The motorway service station has been around since Watford Gap opened in 1959. Back then, it was all fine dining and table-side service – what we’d call a ‘destination event’ today, but sixty years later, it seems that the prices are still aimed fine dining, but without the experience, or table-side service, or decent food.

A cheese sandwich, refrigerated sausage roll, ready salted crisps, Wine Gums, Dairy Milk chocolate, Coke and water – typically around £6.90 from the average supermarket, but if you’re shopping at a motorway service station, expect to pay a little more. OK, maybe more than that, and that. In fact, those seven items could cost you over £16.

We’re fully aware that motorway services tend to make the most of their pricing and captive audience, but an average of 14% more expensive for fuel, and a whopping 135% costlier than a supermarket for snacks? That’s quite a markup.

Completely justified

Of course, if you ask one of the service station operators, those prices are completely justifiable. A spokesman for Roadchef, which operates 30 different services on 21 sites, cornering 24% of the market share and generates revenue of around £115m per year, said:

“Motorway services are complex businesses and, unlike many high street operations, are required to be open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We also maintain around 10-40 acres of land around our sites, as well as access roads, lighting, extensive parking areas and in some instances, water treatment works. It means that our overheads are significantly higher than the majority of supermarkets and convenience stores.”

“Our own research suggests we are competitively priced against other service areas on these products and we strive to offer customers a range of choice in all areas, including fresh, high-quality sandwiches and snacks which are prepared in our own on-site kitchens in most cases.”

It’s worth noting that the Heart of Scotland services (M8 between Edinburgh and Glasgow) would charge just £9.31 for the same items.

The top ten rip-offs

Surprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be much of a North/South divide, with just £0.51 covering the top ten, covering regions from the North East and the West Midlands, through to London, Wales and the South East.

1. Durham Services A1(M) – £16.21
2. Lancaster (Forton) M6 – £16.17
3. Woolley Edge M1 – £16.17
4. Hilton Park M6 – £16.16
5. Leigh Delamere M4 – £16.16
6. Beaconsfield Services M40 – £16.01
7. Bothwell Services M74 – £15.96
8. Magor Services M4 – £15.81
9. Birchanger Green M11 – £15.75
10. Reading Services M4 – £15.70

Bottled water seems to be the favourite for inflated prices, with some service stations charging as much as 420% extra over a typical £0.44 price from the supermarket, with the Beaconsfield services charging £2.29 for just half a litre. All services offer free water refills though.

Government clampdown

For some years, government ministers have been promising to clampdown on the price inflation, but to date, nothing has been done, and there’s no plans to do anything. Clare Egan, head of Motor Product at Admiral Insurance (that commissioned the mystery shopper research) admits that most drivers expect to pay a levy for the convenience of the motorway service station, but that the prices at some service areas are nothing short of “highway robbery”.

“Grabbing the essentials from home or at least a supermarket before setting off could result in some big savings on the overall cost of your journey. Given the availability of free water refills at all of the service stations and the push to be plastic-free, motorists don’t need to spend anything on bottled water, let alone a forking out as much as 420 per cent more than in a supermarket.”

“Many of us will be making cross-country trips with our families over the coming weeks, and it will be tempting to stop en route for a snack or petrol. By planning ahead, you could avoid the hyper inflated service station costs, save some money for Christmas and help the environment at the same time.”

A reasonable cost

In the world of marketing and commerce, there’s a saying that goes along the lines of “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product” – think along the lines of Facebook, Google, Twitter et al … it’s your data that’s of value to the company.

Clearly, when a company is offering a service (such as the motorway service areas), you expect to pay a premium for the convenience, but at what point does that ‘premium’ become blatant profiteering? While the operators claim to be ‘competitively priced’ with other providers, that doesn’t really say much, aside from the fact that they’re nearly all charging too much, and it’s unlikely to end anytime soon.

Do you use service stations? Are you happy paying the extra for the convenience? Or is it just a case of a bathroom break and nothing else? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: © Copyright Mark Anderson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

A new study says that £5 worth of fuel—be it petrol, diesel, or electricity—goes almost twice as far in electric vehicles (EVs) than it does in petrol and diesel vehicles and, if you buy a bus or train ticket for £5, your mileage distance will only be a fifth of that travelled by an EV.

After finding that one in five drivers thinks EVs are more expensive to run than other types of vehicles, the car-buying platform, carwow did some research to work out the cost-per-mile of an average EV. They say EV drivers get around 40-50 more miles out of their cars than petrol and diesel owners.

Going the distance

The study, that used both regional electricity prices and regional petrol and diesel prices and calculated the car journeys based on normal driving conditions took the Volkswagen e-Golf and worked out the cost (per kilowatt-hour) of charging its batteries, calculated how far the car would travel before it needed recharging, and found it would travel about 102 miles.

They then compared the figures of the e-Golf against comparable petrol and diesel Golf models, taking into account their mpg statistics. They found £5.00 would take the diesel Golf 56.5 miles, while with the same cost of unleaded, the petrol model would travel 49.6 miles.

The carwow study then compared public transport distances, costing £5 (converted from euros for Dublin), out of 10 major cities and found that the fare would take you 20 miles via train and just 12.6 miles travelling by bus.

