly not looking forward to! By Graham Hill

OK, before I question my sanity here are the statistics according to the Home Office. Reported vehicle thefts have increased from 75,308 in 2013/14 to 111,999 reported in 2017/18. That’s a jump of 48.7%. The Home office doesn’t report on how the vehicles were stolen but the rising numbers correlate to the increase in keyless entry and go systems fitted to cars and the drop in police officers of 21,958 since 2006 – a 15% reduction.

What? I think the answer to the problem is in the above. As has been widely publicised keyless entry makes it very simple for crooks to steal your car. So I wonder what the solution could be? Let me think about that one? Hmmmm! Could it be the banning of keyless entry until an alternative can be found which cannot be abused by an oik with a laptop and his mate with a small signal generator?

As for the increase in thefts being blamed on the drop in police numbers – how daft is that? Now, first of all, I don’t approve of the massive cut in police officers but to blame the increase in thefts on the number of police is frankly daft. If they blamed the low number of stolen recoveries on the police I could understand but they’re blaming the number of thefts on them.

And where are the insurers in all this? Paying out fortunes to those who have had their car stolen should, one would think, get them to set up a recovery team to find the cars that they are paying out on. I’m sure they could justify the costs. And as for the car manufacturers, knowing that keyless entry doesn’t protect their cars one would think that they would immediately withdraw the system

Whilst some manufacturers have a means whereby you can deactivate the keyless devices they need to go further. Remembering to switch off the keyless device or storing it in a protective case puts the onus on the drivers – totally bonkers.

And as for blaming car thefts on the drop in police numbers, unless previously we had a policeman by the side of every car at all times preventing the theft of each and every car I fail to see how a few more bobbies in every town or a few more traffic cops would deter the oiks from stealing cars.

We need sentencing to fit the crime. What happens if they’re caught? They’re given a community order or forced to wear an ankle bracelet for a couple of months. No point in banging them up as it ends up clogging up the prison system so maybe some hard labour would do the trick!! By Graham Hill

Yes you read that correctly, your car could report you for being in charge of your car whilst intoxicated. We’re not talking about normal cars we’re talking about autonomous cars (driverless). This raises a couple of questions, the first is a major misunderstanding about autonomous cars.

I went into detail in a previous report so I won’t repeat myself about ‘drivers’ of autonomous cars but basically if you are one of those that thinks that in a few years time you’ll be able to jump unto your driverless car, go down the pub or club and get absolutely legless then get in the car and tell it to take you home – you’re badly mistaken.

If you are in charge of an autonomous car you will need to be as sober as the driver of a normal car. So that’s possibly messed up your plans of being in a state of permanent inebriation.

The next question is how and is this big brother gone mad? The how is a patent filed by Huawei on a system that measures sobriety of an autonomous vehicle’s occupants. According to Auto Express the system consists of a number of sensors and processors that monitor the condition of the driver, checking to see if they are in a fit state to take over the manual controls of the car in an emergency?

If the system detects that the driver is drunk, it could issue a warning, deactivate the car, or even inform the police. The system not only detects drunkenness the patent describes the car detecting if suspicious items such as weapons or drugs are on board and if the driver is driving whilst using a mobile device (really? One would have thought that if the car can drive itself it would have Bluetooth fitted). It can also sense tiredness.

This is the first time that engineers have considered the possibility of using technology to report drivers for offences. Alongside this development, it was reported last year that autonomous police cars of the future could be mini courtrooms. They would be kitted out to test drivers for alcohol and drugs and scan for weapons. Sentences would be delivered by videolink and offenders autonomously delivered to jail.

The theory behind this is that Bobbies could return to the beat whilst the new cars increased the prosecution rate by removing the courts from the system. Makes you wonder where this is all taking us? By Graham Hill