Car scrapping is a booming business, and Lord Mandelson has duly addressed its importance, by announcing an investment of a total of £400 million to the industry as an extension to the scrappage scheme is to become a much needed reality.
The new phase of the scheme will continue till February 2010. This will allow car owners to trade in their decade-old cars for a new one, and they will receive a hefty discount of £1950 on their new ride.
The age restriction of the old cars has also been relaxed for six months. The scheme will allow nearly 400,000 car owners to get new wheels, although nearly a million car owners are expected to apply.
According to Janet Connor, managing director of RIAS, this is going to attract a huge number of motorists due to the ongoing recession. She thinks the discount of nearly £2,000 is likely to draw the attention of many car owners who are thinking of getting a new vehicle.
CEO of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Paul Everitt went further, by stating that this new scheme will help to develop a strong and sustainable economy, by creating an upsurge in demand, and providing a wider consumer access.
The flagging motor industry is talking with the Government in hopes that they can get the scrappage scheme continued into February 2010, a task that would require about £150m more from Mr Browns pocket.
The scheme was started on May 18th, at which point the Government said it would run into February or until their funding ran out, which is expected to happen sometime between the end of October or the beginning of November.
The Government has already pledged £300m for the scheme.
The SMMT is afraid that new legislation that requires higher first year Vehicle Excise Duty rates on all vehicles with larger engines, starting in April of next year, will stop consumers from purchasing new cars, which the extended scrappage scheme could help.
According to the SMMT, the scrappage scheme has already been able to produce growth in the auto sector, after 15 months of declining sales reports in the marketplace for new cars.
To date over 100,000 cars have been bought with the scrappage scheme, and an additional back order of over 100,000 is banked.
Castrol Oil Company is taking a step forward in their advertising campaign by offering individualized billboard messages to passing motorists.
The idea is simple a camera reads passing vehicle registrations sending the information to the billboard which will then light up and tell the driver that Castrol oil is the top pick for their vehicle.
Castrol stated that this is the first time that personalized messages will be used on billboards in the UK. According to the company it only takes under two seconds to check the license registration so that the billboards can offer up personalized recommendations.
According to Castrol, London will have five trial sites set to be unveiled two weeks from this past Monday.
While Castrol seems thrilled about the advertising, the move makes the DVLA look even more money hungry as they have effectively sold the use of their registration data base to make more revenue off of drivers by selling the advertising rights.
The only question left unanswered is if Castrol should have to include all oils and not just their own, however given they have paid for the rights, it seems highly unlikely meaning that you really only get the best Castrol oil recommendations for your car not the true ‘best.’
Have you ever driven past a car broken down by the side of the road with the bonnet up and a rather flustered person looking into the engine?
The answer to this question is most likely to be yes.
Now think back to the last time you saw someone broken down and try to remember what your first thought was. If I had breakdown cover, I know mine would be ‘I wonder if they have breakdown cover’.
If I didn’t have breakdown cover, my first thought would probably be, ‘that’s going to be an expensive day for that driver’.
Breakdown cover can prove to be worth its weight in gold in the event of a breakdown and has the potential to save you a lot of money if you ever do break down.
Therefore, we thought we would bring you our top tips to consider when you look for your next breakdown cover policy.
1. Think about where and when you are most likely to need your breakdown cover. If you only drive your car around the town in which you live, you would probably look for basic to comprehensive cover. If you drive further afield on a regular basis, you might be better off with a comprehensive to premium policy.
2. Look for any discounts the provider is offering. Some offer online discounts of around 30-40% and this could prove useful in reducing the price of your policy.
3. Remember that even the most basic of breakdown cover policies will usually be better than having no policy at all.
According to the RAC, the average cost of a call-out charge for a private recovery levied by an independent recovery contractor is £50. You will then be charged around £1.50 per return mile (the independent recovery contractor will charge you per mile from when they leave the depot until they get back to the depot) to be towed. This would result in a cost of £188.13 for one call out and to be towed 10 miles (use our breakdown cover calculator to test this out). When you consider that basic breakdown cover policies start from as little as £25 a year, you can really see why having some breakdown cover will likely be better than having none at all.