From London, £5 would take an EV as far as Worcester or Bristol, while a diesel car would only get to Oxford or Winchester, and a petrol car would only get to Basingstoke, Milton Keynes, or Bedford. Spend around £5 on a bus or train ticket and you won’t get far from the M25.

Miles apart

Matthew Watson, Editorial Director at carwow, said:

‘Some people might be surprised to see that you can travel pretty much double the distance in an electric car than you can with diesel or petrol, but you can’t argue with the data.’

The company, who hopes their research helps prospective buyers ‘adopt the new technology rather than write it off in favour of traditional choices’, said people need more education about electric cars, their ‘benefits and their feasibility’.

Mr Watson said the choice to move to an alternative fuelled vehicle ‘will be a personal one, depending on where you live and how much local investment there has been to infrastructure as the roll-out has not been even,’ though he said progress is happening fast.

Earlier research by motoring review website Parkers supports carwow’s findings. In an October article, they looked at the top 10 best-selling, most efficient electric, petrol, and diesel cars, comparing how far a pound of fuel would take each car. Calculating the distance in miles per pound (mpp), they reported that, for the same fuel cost, the EVs could travel around three times further than the petrol or diesel models.

Keith Adams, Editor of Parkers, said:

‘We created miles per pound as a way of demystifying the running costs of electric vehicles because above and beyond their range, and how long they take to charge, there is little uniformity in how carmakers express just how much energy these cars use.’

In Parker’s research, the first edition Kia e-Niro and the Renault Zoe 65kW, went the furthest, with each travelling a remarkable 33.1 mpp of electricity with Tesla’s Model 3 coming in at third place with 32.3mpp.

In comparison, Parkers found the most economical version of the Ford Fiesta—the top-selling car in the United Kingdom—was around four times as expensive to run than the EVs, with only 9.3mpp.

‘Taking fuelling costs into account, monthly costs for internal combustion engine cars and electric vehicles are much closer than the gap in list price might suggest. ‘While it’s easy to be put off at the price of an electric car when you look at it from a monthly costs perspective the prospect is all the more attractive.’

In charge

Vehicle running costs aren’t the only thing you need to consider when trying to decide whether a car is affordable for you. EVs are more expensive to buy than their petrol or diesel equivalents. After the £3,500 plug-in grant, the e-Golf costs £27,575, while the entry-level petrol model costs £23,340, and the diesel costs £25,585.

Electric vehicles often cost more to insure, not only because they’re more expensive, but because insurance companies have little experience insuring them yet, as the government continues to place tighter restrictions on petrol and diesel cars, EVs will become more common and so, cheaper to buy, reducing their insurance costs.

And, if you own a pure EV, you’re exempt from paying car tax (from next year there won’t be any company car tax on EVs, either) and, if you drive your car in London, you won’t need to pay Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) or the Congestion charge.

Forty-nine per cent of people don’t know the UK has more charging stations than petrol stations, which may explain why 35% of EV drivers say they worry about their vehicle running out of power, not being able to charge it, and getting stranded. A recent study from Lex AutoLease found many drivers are afraid to switch to EVs because of ‘range anxiety’.

Yet, further investment is on the way if we can believe our politicians. In the lead up to the election, the Conservatives pledged an extra £500m to boost the UK EV infrastructure, to make sure there’s a ChargePoint within 30 miles of each home in England and Wales. And, as part of their ‘Electric Car Revolution’, Labour promised a £3.6billion rollout of EV charging networks across the UK, with interest-free loans to help drivers buy EVs.

Are EVs expensive to own? What are your concerns about owning a plug-in car? Do you own an EV? What’s your experience of their running costs?

Parking one’s car can be a nightmare and an often expensive one, too. Whether you’re using a train station car park or you’re parking your car at home, work, at a retail park, or a hospital, you not only face wasting minutes of your life trying to find a space, but the chance of a steep fee, the risk of a parking ticket from poor signage—or other ridiculous reasons—or not getting your change back from the parking machine. It’s a lucrative business, for sure.

Now, private parking firms are issuing steep fines to motorists who stay too long at petrol stations, with both BP and Shell garages getting parking companies to fit CCTV cameras at the forecourt entrances and exits, to catch and charge motorists who overstay their welcome. This means drivers who are spending good money filling up on fuel and using on-site facilities are getting hit with £100 fines.

It won’t wash!

Common law requires that businesses make their time restrictions signs unambiguous, but motorists say it’s easy to miss them on busy forecourts or junctions—even more so after dark—and most motorists aren’t aware that time limits now apply at more and more petrol stations across the country.

Earlier in the year, a motorist using the Shell forecourt in Kilburn received a £100 demand from Euro Car Parks for staying longer than their 20-minute limit and, last week, a driver got a £100 demand after she exceeded the maximum stay at a Shell garage near me. In both cases, the delays arose from queuing for the on-site car washes.

Time limits are a problem at BP petrol stations, too. A recent recipient of one of these demands used the BP garage on Mitcham Road in Croydon, south London. After paying for his fuel, the driver recalled queuing behind around six vehicles to use the car wash but later received a letter threatening debt recovery agents when he didn’t pay a £100 parking charge demand by MET Parking Services from him staying past the permitted 30 minutes limit.

The parking company sent his wife, the vehicle’s registered keeper, earlier correspondence, reporting the car stayed on the site for 47 minutes, demanding payment and offering to reduce the charge to £60 if paid within 14 days. The letter sat unopened until much later, so he paid the £100 in fear of debt collectors arriving at their house. He says he didn’t see any signs advising drivers of a time limit.

