In January of this year, the UK Government was issued a ‘final warning’ from the European Commission about the poor levels of air quality – it was found that there were repeated breaches of the limits in 16 different areas, with Birmingham and Leeds consistently among the worst areas. The fines for such breaches could total in the region of £60 million.

As a response to that, there are plans for two new congestion charging schemes to come into force on the 1st January 2020, which could see some vehicles paying as much as £100 per day to enter the city centres.

Clean air zones

Both Birmingham and Leeds city councils are looking to introduce schemes similar to London’s ULEZ (Ultra-Low Emission Zones) in a bid to tackling the ‘crisis-level’ air pollution found in the cities. Only vehicles that meet Euro 4 for unleaded (generally manufactured after 2006) or Euro 6 for diesel (2015 onwards) would be exempt from the charge, although it’s thought that Leeds will only target the commercial vehicles such as taxis, buses and HGVs, whereas Birmingham will look to the private motorist also.

A spokesman for Birmingham City Council stated that the charge wasn’t about making money, that all surplus would go back into the city’s transport budget, and that this was purely as a measure to tackling city-wide pollution levels. The charge will cover every single road within the city centre, aside from the A4540 middle ring road; a perfect way to create a congestion zone.

Birmingham council’s own analysis into air quality found that the high pollution levels were responsible for shortening the lives of at least 900 residents.

A different route for Leeds

Leeds City Council will also be introducing a congestion charge, but amidst the plans, they have also stated that their end goal is to make the air breathable (rather than financial gain), so they’ll be looking to support businesses running HGVs or coaches with grants of up to £19,000 to retrofit emission reducing tech, equally, taxi drivers will be eligible for funding of up to £3,000 to help them swap over to electric or hybrid power.

Further still, the initial plan to charge £100 per day for the most polluting vehicles has been halved to just £50, and the restricted zone has also been reduced – this seems a genuine plan to try and address the issue of air quality, rather than penalise the motorist – they won’t be charging private motorists to enter the city.

There’s also talk of alternative measures such as ‘no idling’ zones outside schools and having car-free days within the city centre.

The bigger picture

Whilst the plans still need to be approved by Parliament, you’d say it was a rather safe bet that this will be happening on the proposed date in January 2020, and the question is – will this be extended to other areas?

Birmingham council runs under the West Midlands Combined Authority, which also controls Coventry, surely the next step is to roll the plan out to the extended reaches of the authority? Just as London is widening their ULEZ zone for 2021, taking in all of inner London, Birmingham will look to incorporate the surrounding cities as part of the ‘tackling pollution’ strategy.

Coventry City Council are under heavy criticism for the treatment of motorists as it is, with official bodies such as the Traffic Penalty Tribunal branding them “delusional, reminiscent of King Canute” in respect to parking restrictions, which have earned the council over £1.5 million. Will this be the Golden Egg for the council?

What about you?

Although still over a year away, the plans to introduce a congestion charging zone, Clean Air Zone, ULEZ, T-Charge or any other form of penalty to the motorist will have a very real effect on many of us. A great deal of families already monitor their spending closely as a result of increasing fuel costs, and paying a further £10 per day to enter a city centre isn’t going to make things easier.

Naturally, being in a city centre means there are good public transport links, but that’s still further cost, and if the taxi/bus/coach companies are adding an extra £100/day to their overhead, that cost will simply be passed on to the consumer, or it will force the taxi drivers out of town.

Adding a congestion charge to enter a city will simply push consumer prices upwards – imagine a small logistics company that has just ten HGVs delivering to a city centre, that’s £1,000/day or £365,000 per year increase in overhead – this is no longer just about the motorist, this is the UKs economy.

Can you think of better ways to reduce air pollution? Will a £10 charge prohibit you from entering a city centre? What sort of effect do you think this will have on the consumer economy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Not only do potholes cause damage to our vehicles, but they can, and do, cause accidents, either from drivers hitting the potholes themselves or swerving to avoid them.

A Sunday Mirror investigation has now revealed the 10 worst places in Britain for potholes and they say road quality is better in Chile, Oman and Peru after freezing weather at the end of February resulted in even further damage to our roads.

Most affected roads in England

Mellor Brook Bypass, in Balderstone, Lancashire topped the list as the worst offender, with 545 pothole complaints made. The second most affected road, bringing in 216 complaints, was Seven Hills Road, in Elmbridge, Surrey, and the A345 in Wiltshire took third place for the number of reports made for potholes, with 208 complaints.

