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I recently heard at a Motor Industry conference, to the point of annoyance, about the continued move towards the totally connected car. Manufacturers seem obsessed with the collection of data for a number of reasons. Some data helps them with the design of future vehicles, collecting information such as true MPG, emissions, faults and systems failures.

This information along with other data/information relating to where the vehicle is during working hours, scheduling servicing, monitoring deliveries and customer calls, calculating running costs and evaluating efficiency can help larger company fleet managers. Personally, a driver could use data to challenge speeding fines, tickets collected by cloned cars and identify ‘cash for crash’ scams.

But this increase in data collection could have sinister implications. Especially as there seems to be no differentiation between the cars that are bought or leased by large fleets and those bought or leased by SME’s and consumers. Within the large organisations employee rights to privacy are laid out in their conditions of employment but what about consumers and SME’s running cars within their businesses?

I don’t recall any customer ever being asked to sign a release allowing manufacturers to collect data from the new cars they drive. And when does the transmission of data stop. If you buy a used car that is 2 or 3 years old does data collection continue. Also if you are connected to the Internet it would seem that not only Google, or whichever search engine you use, can collect search history, so can the manufacturers it would seem.

And if large companies can collect information about where their drivers have been or currently are located why can’t a crook with a bit of IT nous do the same to find out where you are before breaking into your house? Or if the vehicles are out on business a competitor could see where all your sales and delivery staff are and target the same clients. We are entering a dangerous world and one over which we are having less control.

Little did I know that when I explained that you should clear down your telephone contact list held in your car when you sell it or return it at the end of your lease, that so much more data was likely to be collected and passed on. And how do you clear that down and prevent future transmission? We need legislation to protect us and our businesses urgently, it is a big flaw to this whole Big Data tsunami! Oh and I don’t doubt that the private eyes out there preparing divorce cases are all over this like a rash!!! By Graham Hill

The reason to install a dash cam in your car was originally to avoid arguments over insurance claims following cash for crash claims. These claims come about following an incident whereby a driver swerves in front of you, brakes hard, giving you virtually no time to stop causing you to run into the back of their car.

The driver and the passengers of the car in front all claim for whiplash injuries whilst you lose all your no claims bonus. With dash cam evidence the police can carry out an investigation and often prosecute the driver of the car in front on a variety of charges.

However, whilst dash cams are one of the biggest selling gadgets right now and Citroen have started fitting them as standard in their latest C3 to combat cash for crash crime, there are other reasons why you should install dash cams. They are invaluable for general claims as insurance companies become increasingly lazy.

In a recent case I read about a young driver who was sitting stationery in a backed up queue on a roundabout, when another impatient driver decided to take a quick route then cut in modifying the front end of her car. She was clearly not at fault so she claimed through her insurer for the repairs only to find that the other driver had made a claim against her insurance company, not only for repairs but also, guess what? Yep, whiplash.

The advice from her insurance company was to accept liability as in court a judge would be unlikely to find in favour of a newly qualified driver having an accident on a roundabout. That is a disgrace. However, had the young driver, whose premium was already ridiculously high and set to go higher, had a dash cam fitted the case would have been open and shut.

So isn’t it about time that manufacturers followed Citroen’s lead and started to install cameras as standard into the back of the rear view mirrors to help drivers to keep on the road and minimise claims times and costs as well as help police investigating accidents? After market dash cams are unsightly with wires dangling which puts drivers off installing them but maybe if the insurance industry and car manufacturers got their heads together we could see an end to cash for crash, quicker claims turnarounds, a decrease in insurance premiums, less time spent by police investigating accidents and more prosecutions. GH climbs down off soapbox for a sit down and cup of tea! By Graham Hill

I’ve warned in the past about selling your car that has hands free Bluetooth fitted and the need to delete your stored telephone numbers, especially if you have stored sensitive numbers that you wouldn’t want others to know. Well the situation is getting worse now that ‘connected’ cars are now being sold on or part exchanged.

Some cars built over the last couple of years are capable of connection to mobile devices via apps which is great for the owner of the new car but it can lead to all sorts of problems when these connected cars are bought by used car buyers down the line.

Tim Church from Weston-Super-Mare found this out when he sold his Land Rover Discovery Sport only to find that sometime later he was still able to access the car’s InControl App via the app on his phone. From his app he could still see the location of the new owner as well as whether the car was locked or not.