Last year at the same forecourt, a motorist noticing a queue for the petrol pump, used the on-site Marks & Spencer’s ‘Simply Food’ shop, resulting in another queue. After vacuuming his vehicle and waiting for the car wash, he’d been on-site 42 minutes and received the same £100 demand. After a difficult appeal, the motorist received a refund but said BP wasn’t interested, even after he told them they penalise their customers for using BP’s services.

Fair game

Staff from The Guardian newspaper visited the Croydon petrol station and spotted a sign warning motorists about the 30-minute rule, but said it would be easy to miss, more so when heading southbound. After approaching five drivers, they found two of them didn’t know about the time limit, despite having just driven past the sign. After speaking to BP staff, who said the number of similar complaints was a problem, one cashier thought BP was installing cameras at all the 1,200 forecourts in the country because people used the area just for parking.

A spokesman for MET Parking Services said of the BP garage:

‘The 30-minute maximum is clearly signposted throughout the site. We would encourage any motorist who believes they were issued with a charge notice incorrectly to appeal using our BPA [British Parking Association] audited appeals process. Motorists have the right to appeal to the independent appeals service, Popla [Parking on Private Land appeals], which is a free and easy to use service.’

Shell, who operate over 1,000 fuel stations, says they introduced the parking restrictions at sites with limited space to ‘make it fairer for everyone’ and the customers staying longer to use a car wash should put their vehicle details into the car wash or shop console to avoid receiving any charges.

Barrie Segal, a parking ticket expert and owner of AppealNow.com, said:

‘The fact that so many motorists have been caught out suggests that these requirements are not being complied with. It beggars belief that BP and Shell effectively penalise their customers for buying their petrol and goods in their forecourt shops. It behoves BP and Shell to ensure that their customers are not penalised. Drivers who feel that they have been unfairly fined should appeal explaining the reasons why the fine is unfair. They should also complain to BP and Shell.’

Fine print

There have been improvements in parking, though. Back in 2017, we told you how parking operators could track down driver details to pursue fines. Yet The Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 introduced a single code of practice and a single appeals process—to cap the level of penalties companies can charge—and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) can no longer sell motorists’ details to companies who don’t follow the rules.

If you’re ever sent a parking charge demand, remember, no matter what their letters say, only local authorities can issue fines to motorists, not private parking companies. Instead, these firms can seek to reclaim so-called ‘damages’ from you.

If you receive a letter saying you owe them money, you can send the parking company what you would have paid to park in the local area, but state that your payment is a ‘full and final settlement’ and get a receipt.

The other way is to tell the company you think their demand is unfair and that you won’t pay. The parking firm then must decide whether they’re prepared to take you to court to prove their ‘loss’. If they do, you must defend the action. If you don’t turn up to court, you lose by default. Although parking firms sometimes take motorists to court, they often don’t.

Popla—an independent appeals service for Parking Charge Notices issued on private land—will appeal tickets issued by BPA members and overturns about 52% of charges and MoneySavingExpert has a section dedicated to parking ticket issues with useful template letters.

What’s your opinion on the £100 overstaying charge? Do companies design the restriction signs to make a profit by catching people unawares? Is a time limit necessary to prevent motorists using the site as a car park? Share your opinion in the comments.

Image(s) copyright:  (BP) © Copyright Lewis Clarke and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. (Shell) © Copyright David Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Road vehicle taxation has been around since … well, road vehicles. The UK’s first road tax schemes for ‘light locomotives’ were introduced in 1896, and then under the Motor Car Act 1903, all road vehicles were taxed at 20 shillings per year.

No doubt that motorists of the day were slightly less aggrieved at paying a fee to actually help build roads and infrastructure, rather than shoring up failing local authorities, or feeding a greedy government.

Car tax evasion

Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) is the correct name for what we all know, and call, car tax. It’s been through a few minor shake-ups over the years, and more recently been tweaked to suit the increasing desire to incentivise cleaner transport, but essentially it amounts to the same thing; along with fuel duty, it’s just another way of eeking out a little more money from the motorist.

When the decision was made to drop the physical paper disc to save money (with estimates putting the savings at an expected £10m per annum), car tax evasion levels were around 0.6%, today, that level is around 1.6%, or approximately 634,000 vehicles. Or to put it another way, around £94m lost.

That figure is down slightly from the peak in 2017 – 1.9%, but it’s still very significant.

Financial burden?

Clearly the loss of the paper ‘tax disc’ has had an impact, but figures released by the Department for Transport don’t give any clear picture as to why; we know that around 40% of the unlicensed vehicles were over ten years old (around 51% in 2017), and that approximately 11% of the vehicles have been unlicensed for a over a year, so it’s more than a momentary lapse of judgement or memory.

Could this be ‘Austerity Britain’ hitting home? Or just a simple criminal element maximising the lack of enforcement procedures and resource?

Police numbers have fallen by 14% since 2010, that’s over twenty thousand less officers within the service, and of course that has an impact on catching persistent offenders for any crime, least of all car tax evasion.

Solutions

In our previous VED article, we talked about scrapping the normal VED charge and opting for a pay-as-you-drive style charge – a small incremental extra on top of the regular fuel price would mean that those using the roads would pay more, equally so for ‘dirty’ gas-guzzlers, and of course, there would be no costs associated for collection or enforcement. Quite a simple solution to what seems to being made into a difficult problem.

