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If you are a lover of 4 wheel drives now may be a good time to buy or lease one with rates and prices plummeting. You may find in the future a lack of choice and not for the reasons you may think. When the EU announced that all manufacturers in Europe were to be given CO2 targets across the whole of their production or face some substantial fines many of the manufacturers dismissed it and said Read more »

Would you like to be a road worker? I know we all complain about the 3 miles of cones before we get to the 10’ stretch of central reservation being repaired by 4 road workers but frankly it’s not a job that I would like to do given the lunatic way that some motorists thrash down the reduced lanes of the motorway or A road. Unsurprisingly 10 road workers were killed and 81 were seriously injured Read more »

You may have noticed the latest campaign to encourage motorists to use seat belts, 40 years after Jimmy Saville’s Clunk Click campaign. Whilst I find it amazing that people have to be reminded to do this every trip it’s worth mentioning that if all drivers and passengers belted up on every trip one life would be saved each day! By Graham Hill

Good to see that Alphabet, the car leasing company, has spotted something in the new tax rules that are to come into force next April that I reported upon many weeks ago. Under the current rules you can only charge to profit a percentage of the monthly rental cost of a contract hire lease once the cost of the car exceeds £12,000 up to a maximum of a 25% disallowance. This variable rate has now been replaced by Read more »

In a survey carried out by Avis Rent A Car, it was found that only 47% of UK motorists could identify both UK and Foreign road signs. Whilst it was acknowledged that some foreign signs can be very confusing they were shocked that even the simplest of UK signs had drivers stumped. Maybe a good reason why drivers should re-take their tests at least every 10 years. By Graham Hill

Looking for a reliable car has always meant that you must look in the direction of Japanese cars but following the annual survey carried out into company car reliability BMW has come out on top. The survey which sampled 881,000 vehicles leased by the top FN50 companies showed BMW to become the first ever non-Japanese company to top the reliability charts. Since the reliability charts were launched either Read more »

Despite the environmental benefits drivers who responded to a recent survey carried out by Masterlease said that they enjoy their space too much to car share. Masterlease found that 55% of drivers would refuse to car share given the choice. The main reason was drivers want to listen to the radio during their journeys followed closely by people liking the flexibility of their own transport. By Graham Hill

Plans have just been announced to use the hard shoulder on motorways to avoid congestion. The first of the plans was to charge £5 per car to those joining a traffic jam on the motorway by driving along the hard shoulder. Other plans involve the use of hard shoulders on the M3, M4, M5 and M27 as a type of toll lane with sensors mounted on gantries above the motorway to Read more »

I mentioned the tax changes that will take place in April 2009 relating to company cars. However, some people are confused over the affects on leased cars whilst others still have concerns over their capital allowances after the changes have taken place. It would of course be wise to seek the advice of your accountant but in order to shed some light on a confusing situation – I hope this helps. First of all one thing will not change and that is the position with regard to ‘Low CO2 Emission Cars’. Whilst the threshold Read more »

After a damning report produced by Which magazine saying that the ‘super fuels’ did not save money, improve the car’s performance or improve the environment any more than standard fuels. BP stood by its claims of the benefits of it’s Ultimate fuels. It also criticised the fact that Which used only 3 mainstream models, a Ford Focus, Renault Megane and VW Golf. They said ‘It simply isn’t possible to obtain reliable comparison of the fuels based on Read more »