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For the first time in a decade the number of employees paying Benefit In Kind (BIK) tax has increased according to statistics released by HMRC for the years 2014/15. It may only be a 1% increase from 940,000 to 950,000 but it has all of the so called experts weighing in with opinions as to why this has happened.

Whilst Brexit is being flung around by a few they should reflect on the fact that these figures relate to 2014/15 when the referendum was but a glint in PM Cameron’s eye. In amongst the more believable reasons is that for the first time engine development has managed to pretty much keep pace with the increasing demands by the chancellor on BIK tax.

So whilst he has dropped the CO2 threshold year on year engines have become more efficient chucking out fewer CO2’s and therefore neutralising the effect on tax. Another view is that companies that had maybe reverted to car allowances, to allow employees to avoid benefit in car tax, or allowed employees to obtain their own cars, which they would drive for business and charge back company miles on the tax and NI free mileage rate, had moved back to company cars.

The reason for this move away from employee owned cars (known as the Grey Fleet) to company cars is not suggested to be financial but Health & Safety. Companies are responsible for the safety of cars driven by employees on company business, even when the cars are owned by the driver. So if an employee has an accident whilst driving on company business in his own car and the accident can be attributed to the car not being regularly serviced, the company is held responsible for the consequences.

Crazy but true. We are still nowhere near the peak of company owned cars of 1.16 million recorded in 2006/7 but the treasury must be pleased with this turn of events. They collected £1.9 billion from company car tax and NIC in 2014/15 so a nice little earner from them. Last time the number of company cars matched the current figure was 2011/12 when the tax and NI collected amounted to £1.66 billion.

This is as a result of tougher CO2 banding and of course the increase in cost of cars. Personally I continue to see a steady growth in the number of SME’s financing cars personally rather than through their business. Especially since the rates, provided by most leasing companies, are pretty much the same for business and personal applicants. By Graham Hill

Employers have a duty of care to their employees when driving on company business even if they drive their own car and claim a mileage allowance or receive pence per mile expenses. However, that doesn’t extend to the daily commute (unless the driver is on his way to a customer or somewhere business related other than their normal place of work).

However, according to AA DriveTech more employees are killed whilst commuting to and from work than those killed whilst on company business – rather chilling! I should caveat this by saying that the figures include those commuting by car, motorcycle and pedal cycle and whilst I have picked this information up from a report I know that if an employee has an accident whilst driving home after an employer has forced the employee to work unreasonable hours the employer can be held responsible.

But the legalities are not the point of this blog post, it is to make everyone aware of the dangers of driving when commuting. Whilst an employer may not believe he is responsible for an employee’s welfare during their commute the consequences can be equally damaging to the business and the employee. Whether an accident happens whilst on the way to work or out on company business the loss of the employee or the time taken to recover is the same.

So you may like to take note yourself and pass on to colleagues and employees the findings of AA DriveTech who have found that there are three dangerous periods when commuting with most accidents happening at differing places.

Between 4.30-7.00am most accidents happen on bends and rural roads. Between 7.00-9.00am the most dangerous places are T junctions and urban roads and in the evening between 4.00-6.00pm most accidents take place within 30mph zones. So now you know, bear in mind if you commute during these times. By Graham Hill

Bits & Pieces: a) It seems that insurance companies are finally seeing the benefit of having a dash cam (digital camera fitted to the dashboard, windscreen or behind the rear view mirror) with dash cam maker Nextbase coming to an agreement with insurance comparison website, Constructaquote.com.

They will offer those with a dash cam fitted a 15% discount on insurance taken out through their website. This is particularly beneficial to those who privately finance a car but predominantly use it for business as these cars carry a premium that the 15% will help to neutralise.

b) The Government is looking into the proposals for driverless cars to be used on the streets of the UK. Consultations have started on the implications such as a rewritten Highway Code, street signs and the safety features such as lane departure and emergency braking. You can read the consultations by visiting www.gov.uk/government/consultations.

c) Glass’s Guide, the well known valuation experts, have suggested that the decision to exit the EU won’t affect used car prices till quarter 4 2016 at the earliest. Like most ‘experts’ they predicted the first to suffer would be fuel prices and property prices whilst I predicted – no change in my musings straight after the Brexit vote. Before the vote petrol at my local Tesco was £109.9 pence and yesterday – yep, it was the same! By Graham Hill

If you are thinking of driving around Europe this summer, especially if you are driving through France, you will need to carry a breathalyser, especially as not only in the UK, but also in Europe, they have woken up to the benefits of breathalysing motorists in the morning rather than at night.

It is far more difficult to assess whether you are over the limit in the morning, after a skin full the night before, than at night when you have just had a couple of drinks. And with barbeques coming into season in the UK, which I’m told leads to more morning after convictions than over the Christmas period, you need to take precautions to safeguard your licence.

If you agree you may think it is wise to invest in a fairly expensive but accurate breathalyser being sold by Alcosense called the Ultra. It costs a whopping £249.99 but is considered to be one of the most accurate consumer devices. It can be set to the regulations of the country you are in at the time, including France and the US, both of which calculate readings differently.

Once your breath has been detected and analysed by the software algorithm the device will give a reading. It tells you what percentage of alcohol has been detected in your breath then also flashes green, amber or red that indicates whether you are over the limit, under it or completely in the clear.

It also indicates how long it will be before you are fully sober again. So if you are the sort of person who drinks into the wee hours then wonders in the morning if you are safe to drive this could be a valuable investment. By Graham Hill

Sat. Nav’s are great, I wouldn’t be without mine having thrown out my AA map book many years ago but there are times when you wish you had your old map book in the car instead of the bloody sat nav, especially when you are just about to join the end of a queue of stationary traffic.

They are a little better these days, especially if my system has found a major delay on say the M25 (now run by NCP I believe) it will announce that due to heavy congestion it has created another route. Which is fine but the problem arises when you can see the orange cars on the screen, a few miles ahead, turn red, just as you reach a turning that should take you away from the congestion.

So off you toodle expecting the system to recalculate an alternative route. Oh no – that would be too much to ask. For the next 20 miles it constantly tries to get you back to where you turned off the original route. It will even try to fool you by not telling you to do a U turn but sends you off down a single track B road.

At this point you need to zoom out cos I’ll guarantee that it is about to send you completely round the houses to where you left the original route an hour ago! There are now parts of London that I know better than most black cab drivers!

So manufacturers who are designing undesirable things into new cars such as hair dryers and heated gear knobs please turn your attention back to Sat Nav’s because if that bloody woman keeps trying to get me back to where I’ve purposely driven away from I’m filing for a divorce! PS. Second thoughts don’t ditch the hair dryer! By Graham Hill

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

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

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