Perhaps the danger of that would be that those on or below the poverty line would simply shift from risking driving without road tax, to driving without insurance instead; the dilemma of only being able to afford one or the other.

Technically speaking, driving without road tax will automatically invalidate any insurance policy in place anyway, so there’s no difference in the eyes of the law, but there would of course be a saving on the insurance premium.

ANPR

With the increase of ‘safety’ cameras seemingly being used to replace good old fashioned human resource, you’d have to wonder just how hard it would be to convert them to be ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) capable – automatically detecting those cars driving without road tax, and issuing a fixed penalty notice or at least, triggering a warning for investigation.

Of course, as with any other systems or solutions, there will be instances that are incorrect (like heading to a pre-booked MOT for example), but surely, including some sort of notification system (for the driver to the DVLA) isn’t beyond the realms of possibility?

While it’s easy to think that for whatever solution, the criminally minded will have an answer, but this is about making the whole system easier. Perhaps with an increase in revenue, and fewer costs, the price could be subsidised for those that genuinely can’t afford to run a car, but practical reality dictates that they must.

Time and technology changes everything – from having to write out a cheque, send it through the post and wait for the disc to arrive, to simpler payments at the post office and instant delivery of the tax disc, through to direct debits and no disc. Yes the system is easier than before, and with opening up the process to monthly direct payments it’s more affordable, but we’re a long way short of being optimised, and it’s time for a revamp of the whole system.

Should the government scrap the VED and just place an increment on fuel duty? Do you have a solution as to how we can stop persistent evaders? Let us know in the comments.

As motorists, we get used to the ‘bust & boom’ nature of owning a car; hit with taxes, hit with taxes, and hit with taxes, with some light relief of “actually, you car driving people deserve a break”. Of course, the cycle usually follows a strict pattern – the timing of a general election.

Some candidates are telling us that they ‘vow to end rip-off NHS parking charges’, while others promise to end the blight that is potholes and poor roads. One in particular is mixing it up and offering to tackle both problems. To a degree.

But is it all pie in the sky thinking? A cheap trick to woo us?

Pothole repairs

The Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), whose members are primarily responsible for filling in potholes, states that £9.79bn is needed over the next ten years to bring our roads up to scratch, and that typically, UK drivers need to spend around £4bn every year on getting their car fixed due to damage caused by potholes.

The problem is so bad, that 56% of motorists have said that their car has been damaged at least once, and 28% of drivers have had an accident or near miss because of a pothole, a further 15% have had a tyre blowout after being damaged by a pothole.

Clearly, a strategy for fixing potholes is much needed, but the very obvious question needing to be asked is where would the money come from? Further taxation? We already pay tax on top of tax in the form of fuel duty, and then of course we have VED and numerous other stealth taxes.

With £2bn of money being promised as part of the Government national infrastructure strategy, there may just be enough to scratch the surface (but not fix it).

For a simple representation of the problem, which is said to amount to a 33km depth hole, Confused.com has put together a simple animation of what that means, along with a handy guide on how to claim for pothole damage to your car.

NHS parking charges

Both of the primary candidates have promised to tackle excessive NHS parking charges, albeit in slightly different forms – one is offering a complete abolition of car parking charges, the other wants to offer free parking for certain groups – terminally ill, frequent visitors to the outpatients dept., NHS nightshift workers and the disabled ‘blue badge’ holders (169 NHS trusts charge blue badge holders for parking).

Depending on the source used, we know that patients, visitors and staff coughed up around £272m for car parking in NHS facilities in 2018, with £86m of that being paid by the NHS staff and workers, and £950,000 being made up of fines for parking offences.

While it’s acknowledged that the NHS trusts are responsible for setting their own parking fees, the issue is somewhat clouded by the fact that not all of the trusts receive all (or any) of the money. More often, the trust uses a third-party operator to run the parking, and of course costs very between operators, and for once, it doesn’t seem to follow the North / South divide.

Manchester’s University NHS foundation trust topped the bill for revenue generated – just over £6m being distributed almost equally between public and staff, and the University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire claimed second spot, with just under £6m – £5,992,849 (just £2m for the staff).

Some politicians are calling it a “tax on sickness”.

Cheap vote winners

Being a motorist during a run up to an election is about the only time that we can feel valued, or at least considered, rather than the devil incarnate for having the audacity to use a private vehicle (even more so if it’s fuelled by unleaded or diesel).

But these promises made to us are nothing short of cheap tactics to win a vote, and anyone that bases their decision purely on the points raised will be in for bitter disappointment when the votes are counted and the next incumbent sits. That’s not to say that it’s all fantasy, but just that I for one won’t be holding my breath.

It’s all very well promising untold fortunes for the benefit of the motorist, but the simple reality is that many local authorities are on the verge of financial collapse, and any ‘spare’ money has long been accounted for. Any extra monies promised will either leave a deficit somewhere else, or have to be raised from further taxation, and as it’s for the motorists benefit, you can be sure that it will be the motorist paying for it.

What are your thoughts on NHS parking charges? How should the government (whoever that may be) fund these extra initiatives? Would you pay an extra tax for better roads? Let us know in the comments.

