Production Celebration At Volkswagen: 100,000 Third-Generation Sciroccos

Wolfsburg / Palmela, 6 August 2010 – Since its market launch in 1974, this compact sports coupé has been the most successful Volkswagen in its segment: 795,650 vehicles were sold up to 1992. Currently, the third generation is being manufactured.

Keeping children quiet in the car

This morning I was congratulating myself on a peaceful journey back from Cornwall. For me and my family it was a rare triumph. We arrived not only well before midnight, despite the vagaries of my directions through south London; even better, we were still speaking to one another without growling.

I know where to bestow the credit for this unusual harmony, and I am sorry to say that it is all due to the wonders of computer technology. The children watched Harry Potter and The OC all the way. Silence reigned. I worked my way through crosswords and my husband listened to some unspeakable music. For a few brief minutes we looked up the age of Stonehenge – built some time between 3,100 and 2,200BC – on an iPhone as we crawled past on the A303. Read the full article written by Cassandra for the Telegraph.co.uk

Top 10 car problems with Honest John

Buyers’ rights after purchasing a car

I have to send links to my Consumer Rights FAQ answer to an average of 10 readers per day. You have the same basic rights against any dealer retailing a car for about £2,000 upwards. Unless you are forewarned and buy on that basis, any significant faults that occur within six months of purchase are deemed to have been developing on the day of purchase, thereby rendering the car of “unsatisfactory quality” and are the responsibility of the dealer to repair. You can either return the car to the dealer to fix it, get a refund, or agree to part fund a repair if that is “reasonable” – what you can’t do is simply have it fixed elsewhere and send the dealer the bill. If dealers deny any knowledge of consumer protection law, it begs the question why they should be allowed to trade. It stands to reason that you cannot reasonably expect 10-year-old bangers selling for a fraction of their original price to be completely fault-free, which is why I mentioned the arbitrary £2,000 figure.

The state of the roads

The general state of our roads, together with the proliferation of speed humps and speed cushions, is a campaign issue called Cash (the Campaign Against Speed Humps). Not only do speed humps, and particularly speed cushions, damage vehicle tyres, suspension and engines (through grounding of their sumps), a constant pounding from vehicles also destroys the substructure of the roads. That’s why you see subsidence and potholes in and around speed humps. Money that should have been spent on road maintenance was diverted by the previous government into “traffic-calming measures” that have damaged the roads, increasing the maintenance bill. A speed cushion with a pothole in it is a metaphor for the state in which the previous administration left the country.

Insurance disputes

These are split into three:

1 - Protected No-Claims Discounts (for which policyholders pay a premium) don’t amount to much when, even after a “no fault” claim, they find their premium has escalated because they are then judged to be an increased insurance risk.

2 - Valuation disputes occur when insurers write off a car that could easily be repaired and pay the owner a settlement that is inadequate to replace the car like for like, only for the owner later to see his written-off car fully repaired and for sale. One garage even had bailiffs threaten to obtain the spare keys from the previous owner of a repaired write-off that was supposedly scrapped.

3 - Credit Hire expenses are where an “accident management specialist” takes over a claim, puts the injured party in an equivalent hire car for the duration of the repair, then delays the repair to extend the period of the hire. A repair cost of £4,000 and a hire car cost of £9,000 are typical where, if the insurer had anticipated the hire car bill, it would have written off the car in the first place. Never sign any document that leaves you liable for hire costs if the other party’s insurer (rightly) refuses to pay. The worst examples have been hire car bills of £29,000 and £40,000 – sums that could have bought the hire cars outright. You have got to read the full article as published on the Telegraph.co.uk

SPEED CAMERA SWITCH-OFF GATHERS PACE

All 72 fixed speed cameras and 89 mobile camera sites in Oxfordshire have been switched off, a move that comes a matter of weeks after Derby switched off three of its fixed cameras and put 17 others 'under review'.

As a result, Oxfordshire has also removed £600k of funding for its part of the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership, the organisation that runs the cameras for Oxfordshire and several other areas.

Oxfordshire is not alone in looking at the effectiveness of speed cameras, either. Road safety grants have been dropped by roughly a quarter nationwide and that, combined with the end of central government funding for new camera sites, could cause a mass culling of speed cameras.

Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire and Kent county councils have said that they are reviewing their options, and safety camera partnerships are feeling the strain.

The axe has already fallen for the Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership, meaning Swindon's six remaining fixed camera sites are now officially for the chop, while the Devon and Cornwall Safety Camera Partnership will not survive beyond the end of this financial year unless some extra funding is found for it.

It's not all good news, however. Cumbria county council has no plans to drop any of its six fixed sites, nor reduce its fleet of mobile camera vans, according to local government news site, localgov.co.uk

Speed Camera Funding To Be Dramatically Reduced

Speed camera funding to be dramatically reduced by Govt. Minister Mike Penning has been reported to have stated that our local authorities are to find their own funds for new speed cameras.

Transport minister Mike Penning has told UK MPs that millions of millions of pounds each year paid to local authorities and used to fund new speed traps will be scrapped.

Great news for motorists and council tax payers alike as local council authorities will need to spend your and my council tax to pay for new speed cameras, and that means that they may have to answer to their rate payers before they spend our taxes on their cameras!

According to an article in the Daily Mail, the number of speed cameras has trebled in the UK during the past 10 years raising around £110million a year for the Treasury.

There is an argument for both side of the fence, yes, road safety is critically important, but a nanny state, like the one we have here in the UK is not the way to improve road safety. Education and stricter penalties for uninsured drivers would make our countries roads safer.