Top 10 worst roads for potholes

1. Mellor Brook Bypass, Balderstone, Lancashire – 545 complaints
2. Seven Hills Road, Elmbridge, Surrey – 216 complaints
3. A345 in Wiltshire – 208 complaints
4. Selsfield Road, West Hoathly, West Sussex – 200 complaints
5. Main Road, Moulton, Cheshire – 185 complaints
6. A595 in Cumbria – 171 complaints
7. Attercliffe Road in Sheffield – 169 complaints
8. A38 Kingsbury Road in Birmingham – 169 complaints
9. Richmord Avenue, Telford, Shropshire – 168 complaints
10. The road from West Serstone to Down St Mary in Devon – 162 complaints

Before the Sunday Mail’s research, Asphalt Industry Alliance said 24,500 miles of local roads will shut for repairs in the next year – and it will take at least 14 years to get rid of the backlog, costing £9.3billion.

The Government had planned to spend £296m from the Pothole Action Fund between 2016 and 2021 — enough to cover repairs for around six million potholes — but after the harsh winter weather earlier this year; the government increased it by £100m.

A national disgrace

In the first four months of 2018, The Automobile Association (AA) received more insurance claims due to potholes than in the whole of 2017 and say they’re rescuing record numbers of drivers whose tyres or wheels get damaged by potholes.

Janet Connor, Director of Insurance for the AA, said: “This year we are seeing a growing number of pothole claims described as: ‘car severely damaged and un-driveable’ which didn’t happen at all last year.

“Even the Secretary of State for Transport, who in March announced £100million funding to be sunk into road repairs, admitted we haven’t spent enough on the country’s roads since the 1980s.

“That fund is welcome but no-where near enough. The pothole epidemic has become nothing short of a national disgrace.”

According to the AA, average repair bills are £1,000, adding up to £4.2million, from drivers damaging their bodywork, axles, steering, suspension, tyres, and underbodies, with motorists losing control and having collisions.

They say typical pothole damage involves one or two tyres and sometimes a wheel rim and the damage doesn’t justify drivers having to pay the excess on a policy and lose their no-claims bonus or risk a price increase upon renewal. Due to this, most drivers cover the costs themselves and don’t make a claim.

Councillor Martin Tett, of the Local Government ­Association (LGA), said: “Only long-term, consistent and fairer investment in local roads can let councils embark on the improvements so desperately needed.”

He said the LGA has asked the Government to reinvest two pence per litre of existing fuel duty, to generate £1billion a year for councils to use for repairing local roads and to fill potholes.

Drivers aren’t the only victims of potholes. The Department for Transport figures show, between 2007 and 2016, 22 cyclists dying and 368 receiving serious injuries, due to accidents involving defective road surfaces.

Action after hitting a pothole

You must decide for yourself whether to put in a claim to your council for pothole damage. In the short-term, it puts councils under financial pressure and uses the taxpayers’ money, but if the public doesn’t make claims, roads may not get repaired when they should.

One member of the public hit the headlines this month after he contacted a council chief about damages he incurred from hitting a pothole.

Claimant, Jonathan Symms, received a response to his email to Sir Richard Leese explaining that due to the council making compensation payments for pothole damage, it was taking away resources they could spend on vital road repairs.

Sir Richard said, in an email to Mr Symms that, “The idea that councils have to take responsibility for every bit of people’s activity can’t be right – or the fact council services, including the limited money we have to repair roads, should be put at risk.”

If a member of the public makes a report of a pothole or the council discover one during road inspections and you hit the pothole before it’s repaired, you’re within your rights to seek compensation but, according to Government guidelines introduced in October 2016, potholes 40mm or below don’t qualify.

If your vehicle had a pre-existing problem, and the pothole made this worse, you can still claim but you won’t get the full repair costs back.

Local authorities aren’t liable to pay out on claims if they weren’t aware of the pothole beforehand, i.e., nobody had reported it to them and road inspections missed it. By law, councils have to carry out road inspections and repairs. So, if your claim gets rejected you can ask to see details of the council’s road inspection reports and try for a reclaim.

If you hit a pothole, pull over as soon as it’s safe and check for any damage to your wheels and tyres and, if safe to do so, take notes of the whereabouts of the pothole and photographs, too — include something in the photo to show scale, such as your foot. If you have witnesses, try to collect their contact details.