A new EU regulation says that all new cars must have integrated breathalysers and speed-limiters by 2022. Existing models sold after 2024 must also have this updated safety technology. The British Government has confirmed the standards will apply in the United Kingdom, despite Brexit.

The landmark ruling, which the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) say may cut traffic collisions by 30% and save 25,000 lives across Europe over the next 15 years, received provisional approval in March but the European officials passed it early last week.

Tried and tested

In-car breathalysers are common in Australia and the United States, where they’re known more often as ‘alcohol interlock devices’, or ‘alcolocks’. Fitted onto the dashboard, the breathalyser needs a clean breath sample before the car’s engine will start. If the driver doesn’t pass the test, they must wait a certain amount of time before they can re-test. In-built chips can let the police know when a driver fails a test or if someone has tampered with the machine.

Some systems need the motorist to give repeat readings at random intervals, preventing drunk-drivers from getting a sober person to start the engine and/or drinking once the vehicle has started.

In a deliberate move, the EU won’t yet discuss the practicalities of how the breathalysers will work but, after doing my research into a common ignition interlock used in the US, I imagine it’ll work with a camera to check that the driver is the person taking the test whereby the camera takes an automatic snapshot of the motorist whenever they give their required sample.

Aside from breathalysers, the recent approval includes several new mandatory safety features including ‘Intelligent Speed Assistance’ (ISA) software, which stops drivers from going above speed limits, slowing speeding vehicles, and another feature that detects when you’re falling asleep, drifting over lanes, or losing concentration.

The speed-limiter software uses GPS data and speed limits from local traffic cameras, displaying the limits on your car’s dashboard.

If you go above the limit, the system reduces your car’s speed and, although you can override the system by pressing harder on the accelerator, if you continue to speed your car will sound an alert, like a seatbelt alarm.

The ETSC has suggested motorists should be able to deactivate ISA software. While speed-limiting equipment seems like something from ‘1984’, it could also help reduce road casualties, so shouldn’t we take advantage of all technological safety developments?

Drive like your life depends on it

People met the ruling, that the European Parliament says will save ‘thousands of lives’ and help motorists avoid speeding tickets, with a mixed response.

The road safety charity Brake describes the new regulation as the ‘biggest leap forward for road safety this century’ and Joshua Harris, Director of Campaigns at Brake, said:

‘Drink-driving and speeding are a scourge on our roads and the cause of devastating crashes every day.

Mr Harris added it was ‘fantastic to hear that alcohol interlock compatibility and speed-limiting technology will soon be mandatory.’

Despite our government agreeing to mirror EU road safety rules, it’s up to them to decide on how we use in-car breathalysers.

Neil Greig, Director of Policy and Research at IAM RoadSmart, says it’s unlikely the vast majority of the law-abiding public will ever use them to start their car, which may mean the only people who must use breathalysers to start their engines are motorists convicted of drink-driving, returning to the road after a driving ban.

Edmund King, President of the AA, said that ISA can help motorists from always checking their speedometers because even when people are religious about sticking to the speed limit, they still face the threat of ‘smartphone zombies and other unwary road users stepping out in front of them or drunk or distracted drivers crashing into them.’

King said, while technology plays a part, motorists shouldn’t only rely on computers and cameras to drive their cars for them and, until vehicles come with complete self-driving capabilities, people must keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel.

He said: ‘Features such as lane-keep assistance, autonomous emergency braking, and driver-drowsiness warning systems have the potential to have a very positive effect on the number of accidents.’

The AA says something must exist to stop drink-drivers from buying or driving vehicles without fitted breathalysers.

Save your breath

Whichever of the new safety features we discuss, let’s not forget, we the consumer pay the extra to cover the cost of the advanced technology and its maintenance.

Regarding the breathalysers, many unanswered questions remain such as, how the machines cope with false readings from people using cough medicine or mouthwash, and whether drivers need to produce a 0% alcohol reading.

Will the machine register the readings of motorists with poor lung health? Will the regulation extend to motorcyclists, cyclists? Could the technology fail, leaving people stranded, unable to start their vehicles? Will we soon see an in-car system to test for drugs?

Will the safety features help police fight other crimes by reducing their traffic offences workload or will the government reduce officer numbers still further?

Brits might agree with making those convicted of drink-driving use an in-car breathalyser, but for every driver? Should we now presume guilt in all motorists?

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a drink in moderation, but we’re the ones responsible for our actions, so, if you intend to drink, make sure you don’t drive over the legal alcohol limit. Arrange a designated driver or use a taxi or a ride-share service (like Uber).

If you space out your drinks or alternate between alcoholic and soft drinks, you give your liver a better chance of breaking down the alcohol in your system, preventing high blood alcohol levels.

So, will in-car breathalysers turn our ‘nation of drinkers’ into one of pedestrians? At least it would reduce harmful emissions…

What’s your view on mandatory breathalysers and speed limiters? Are they a good thing? Share your opinions in the comments.

“All the Conservatives can offer is green number plates” – Labour spokesman, discussing radical new plans to usher in an ‘electric car revolution’.

Of course, both major political parties are bandying around key words and phrases, all designed to pique your interest and win your vote: “We will provide interest free loans for 2.5 million people to upgrade their vehicles, and introduce a scrappage scheme for old cars” sounds like a great idea, and anything that makes ownership of a state-of-the-art electric vehicle more accessible should be applauded.