Honest John, an independent authority on cars, and contributor to the Telegraph, has released a public application to the iPhone app store. This is the first free app in the UK that will deliver videos and road tests to iPhone users.
Honest John is known well to those who have visited his website as an authoritative source of information who is looking out for buyer’s best interests, while deciding which vehicle they should purchase. Since he is not affiliated with any company he is able to offer an unbiased opinion,
The former motor trader stated that the new app is designed to allow viewers to feel as if he is there in the dealership with them, advising them on their final decision, before choosing a new car.
To date, he has been able to help out over 500,000 drivers on his website, and in print.
The app will be able to provide instant access to the forums of the website, and all of the information it contains, as well as road tests, independent news, an videos from the website so that users can get a clear picture of the car they are considering purchasing.
Honest John stated that the forum users all have an extensive amount of knowledge and experience, which is invaluable to consumers when it comes time to choose a new car, which, in turn, will help buyer’s cut deals while in a dealership, but as fully informed consumers.
The application is now available on the iPhone and is set to soon debut on Blackberry and Nokia smartphones.
A move by Labour aimed at slashing the costs of a legal defense that innocent motorists would be allowed to claim back once they have made a successful defense against motoring offences such as speeding is drawing fire from senior legal officials.
Legal experts say that the new regulations that become law next month will push perhaps millions of drivers away from considering defending themselves in motoring cases even if they are not guilty.
The problem is that it will possibly cost thousands to prove a motorist’s innocence against a case that will cost a couple of hundred in fines if they plead guilty.
Several lawyers have banded together to fight the new regulations claiming that in particular working and middle class drivers will be cut out of the motoring legal system allowing only the rich to defend themselves.
At the moment somewhere around 100,000 drivers are successful when defending themselves in court per year. The new rules will drastically cut how much of their legal expenses they can claim back through the courts, leaving tem no option but to plead guilty regardless of the circumstances.
The lawyers also feel that there will be more dubious cases brought by the police and other government agencies because there will be very few in a position to fight back.
About 40% of all UK motorists get seriously distracted on a regular basis while driving according to the most recent RAC Report on Motoring.
Those who are younger between the ages of 17 to 24 are the most likely to get pre-occupied, about 56% admitting that they get seriously distracted while driving.
Texting was the most frequent activity that teens admitted to doing while driving, with 26% stating they have texted while driving out of which 4% thought that there was no problem with doing so.
About 15% of other teens stated they have put their makeup on while driving and 20% drove with headphones on so they could listen to music.
The study also went on to look at how these distractions can impair driving performance and how far motorists can travel in a vehicle while their eyes leave the road for only a few seconds to look down or over.
One stunning fact is that in the five seconds it may take you to change a CD, if you know where everything is, at the rate of 70mph your car will have covered two football pitches worth of length without you knowing how vehicles around you are travelling.
At that speed, you would need 96 metres to come to a complete stop which is about as far as three football pitches, but you have already coved the length of two.
RAC director of technical David Bizley stated that it is clear that even though the Government has attempted to limit distractions the message is not reaching drivers as fatalities have almost doubled in just the last three years.
While many residents on a Shrewsbury estate have already watched their vehicles get towed after the cares were clamped by the DVLA, one man, David Evans, has his own plan to prevent a tow truck from taking his beloved Commer Van.
Evans made a visit to the DVLA in Harlescott to discuss the fact that he felt his vehicle should be exempt from the tax due to the fact it was built in 1973 and is now a historical vehicle.
At the meeting he was told that he needed to register it by January 1st by calling a number in order to be exempt.