Even if you don’t spot immediate damage, listen for vibrations and watch for your steering wheel not centring, or the car pulling to one side. If any of these things occur, have your vehicle checked by a garage as soon as possible and ask your mechanic to put any findings in writing. Don’t ignore tracking or steering damage as both can be dangerous and expensive.

Get several quotes for repair work and keep every quote, invoice, and receipt if you’re intending to make a claim. Even if you’re not intending to make a claim, report the pothole to your council. Contact Highways England about potholes on motorways and A roads.

What condition are the roads where you live? Have you encountered damage to your vehicle because of a pothole? Did you make a claim to your council? Do you think the public should make claims for pothole damage? Let us know in the comments.

Roadworks are an unfortunate but necessary part of modern life; traffic volume has increased to record levels year-on-year – estimates say that we travelled 324.3 billion miles last year, and building future-proof infrastructure all adds up to the £4.3 billion cost to the UK’s economy.

We’ve discussed lane rental schemes before, but a new report by Ecorys, working in conjunction with the government, has suggested that these schemes are working, and could significantly cut down on roadwork delays – by as much as three days.

However, a separate report estimates that the time to clear the carriageway maintenance backlog would be fourteen years, and with more than half of any local authority’s maintenance budget spent on structural maintenance, our road network isn’t going to improve anytime soon.

More councils to adopt

Currently, around 65% of all UK authorities use a permit scheme for contractors; the contractor applies for the permit as part of the tendering process, and this could cost as much as £2,500 per day for the permit, but operating at off-peak times would reduce that cost, and there is the added incentive to finish sooner.

As we spoke about before, lane rental schemes are being adopted alongside the permit scheme, so contractors who work during peak times can be charged for use of the lane or very busy road, to encourage after-hours work or during quieter times to ease disruption.

Roads Minister, Jesse Norman has said that permit schemes such as this have been proven to cut down on the time taken for the works, meaning fewer disruptions and a reduced burden on the economy, the government will be encouraging the last 35% of local authorities to introduce such schemes in a bid to lessen the disruption to the motorist. Plans are also being looked at to encourage the contractors to work under pavements rather than roads, in a further bid to keep the country moving.

Conflict of interest

Despite the Government telling us that these new permit schemes will reduce overall roadwork congestion, there does seem to be a conflict of interest that hasn’t yet been cleared up.

Currently, road repairs/maintenance and improvements are covered through a combination of Government money, street or highways authority, this accounts for around 55% of all roadworks. Any further works such as a utility company wanting to lay new pipes/cables will be subject to the permit; about 45% of all roadworks.

Third-party contractors working on behalf of the authority may not be subject to the permits, meaning there will be no discernible improvement, and should the Government insist on all contractors (including those sub-contracting to the authority) being part of the permit scheme, this will surely mean an increase in road-repair cost, which is of course, tax-payer funded.

Roadworks – the scourge of modern society

Since 2015, there has been a 21% increase (average) in roadworks, and at least one third of all car journeys are affected by them, so it comes as no surprise that the Government are trying to ease congestion, along with the permit scheme, there is talk of raising the speed limit through roadworks from 50 mph to 60 mph and limiting the length of motorway works.

This can only be good news for the motorist, but both of these planned measures aren’t without drawbacks; around 20% of roadworkers have suffered an injury whilst at work, with 54% reporting near misses with vehicles, and the cost to continually prepare, setup and breakdown roadworks is phenomenal – widening a 51-mile stretch of the M6 costs around £1,000 per inch currently, an increase in setup costs could double that figure.

Avoiding roadworks

Over 100 billion vehicle miles are affected by roadworks, and when you’re stuck in them, it feels like you’re in them for exactly that length, but there are a number of resources that can help you figure out where roadworks are happening or planned to happen, some even give you estimated time of delay.

If it’s a daily commute, you’ll know where they are, possibly how to avoid them, and what extra time to allow for, but if you’re planning on heading somewhere new, you should look at sites such as roadworks.org for up to the minute information. Alternatively, many navigation systems have this feature built-in, but learning to trust it can be a new experience.

Despite the raft of new ideas or legislation, traffic is on the increase – motorway traffic alone has increased 44.1% in the last 20 years and is set to rise a further 2% each year, this means that road maintenance or upgrading will be a constant process, perhaps learning to live with traffic is the only viable solution.

According to studies from GoCompare, the average motorist spent 31 hours stuck in traffic in 2017. Cutting down the roadworks would greatly help to reduce this number and help free up time for other things, like spending time with family.

How long does your daily commute take? Can you see a better way of speeding up road repairs? Would you pay extra to have a roadwork-free journey to work? Let us know in the comments.