Should be applauded.

Net zero

The United Kingdom has signed up to be ‘net zero’ by 2050, which effectively means removing as many emissions from the environment, as we produce. As part of the 2050 strategy, the government are looking to implement numerous regulations, schemes and processes to help that along, and of course, transportation is chief among those targets.

Limiting and reducing mileage driven is a prime source to aiding that goal, but to achieve this, it’s thought that a minimum of a 20% reduction in mileage is needed, and that figure rises to around 60% under Labour’s expert briefing report, thanks to trying to hit that target by 2030.

The Conservative Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, is clear as to what this means for the motorist: “Corbyn is coming for your car and will exhume the last Labour Government’s war on the motorist.”

Kickstarting the revolution

“We will provide interest free loans for 2.5 million people to upgrade their vehicles, introduce a scrappage scheme for old cars, protect the 186,000 workers in the automotive sector that has been under siege from Tory mismanagement of the economy, kickstart a mammoth rollout of the UK’s electric vehicle charging network and set up community car sharing clubs so that everyone can benefit.”

It’s clear from the above statement that Labour are offering more than just coloured number plates, and there is huge potential to make this work, but just as likely is the potential to get things wrong; warnings of a ‘massive barrage of taxes and increases in road pricing’ follow on from Labour’s own statement of ‘demand management’ to force a ‘large and rapid’ drop in road use.

To those of you thinking that this is politically biased, I’ll point out that under the Conservatives, grants and schemes to aid the purchase of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure have been slashed, that their alternative is little more than a box-ticking gimmick, designed to give the impression of pushing the green agenda.

Apolitical thinking

Now more than ever, we need bipartisan or independent policies to create a sustainable, useable and manageable policy for future transportation and road use. Pushing electric vehicles to the fore will help drive demand and technology innovation, but it can’t be at the cost of huge price hikes in fuel duty or VED.

The technology behind electric vehicles and semi-autonomous driving is revolutionising the industry, perhaps it’s time for the authorities to take the same attitude and look toward making radical changes to the production costs, purchase price and infrastructure to help enable a wider uptake of these vehicles? Or is the guarantee of easy revenue, cheap votes and cheaper point scoring more important?

It’s clear that societal attitudes are changing – even the most ardent lover of internal combustion is coming round to the benefit of electric vehicles, both in terms of the environment, and their pocket, but forcing them through financial measures to choose electric over internal combustion just isn’t feasible, nor is it ‘for the many not the few’.

Offering low-rate VED on new electric vehicles is a start, but that’s a very small step toward offering real, actual help to purchase a vehicle, and until that happens, the majority of the population that live hand-to-mouth will never make the decision to swap to electric, and that’s before we look at the complex problem of actually being able to charge the vehicle.

If the government (any government) are serious about pushing the switch to electric vehicles, they need to offer more than green number plates, a 60% reduction in mileage (through taxation), and an increase in fuel duty to force the change.

‘Now is the winter of our discontent’ seems perfectly apt as we face a winter of politicking, sorting the wheat from the chaff, and trying to decide just who to place our money on for the future of our motoring, but one thing is for sure – the motorcar as we know it is firmly in the crosshairs.

What’s your solution to ‘Net Zero 2050’? Should the decisions & choices be removed from the political arena? Or are we just needing to get on with it … they’re all terrible? Let us know in the comments.

Private car registrations are big business – in 2017 alone, the market generated over £110m in revenue, with an estimate of around £1.8bn being made since 1989. Everybody who’s somebody wants a private registration, or so it seems.

Personally, there’s little that annoys me more than bad private registrations; the ones that need a huge dose of imagination to make work, the cheap and tacky ones that need extra number plate screws, insulation tape or ‘fudging’ to even be slightly coherent.

Even just the ones that are standard, yet the owner tries convincing you (or perhaps, himself) that it’s a private plate … BT07 YJA becomes “Brian’s Terrific 7 year old Yellow Jersey’d Arachnid or some such nonsense.

Brexit plates

Whether it’s your initials, showing the support of your favourite sporting team or hero, or just disguising the age of your vehicle, there is a private registration for nearly everything, and anything. And now that we’re facing the impending doom or elation (your choice) of leaving the EU, you can also tell the world about that.

A Brexit supporter may like EU20 BRX, EU20 OUT or even EU20 FAN, whereas staunch Remainers could pick from EU20 GON, EU20 SAD, or perhaps one that sums up the whole debacle (the last 3+ years) nicely – EU20 POO. Currently, these are all genuine registrations being marketed by a specialist company, but it’s likely that the DVLA won’t allow ‘POO’ to reach the open market.

New car, old plate

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the regulations, but absolutely must have a new Brexit plate, you should know that you can’t fit a new registration to an older vehicle – making it look newer, but you can go the other way; an older style or format to a newer car. So if you simply must have EU20 BYE fitted to your vehicle, it will need to be brand new at the March registrations.

With that said, it’s entirely possible to still buy the registration, and have the ownership rights on a Certificate of Entitlement, which lasts for ten years, you just won’t be able to display it until you have a vehicle to match. It’s also worth pointing out that the ‘20’ year marker will change to 70 for the September issue, so time is limited.