However, he was told that it was not registered until October so it is not exempt and subject to be towed, a move he plans to confront by spending the night in his van so that it cannot be towed away. This will be his second night sleeping in the van.
The first day in the camper van was actually Evans’s birthday, but he spent it in the Camper Van and deflated the tires to discourage towers from taking the vehicle away.
The reason for the clamp is parking an untaxed vehicle on the public highway which Evans and several neighbours say is not valid because they believe the front of their properties and the small patch of land the vehicles were parked on is part of their driveway.
Two cars were towed from the street at 7:20am and slowed as they passed by Evan’s camper van but stopped to come take a look when they realized he was sitting inside the van.
Evans stated that the towing guys came over and after he was informed it was a tax exempt vehicle took a picture and left. He says that all he wants to do is hear the DVLA apologize and take the clamp off.
The government is planning to tighten laws around those who drive without auto insurance by making it illegal to own a registered vehicle that is not insured even if the vehicle is not used according to transport ministers.
Those who are caught failing to follow the new legislation could face fines up to £1,000 along with the possibility of having their vehicles seized.
At the moment, it is only illegal for individuals to drive without proper insurance in the UK and as of last January drivers were allowed only to keep uninsured vehicles if they registered the vehicles as unused with the DVLA and kept the cars off of the roadways.
Organizations of motorists welcomed the new laws to combat the amount of uninsured drivers on the road but fear that motorists who are normally law abiding may face punishment for the new laws due to innocent mistakes such as a temporary lapse in insurance while they are away on a holiday.
According to figures from the Department of Transport every year uninsured drivers and those that are not able to be traced are responsible for the deaths of 160 people, 23,000 injuries, and add about £30 a year to the total cost of plans that are purchased by responsible people who do take out insurance.
On average police seize about 400 vehicles a day from those without insurance.
Under the new plan, the DVLA will check insurance details on their motor database to insure that motorists have insurance and will send out reminders to anyone they find that appears to have allowed their coverage to lapse.
According to the latest annual report from the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) the government organisation has made major changes to the way it secures its information.
The organisation now has information on well over 40 million drivers and nearly 35 million individual vehicles and makes nearly 112 million transactions annually.
A few weeks ago a national newspaper was able to obtain personal information about several actors apparently from DVLA records. Journalists had noted down the registration numbers of several actors vehicles and were able to obtain information that should not be available to the public.
The DVLA admitted that there had been “widespread” abuse by the media with regard to obtaining personal information from the DVLA illegally.
According to the new report a whole set of new strict controls are now employed in order to enhance not only electronic data security but also physical security of items such as memory sticks.
They have now introduced encrypted laptop’s and any kind of external data storage device such as a USB memory stick are totally banned and this is reinforced by technical assistance to physically stop their use.
In addition any information that is offered on CD is now strongly encrypted. All information which needs to be passed from one computer to another is now performed by an electronic link rather than any kind of portable data device.
They have also made considerable changes and increases to the physical security of their headquarters in Swansea.
According to Janet Connor, managing director of RIAS, this is going to attract a huge number of motorists due to the ongoing recession. She thinks the discount of nearly £2,000 is likely to draw the attention of many car owners who are thinking of getting a new vehicle.
Castrol Oil Company is taking a step forward in their advertising campaign by offering individualized billboard messages to passing motorists. 
Honest John, an independent authority on cars, and contributor to the Telegraph, has released a public application to the iPhone app store. This is the first free app in the UK that will deliver videos and road tests to iPhone users.
A move by Labour aimed at slashing the costs of a legal defense that innocent motorists would be allowed to claim back once they have made a successful defense against motoring offences such as speeding is drawing fire from senior legal officials.
While many residents on a Shrewsbury estate have already watched their vehicles get towed after the cares were clamped by the DVLA, one man, David Evans, has his own plan to prevent a tow truck from taking his beloved Commer Van.
According to the latest annual report from the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) the government organisation has made major changes to the way it secures its information.