Cambridge County Council has announced they are building a new £1 million roundabout that gives the right of way to pedestrians and cyclists and placed drivers as the lowest priority at a junction. The roundabout will be located on Fendon Road and Queen Edith’s Way and is aimed to improve safety, with the work beginning next year. However, most drivers around the Cambridgeshire area are apprehensive about the change.

Improving safety

The council were given £550,000 from the Department for Transport (DfT) towards the project with a further £250,000 being contributed from developers. The funding is part of a new £7 million allocated for the 2018-19 Cycle City Ambition Safety program which Cambridge is one of seven cities to be participating – others including Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, and Norwich.

For the Cambridgeshire side of the scheme, only those within the Greater Cambridge cycle city area were eligible for consideration. This particular roundabout was chosen as there have been 14 cyclist car collisions in recent years. 67 per cent of respondents to a survey said cycling and walking improvements were needed on Queen Edith’s Way, with 32% reporting they felt unsafe cycling there, 7% very unsafe; while 24% felt safe, and 5% very safe.

Dutch style roundabout

The bicycle-friendly roundabout is also known as the Dutch roundabout as it was in Holland that the idea was first implemented. The idea is that the most vulnerable people on the road – pedestrian and cyclists – prefer roundabouts over intersections with signals and this led to the reconstruction of many intersections in Holland to become roundabouts.

One of the key factors of the roundabout style is that the carriageway width is reduced to make for slower approach and departure speeds, meaning drivers go slower while approaching and being on the roundabout.
There is an allowance for larger or longer vehicles to use the over-runnable strip in the middle of the road where needed.

Pedestrians have zebra crossings at each of the roundabout entry/exit arms, and there will be cycle paths with contrasting red tarmac to give them equal priority with people on foot.

Reaction to the change

Rebecca Ashton head of driver behaviour at IAM RoadSmart welcomed the move and said that a Dutch-style roundabout separates vehicles from vulnerable road users and this was a benefit for the people of Cambridge. She added that it would be interesting to see how it benefits all road users and if they might be worth trying in other areas of the country.

Drivers were a little less enthusiastic about the concept. Some pointed out the complicated design of the roundabouts that could possibly lead to accidents. More people were keen for the council to spend money improving the overall road network rather than focusing solely on the Dutch style roundabout idea.

Ian Bates, Chair of the Economy and Environment Committee for the local council said that the council was excited to have the funding for the project. It would be a first not only for Cambridge, but for the UK that would ‘improve the experience for everyone using the roundabout’ by increasing the room for safe travel.

One interesting idea against the concept argues that cyclists cause pollution – by causing vehicles to sit idling at the side of the road while waiting for them to pass. Lord Robert Winston restated the idea earlier this year in which he said that Dutch-style roundabouts led to more pollution, meaning cars took longer to complete a journey and at slower speeds. This is often said to cause more pollution and lead to worse engine efficiency.

Cycling centre

Cambridge is often known as the cycling centre of the UK with as many as one in four people using a bike to travel to work, the highest rate in the country. There are some 80 miles of bike lanes with many routes connecting to surrounding areas. The railway station has room for around 3,000 bikes to be parked.

In spring, there are around 20,000 people who ride across the River Cam daily while in autumn, the number of cyclists entering or leaving the city is approximately 7,000 a day. And the busiest roads see about 4,000 cyclists a day using them. The relatively flat land of the city and the cycle network makes it a top place for leisure and work travel by bike.

More to come

It seems the idea of a Dutch-style roundabout won’t remain one that is exclusive to Cambridge either. Southwark Council has announced their first Dutch-style roundabout which will be finished in April 2019 between Fountain Drive and Sydenham Hill. Currently, the spot has two roundabouts following each other but no real facilities for pedestrians or cyclists. The new design will solve this problem.

Campaigners hope that by making roundabouts more cyclist and pedestrian friendly, more people will start walking or riding around the city areas. This will have benefits for their health and also cut down the number of cars on the road, reducing pollution and congestion. Whether the new design of roundabout will help with this or create new problems only time will tell.

Have you encountered a Dutch-style roundabout while driving on the continent? Do you think the move will help or hinder overall road traffic? Do you think this will help cyclists on roads? Let us know below

A recent study has revealed that car manufacturers are still massaging their emissions figures, and whilst that may not be the most shocking news you’ll hear today, the extent of the cheating could be; it was found that some cars are as much as 63% down on their claimed mpg figures.