Lose that reg

I mentioned earlier that you often see private registration numbers that have to be fudged in some way to make them work, whether that’s tightening up the spacing, changing the font, adding bits of black electrical insulation tape to change a letter or two (that’s surprisingly common), but for me, that just devalues the whole thing.

It’s also worth pointing out that the authorities take a very dim view of it also; just because you’ve purchased the right to the VRN, they can remove that right for persistent and repeat offenders who choose to alter any element of the plate, or display in a different format or style that isn’t standard.

(Although of course, that would mean that you’ve got to encounter a real, live human police officer at least twice).

Record breaking investment

Purchasing a private registration doesn’t have to be all about shouting from the rooftops that you’re successful, or a lover of Aston Villa, or even perhaps that you’re a Handyman. Some VRNs add a much needed detail to a car – the most expensive private plate sold in the UK was 25 O, which was purchased for a Ferrari 250 GTO SWB, selling for £518,000.

A number of well-known equity investors (such as Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan) invest in cherished registrations as an easy way to top-up their portfolios, and if you choose correctly, you can usually make a better return than leaving the money idle, all while still being able to appreciate and use the ‘asset’ – driving a million miles with it won’t devalue it, and there’s not many investments that can offer that.

With that said, as more motorists are beginning to understand that it isn’t just about vanity, prices are climbing and you now need to either hold on to it for longer, or be a little lucky, but it’s doubtful that you’d ever lose money at the very least.

As for the Brexit plates … personally speaking, with the vitriol and divide between the two camps, I’d fear that my car would be a target for vandals, so on this occasion, I’d have to say “Ahm oot”.

What do you think to cherished registrations? Would you consider having a Brexit plate? Or are they just for show-offs? Let us know in the comments.

Official findings from an analysis of the 2018 Department for Transport (DfT) congestion figures show Britain’s motorways are struggling to cope with the amount of traffic and are so congested that, in some areas, drivers are clocking an average speed of only 25 miles per hour (mph).

DfT calculated average speeds by taking speed observations from a sample of cars across 24-hour periods throughout the year. They came up with the averages based on a whole day—not even when speeds are at their worst, during rush-hour.

Slow study

Experts found lots of slow areas within junctions between the slip road where motorists filter off and where vehicles enter and found 17 stretches of motorway where drivers averaged speeds below 30mph—less than the speed limit for residential areas.

Usain Bolt reached a top speed of 27.44mph when he ran the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Athletics Championship—albeit an Olympic sprinter, Bolt still travelled at a speed faster than the traffic on the five slowest stretches of motorway.

It won’t come as a surprise if you’re a regular user of it, but experts found the slowest motorway sections on the London Orbital—the M25 (often ridiculed as nothing more than ‘a big car park’), leading to the Dartford Tunnel. They recorded average speeds near the A206 junction at 25.1mph and 25.4mph near the A2 junction.

Average speed (mph) of the UK’s five slowest motorways in 2018:

1) M25 northbound Dartford Crossing near A206 junction: 25.1mph

2) M25 northbound Dartford Crossing near A2 junction: 25.4mph

3) M5 northbound near Oldbury Viaduct junction 2: 26.7mph

4) M4 westbound near Chiswick junction 1: 27.1mph

5) M5 southbound near West Bromwich junction 1: 27.2mph

Other sections in the list included the northbound stretch of the M1 near J24 at Leicestershire with an average speed of 37.1mph.

The average speed on the M6’s worst stretch (southbound between J10 and J9) was 41.7mph.

DfT experts recorded the slowest part of the M11, as southbound, heading towards the M25, between J5 and J4 in north-east London. There, speeds averaged 42.1mph.

Averaging speeds of 44.6mph, the M62’s slowest section was near Manchester on the westbound carriageway between J19 and J18.

In a jam

Rod Dennis, Senior Press Officer for the RAC, said of the sluggish speeds:

‘As these figures show, drivers will be lucky if they can drive anywhere approaching the national speed limit on some of England’s most congested stretches of motorway.

‘While some are notorious and seemingly permanent bottlenecks, others are likely to be caused by long-term roadworks which means drivers will have to hope that journey times will drop when they’re finally lifted.

‘Drivers tell us that they are becomingly [sic] increasingly dependent on using their cars, so it’s vital that investment in our motorway network is maintained.

‘Worryingly for drivers, we have seen evidence that some work to reduce traffic at pinch points on the motorway network has actually had the undesired effect of making congestion even worse, not better.

‘Clearly, tackling congestion on the UK’s major roads is never a quick or straightforward task, or for that matter, cheap.’

The DfT hasn’t commented because of the ‘purdah’ period leading up to the General Election but, in 2016, said ‘they were ‘making the most extensive improvements to roads since the 1970s, to make journeys faster, better and more reliable’ yet here we still are with major congestion problems on our motorways.

To compare findings, I looked back at 2017, at another in-depth study on the 10 worst British motorways for congestion and which stretches of road recorded the slowest average speed.

The telematics business Satrak (now part of Danish firm, Trackunit) collected data from over half a million (527,000) vehicles from across the whole 2,173 miles of Britain’s motorway network. They found the M25 London Orbital to have the slowest average speed of any motorway—once again, at just 25mph. Crawling along at that speed, you’d need to undergo an average of a five-hour drive to cover the 117-miles circling the capital.