The latest connected facilities can include pre-warming or cooling the car from your app, remotely unlocking the car, downloading music as well as knowing where the car has been and is currently located. When questioned by Auto Express Land Rover said that it was the responsibility of the previous owner to remove the vehicle from their account when they sell it. I’m sure this will be of great comfort to new owners of Land Rovers! By Graham Hill

All discussions about cars at the moment seem to revolve around either connected cars, driverless cars or both. But as I mentioned in an earlier blog I hope that in the rush to get this new technology out into the market place they don’t compromise security.

Problems already exist with hackers able to clone your remote keycode and access your car with a laptop, made even easier with keyless entry allowing the crooks to start the car once inside by pushing a button. Dealers are also being warned about open access to the Internet via their free WiFi in their showrooms.

Customers who access the Internet, whilst waiting for their car to be serviced, could have their data held on their laptop compromised by a hacker sitting inside or just outside the showroom. Not only that hackers have been known to set up dummy hotspots that you connect to again giving access to the contents of your computer.

However, worst of all are the hackers who hack into the records of the dealership providing free Internet access. They can then extract personal details including credit card information from the dealers data base. This can also apply to anywhere else you can pick up free and unprotected WiFi such as shops, hotels, restaurants etc.

Moving on to the driverless cars, there have been industry warnings that insurance for driverless cars needs to be very carefully considered with so much depending upon computerised systems making hacking potentially the biggest threat. In a report by AXA Insurance they warn about potential claims where vehicles have been broken into and the car or items stolen remotely.

Researchers have already shown how a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV could be hacked and stolen using a laptop. I have read of cases in America and similar warnings have been issued here about situations where cars’ computer systems have been hacked then drivers held to ‘ransom’ only releasing the car once a sum of money has been paid. According to AXA these and others are whole new risks associated with highly computerised and autonomous cars that need to be considered and assessed as a matter of urgency. By Graham Hill

A few years back a very good friend of mine asked me to help him with his night club which was still making money but over a period of 2 years had dropped away in popularity and income had suffered as a result. So with my vast knowledge of night clubs and my business expertise I started to investigate the reasons why it was less popular.

A few years previous they consistently had queues of over 100 people outside, waiting to get into the club, but at the time of my investigation it was rare to see a queue at all. We addressed many of the problems, changed the DJ, improved the sound system, re-organised the bar and increased the staff and other things that started to get the club buzzing again but one thing caused a serious fallout between us. Air conditioning.

He, like many bar and club owners, felt that if you kept the customers hot they would drink more and increase bar takings so he preferred to retain the ceiling fans planted around the place. How wrong can you be? The club was open till 2.30am but by 11.30pm punters started to leave and when asked why they were leaving they said it was simply too hot and uncomfortable.

Sadly, about 2 years later, the place closed. Brought about, in my opinion, by the fact that he refused to install air conditioning because of his assumption that when people get hot in a club they drink more. So what has this ramble got to do with cars? Well it’s to do with wheels. Let me explain. We now have a huge raft of options available on new cars, all aimed at making more money out of the customer.

One of the options frequently taken up by customers is wheels. Different styles and sizes can be added at an additional cost but very few clients actually see the chosen wheels on the car before it is delivered or drive it with the bigger wheels fitted. What may have looked pleasing to the eye online may make your new 4WD look like it is perched on stilts in real life.

And as many have found in the past, having larger chunkier wheels fitted to your new car may look tough but they can often make the ride much more uncomfortable, make handling harder and affect adversely the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. So whilst the assumptions are generally the opposite, better road holding, more comfortable ride etc. you will not know unless you can test drive the car fitted with the upgraded wheels.

And make sure you see the wheels actually fitted on the car in real life, they may look great on line but in the cold light of day they could also look terrible. Just because you are paying more doesn’t mean the car will look or drive better and as with the air conditioning, base your decision on fact, not perception. By Graham Hill

Years ago Ford had a reputation for announcing new models long before they were in a position to launch. As a result pressure was on them to get the car into the marketplace whilst interest was at its highest. Subsequently, anyone who bought the brand new model with lots of new features became Ford’s own testers.

My ex wife became one of them when they brought out a brand new shape Fiesta. It looked great and the Ghia had loads of brand new features. Unfortunately the car spent more time in the local dealers during its first 6 months than in the hands of my ex.

But as newer cars rolled off the production line all of the faults were fixed and eventually my ex ended up with a car without rattles, windows that worked, no oil leaks and a rear window that didn’t drip water onto her shopping every time she operated the rear wash/wipe. Whilst it was irritating there were no health and safety or security issues just minor irritation that got sorted. Scoot forward a few years and you find Apple uses the same principle whenever they have a new iPhone to launch.