The findings are made worse when you consider that these figures specifically relate to vehicles bought for their green credentials – hybrids.

Just one in 39 hybrid models currently available actually achieves the manufacturers claimed mpg, although on average, a typical hybrid will return around 70% of the claimed figure.

The Volkswagen fallout

The buying public really first found out about emissions cheating as a result of the Volkswagen scandal in 2015, and although trade insiders widely understand that it was happening on a regular basis, with many of the manufacturers, it seems that Volkswagen paid the price.

The reason why the Volkswagen scandal was so detrimental to the brand was that they had set out to deliberately cheat on emissions testing – going so far as to having software that reacted to an emission testing situation, whereas for many of the other manufacturers, it was purely down to the vehicle being tested in absolute optimal conditions; the results were the same but achieved differently.

The ‘dieselgate’ scandal with Volkswagen led to new legislation being introduced – Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (similar to the existing tests, but faster and more dynamic – using a range of engine loads/speeds, gearchanges and temperatures) and the Real Driving Emissions (RDE) which involves driving a vehicle on open roads, including motorways and urban areas for 90 minutes, both tests should see a significant improvement in the truth regarding claimed emissions.

Why hybrids?

From the 1st September 2018, all new vehicles will have undergone the WLTP testing, and the RDE testing will come into effect on the 1st September 2019 – this should stop the wild exaggerations of manufacturers, in the meantime, however, there is still the matter of 63% less fuel economy for some hybrids.

The study by HonestJohn is based upon 148,000 real-world fuel tests, and whilst it was expected that the regular diesel and unleaded figures would be different to the claimed manufacturer figures, the surprising truth was that they were closer to manufacturer figures than the hybrids; one hybrid in particular was achieving just 36.9% of the manufacturers claimed figures – 49.63 mpg against a claim of 134.5 mpg, at the opposite end of the scale, the closest was still nearly 16% down on the manufacturers figure.

Further legislation

The UK Government has recently passed further legislation targeting manufacturers who deliberately set-out to cheat the emissions testing, but we should make it clear – this is targeting the makers that fit a ‘defeat device’ (such as Volkswagen did) to beat the testing; this won’t target those manufacturers whose numbers are on the generous side through optimising their testing – laboratory conditions, static load, set temperature, constant speed – these are currently still accepted methods for testing.

Transport Minister Jesse Norman says that some manufacturers are “dishonest and deplorable” and that the new regulations (which come in to power on 1st July 2018) will ensure that any brand caught cheating will be made to pay financially and legally – as much as £50,000 per car that’s been found to have a device fitted.

This is possibly too little, too late, especially if the RDE and WLTP testing legislation works as they should.

What does this mean for the motorist?

If you’ve bought a hybrid specifically for the purpose of saving fuel & money, you’re probably all too aware that it’s not achieving anything like it should – the number one selling plug-in hybrid is the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, by our reckoning, 10,000 miles should cost in the region of £354 in fuel, but readjusting that figure from the results of the study, it’s closer to £833.

If you’re currently looking to purchase a hybrid, our advice would be to wait until September at the very least – manufacturers should be using the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure then, which in theory means that any claimed figures will be a little closer to reality, but if time is of the essence, you should research the models fuel consumption before signing on the dotted line – don’t take the manufacturers word for it.

The top five least accurate figures are:

1. Mercedes-Benz C-Class C350e – achieves 36.9% of the claimed 134.5 mpg
2. BMW 3 Series 330e – achieves 37.2% of the claimed 134.5 mpg
3. Volkswagen Golf GTE – achieves 38.1% of the claimed 166.3 mpg
4. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV – achieves 42.5% of the claimed 166.0 mpg
5. BMW 2 Series Active Tourer 225xe – achieves 56.4% of the claimed 141.2 mpg

And the best:

1. Lexus GS450h – achieves 84.2% of the claimed 45.6 mpg
2. Toyota RAV4 Hybrid 2WD – achieves 79.3% of the claimed 57.6 mpg
3. Toyota Yaris 1.5 VVT-I Hybrid – achieves 77.9% of the claimed 91.2 mpg
4. Kia Niro 1.6 GDI Hybrid – achieves 77.4% of the claimed 74.3 mpg
5. Toyota C-HR 1.8 Hybrid – achieves 77.2% of the claimed 74.3 mpg

Do you own a hybrid? Do you feel that the report is accurate? Have you been surprised at just how IN-accurate the fuel consumption figures are? Let us know in the comments.