Dan Walton, co-owner and founder of Satrak, said of the tortoise-like speeds of the M2:

‘It’s little surprise to find that the M25 is, in fact, the slowest motorway. We undertake work throughout the country and usually find the M25 to be the most cumbersome, and our data provides evidence for that. I’ve heard of tailbacks stretching 12 miles in my time there so it’s of little surprise to me.’

Stuck for an answer

When discussing traffic levels, frustrated motorists have a lot to say, the inevitable topic of overpopulation comes up, and a political discussion begins about the immigration policies of both the Conservative and Labour parties.

In 2018, people born outside the United Kingdom made up about 14% of the UK’s population but it’s important to remember that the world’s population is expanding as a whole and more people means the potential for more cars.

Families often owned one car in the past, while now they may own two or more—although 2012 RAC Foundation research (based on the 2011 Census) found an average of 487 cars and vans per 1,000 people.

Location-based data and analytics company, Inrix reported that, across Britain, we spent an average of 178 hours stuck in fury-inducing traffic last year. The figure rose to 22 hours—equal to over nine days—for drivers in England’s capital.

Early this year, Inrix also released study findings that claimed congestion cost our economy a massive £7.9 billion last year—an average of £1,317 per driver. Instead of us spending money or working, we’re wasting time in traffic jams, moving at a snail’s pace.

Maybe motorway speeds would ease somewhat if drivers stopped hogging the middle lane and moved over when possible?

One thing is certain—commuting on the motorway can be intolerable and many of us view it as much a factor in choosing a job as the salary.

How is your motorway commute? Do you inch along certain routes? What’s the answer to the levels of congestion? Tell us your views in the comments.

“IMG_7629” by ianholton is licensed under CC BY 2.0. 

Judging by online comments, tweets and positive support, I can’t be the only one who feels that Kent Police deserve a hearty pat on the back for dealing (appropriately) with a menace of modern motorway driving; the middle-lane road hogger.

Of course it’s not really a modern phenomenon, lane discipline has always been a contentious issue, but it does seem that driving standards are getting worse. (Or maybe I’m just getting old?). Having said that, it has become such a widespread problem, that it even has its own acronym now: MLM (Middle-lane Moron).

Furthermore, this action from the Police is a positive boon to proving that actual, real, live Police officers shouldn’t just be replaced by the ‘yellow vultures’.

3 miles of MLM

Earlier this month, Kent Police followed a motorist on a stretch of the M20 motorway between London and Folkestone, who had caught their attention by hogging the middle-lane for over three miles before being stopped, despite the motorway being clear, and relatively empty.

When stopped, he was adamant that he’d done nothing wrong, claiming that the motorway was empty, in fact, according to the tweet released by Kent Police, the driver refused to accept that it was careless driving. They issued the driver with a Traffic Offence Report (TOR) and reported him for Careless Driving, which could see a £100 fine being issued, along with three penalty points.

Admittedly, the driver wasn’t causing a nuisance as such, so perhaps some may view the penalty as a little harsh, but the reality is that this is lazy, inattentive driving, and better driver education can only happen when instances of such, are spotted.

43% of drivers admit to being a lane-hogger

In a survey that was conducted last year, 43% of respondents admitted to hogging lane two, with most of the drivers claiming that it avoids having to move out of lane when confronted with slower vehicles further down the road. That’s not a great reason.

Slightly better reasoning is that it makes them feel safer – 22% used that to justify it, but worryingly, 11% stated that as they’re driving at the maximum permissible speed limit, no one should driving faster than them, therefore, there was no need for them to pull over. Or perhaps to put it another way – they’re lazy, incompetent and likely to cause an accident.

With ever dwindling numbers of Traffic Police, it can be tempting to admonish other drivers, to make your point that they shouldn’t be doing X, Y or Z by causing an obstruction to them, but this is similar to ‘brake testing’ another driver and will likely cause further issues, be they traffic related, or even putting yourself at personal risk.

Poor driving

I loathe the fact that I have to share the roads with poor drivers – the type that thinks nothing of steering with their knees while sipping their takeaway coffee and checking emails, or that can’t understand why road markings separate different lanes, or even, the drivers that cut across a junction into the oncoming lane to save themselves an extra 0.5 seconds of time when turning right.

Our road laws and regulations have been written to accommodate these drivers; swathes of ‘National Speed Limit’ roads have been reduced to 50, or even 40 mph, we now have traffic islands (roundabouts) that include traffic lights as a permanent fixture, and even ridiculous warning such as ‘Bend in Road’ purely so as these motorists don’t do any injury to themselves, or others.

There was a time that people took pride in their driving prowess; similar to flying an aeroplane, there would be a vast knowledge of rules and etiquette, mechanical inspections were carried out when the driver felt there was a need, they understood the ‘two second’ rule (and abides by it), changing weather conditions meant altering the driving style … today though, driving and owning a car has become so easy that any MLM can do it without a second thought, and that’s the problem.

Better education

We always say that we aren’t taught to drive, but to pass our test, and that should change. Better driver educations starts from day one, and learner drivers should be taught road manners, along with roadcraft, and then (and only then) should they be allowed to put in for their test.

This would reduce such instances of lane-hogging, perhaps even increase the flow of traffic, and make driving a better, more pleasurable experience again.

Should the motorist be prosecuted for careless driving? What should happen to drivers that believe they are the law? Should we teach road manners when learning to drive? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: Screenshot from video by Zanthas