Remember the bendy big phone and the phone with the aerial built around the phone that lost the signal if you held it? So it should come as no surprise that when the recent head of steam started to build up around the desirability to have ‘Connected Cars’ that stuff would be released before being fully considered and fully tested. What us cost accountants would refer to as the ‘what if’ considerations. Many manufacturers have rushed to release apps that can be downloaded onto your phone that will remotely connect to your car.

The app will remotely monitor and control the car, locate it and even lock and unlock it. Yes I did just say that. The trouble is that not enough ‘what if’s’ were considered before the products launched leaving the new owner and the car vulnerable when sold. Fleet operator Ogilvie found that they still had access via their apps to a Tesla, BMW i3 and a Nissan Leaf after the cars had been sold although they pointed out that the Nissan could not be stopped or started via the app.

As more manufacturers join Jaguar Land Rover with their inControl, Tesla with MyTesla, Volvo OnCall, Vauxhall’s OnStar and Nissan Connect less attention could be given to security if it meant that the technology could be launched in no time flat. Some manufactures say they will delete the old account once the car is sold and one amazingly said that if they are called by the customer or fleet manager they can disable the App. Really? That sounds pretty secure – not! Tesla said that it is up to the old owner or new owner (or thief) to advise the change of ownership.

To prove the point Fleet News reported one ex Tesla owner able to access his MyTesla account a year after the car was sold. It is only now that leasing companies are discussing the end of lease procedures and a resolution that would see the disabling of apps. As part of the handover process. But what about private owners? Who will instruct those with Connected cars how to protect their privacy and new owners make sure that the previous owner no longer has access to their car. What a mess! By Graham Hill

We all know about ‘Road Rage’, but have you heard of Parking Rage? Apparently, according to a study by Privilege Car Insurance it is sweeping across the country with more than 3 million motorists admitting to spying on neighbours to make sure they don’t park in the wrong place.

The survey revealed that 75% of motorists said poor parking left them outraged. Men aged 21 were the most susceptible who admitted to being outraged an average of 139 days a year. Newcastle is where most parking rage existed followed by Norwich.

It would seem that two thirds of motorists believed that it is a basic right to be able to park in front of  your home, regardless of driveways, garages or allocated parking. They admit to ‘curtain twitching’ if they feel the space outside their home is in jeopardy. Remedies include the usual beeping of horns and unsavoury hand gestures, as with road rage.

But parking rage can also lead to an angry note left on the windscreen of the miscreant (admitted by 14%) and direct arguments (12%). A small number even admit to deflating tyres and scratching the paintwork. So when you are parking in a residential road, keep an eye out for twitching curtains, you may return to a deflated or scratched car. By Graham Hill

Now here’s a funny story that I came across in Business Car. Apparently Essex police are urging drivers not to stop if they are requested to do so by ‘anything other than a marked police car’ following two van thefts earlier this month. In both cases a van was pulled over by disguised police men in an unmarked silver Mondeo equipped with blue flashing lights.

They requested a VW Transporter and Mercedes Sprinter to pull over on the M11 and the M25. The two men in the Mondeo wore fake uniforms with one of them reported to be also carrying a gun. In each case the drivers of the vans were left at the side of the road unharmed.

According to Essex police they have instructed officers to avoid stopping motorists whilst in an unmarked car except in an emergency. DCI Stuart Smith from the Kent & Essex Serious Crime Directorate said, ‘Anyone who is signalled to stop by an officer in an unmarked car should not stop but phone 999 immediately to verify whether the vehicle and its occupants are genuine’.

Can you imagine explaining this to a genuine police officer at the side of the M25 when they finally pull you over for speeding then add into the charges ‘using a mobile phone whilst driving’? All a bit worrying! By Graham Hill

How safe are our roads? This general question often refers to the general condition of our roads, how well they are maintained in bad weather, the safety of our cars and how well the cars are maintained. But what about the health of our drivers? Could drivers’ health affect the safety of our roads?

It would seem that whilst most drivers take things like drink driving very seriously and wouldn’t dream of driving a car without wearing a seatbelt it seems that they are nowhere near as vigilant when it comes to their health. Watching TV with a little bit of a squint is maybe a bit of an inconvenience and not focusing too well when reading the paper may be a little uncomfortable but what about driving?

As responsibility falls upon drivers to self regulate their eyesight how many actually meet the minimum standards? Many drivers are shocked when they finally feel the need to have an eye test and find that they badly need to wear glasses. If you drive with faulty eyesight you can be prosecuted but it’s a bit late if you are dead or badly injured in hospital or you have hit a cyclist or pedestrian that you didn’t see.

With an estimated 4 million drivers considered to have deficient eyesight, i.e. more than 10% of all drivers, how dangerous are our roads? We can add other conditions to poor eyesight, many of which are not considered as dangerous. This time of year there are those with hay fever who take anti histamines that, whilst a legal drug, can impair the driver’s ability to control a car.

Those with a bad back pain can be distracted because of the discomfort or could take strong painkillers that could impair their driving and slow down reaction times. Conditions such as sleep apnoea are not fully understood by those suffering who may believe they simply feel tired occasionally but if you have the condition it is even more important that you stop driving more quickly than those simply feeling a little groggy.

The fact is that our roads are made more dangerous by those who drive on them with a range of medical issues from poor eyesight to a dodgy knee. Is it about time that we all took greater responsibility and stopped putting ours and other’s lives at risk. Always read the labels of any medicines you are taking, even when they are bought over the counter, and follow the warnings. By Graham Hill

In the current Health and Safety obsession by the EU and lawmakers in all civilised countries I find this next piece very hard to believe can still happen, especially in the UK. If you are a recent reader of my musings you may not have read the piece I put out regarding the sort of health and safety attitude that existed in the US in the 1970’s.

Briefly, Ford had a car called the Pinto which happened to be the biggest selling ‘sub compact’ car in the US at the time. Unfortunately the design of the car was unsafe, they had placed the fuel tank in such a position that if the car was hit from behind the tank exploded.

More than 500 people died as a result of the Pinto bursting into flames when they were either driving or were a passenger in the car. Many more received severe burn injuries. When a burn victim sued Ford for the faulty design it was uncovered that Ford engineers had known about the problem for many years. But Ford management had carried out a cost – benefit analysis and concluded that it wasn’t worth the $11 per car to fix the problem by recalling all of the cars compared to the cost of recompense payable to the victims.

They believed that if the problem remained unfixed they would face claims from 180 burn victims and the families of 180 victims killed. They placed a monetary value of $67,000 on a burn victim and $200,000 on a death. They added to these costs the cost of replacing the cars. They concluded that if they fixed the problem it would save them $49.5 million in compensation and car replacement costs but the cost of repairing the 12.5 million cars affected would set them back $137.5 million.

So they concluded that the cost of paying out for losses and injuries was a better option than paying out for the cars to be repaired. This of course raised a number of issues that the US Government jumped on and Ford ended up with huge costs and penalties to pay. One would assume that this couldn’t possibly happen again in this day and age with a higher moral obligation placed on companies along with massive legal consequences.

But then I read about the recent problems experienced by Vauxhall Zafira owners. I had seen several YouTube videos of Zafiras catching light and cars being pretty much instantly destroyed. For ages Vauxhall denied the existence of a problem but after 300 Zafiras caught fire they were forced to take a more responsible approach. The problem was found to be in the car’s heating and ventilation system which led to a recall of all Zafiras, known as ‘B’ models on sale between 2005 and 2014.

They originally claimed that the problem had only come to light in 2014, following which they instigated a full recall in December 2015. However, when questioned by MP’s a couple of weeks ago, Peter Hope, customer experience director at Vauxhall, admitted that they had known about the problem as long ago as 2009 when the first fire was reported. Their excuse was that when cars are completely destroyed by fire there is very little evidence left to analyse in order to establish the cause of the fire.

The good news is that unlike the Ford Pinto no-one was even injured but that isn’t the point. At what stage does a car manufacturer take responsibility and carry out a very detailed investigation when consistent things go wrong with one of their car models? The estimated cost of repairs is £33.6 million – tough! Only now, in the month of August 2016 is a further 235,000 Zafiras, as agreed with the DVLA, being recalled to have the fault fixed.

Shame on you Vauxhall for putting customers through all this when it could have been avoided. When Vauxhall denied responsibility drivers no doubt made insurance claims for their losses, paying an excess and losing no claims bonus. This simply isn’t good enough and after making the cars safe again they should prepare a plan to pay those affected compensation, something, according to Peter Hope is not at the moment being considered. What a disgrace! By Graham Hill