Category - General

I’ve recently mentioned several situations where one of the following is true:

• start petition because test centre is scheduled to close
• start petition because scheduled test centre closure has now happened
• start petition because test centre closed down several years ago, and since one of the others appeared to get somewhere, we might too
• there is no real evidence that the test centre is closing, but we haven’t got much on so let’s start a petition anyway

Now there’s another one up in Cumbria (perilously close to Scotland, where a lot of the other unrest seems to be centred). Please note an updated story from the same source, which quotes the same instructors saying the same things – but which also adds something from the DSA.

The story here appears to be that the Theory Test facility is transferring from Workington, Cumbria, to Carlisle. The distance between these two locations is about 30 miles. As the report says, a maximum of 80 people a week take their theory tests in Workington – that isn’t many, and having no more than 16 people a day doing the test is hardly a sound justification for keeping open a facility which has an overhead which must run into quite a few tens of thousands when you consider the staffing and IT costs. But the main beef is simply – as the report puts it – that:

The cost-cutting move has sparked suspicion that practical driving tests will also be moved next year.

Now, it’s worth noting the DSA’s response to this:

The DSA relies for income on the fees we receive from our customers so we have a duty to spend that money responsibly while maintaining a good level of service.

There are no plans to withdraw the practical test service from Workington. However, maintaining a theory test centre in Workington is simply not cost-effective so we plan to close the centre at the end of August. Candidates from Workington will be able to use the existing theory test centre in Carlisle.

It couldn’t be clearer, could it? Not unless you’re an ADI (cars OR motorcycles, if you read the articles), of course, in which case it is as clear as mud.

Some cleverdick has had his calculator out and argues that 80 tests a week at £31 a time equals around £124,000 a year. Maybe for his next trick, he’d like to try using the minus key to subtract the salaries of the staff used to administer tests, those used to maintain the computers (whether on-site or otherwise), building rent and overheads, and so on. Without knowing the exact figures, I wouldn’t be surprised if the costs are greater than the turnover – BECAUSE 80 TESTS A WEEK ISN’T MANY.

They’ve already got the local MP on the case. As we all know, the job of the local MP is to take up any case – no matter how pointless – to show that he cares.

If only he also understood.

This is a bit of a rehash of something that comes around every year or so, but it still makes interesting reading in Fleet News.

A survey by Autoglass (the article marks this with an asterisk, but doesn’t appear to include the footnote to explain why) says that 76% of motorists say they haven’t read the Highway Code since they passed their tests, 21% say they regularly break the HC, and 68% say they break it now and again. Around 40% reckon they break 30mph speed limits, 9% don’t indicate, 5% admit to using mobiles (utter bollocks – it’s more like 50%), and 4% jump red lights.

But 62% rated themselves as “good” and 22% rated themselves as “excellent”.

Not missing a chance to push the hype to ever higher limits, the Conservative-controlled Lincoln City Council has been boasting how it is using an electric car to ferry staff to and from meetings. The story has escaped captivity and is also meandering through the (local) media.

The car in question is the Smart Fortwo (electric version).

They must have very long meetings in the Lincoln Council (and all in the morning), because the electric Fortwo has a quoted range of only 84 miles (which means more like 50 miles in reality). It takes the standard 8 hours to recharge fully, although you can charge it to 80% in “only” 3 hours.

Rob Smith from the City of Lincoln Council said: “This will give our staff an insight into the benefits of driving an electric car and as an organisation, it will give us an idea of whether or not an electric fleet would be beneficial for the council.”

If anyone is so dim as to still be in doubt about the drawbacks of a sub-100 mile range per charge, and the necessary wait until it is charged (just imagine sitting on a garage forecourt for 3 hours next time you fill up – that should help), then I’m sure this trial will enlighten them. Mind you, I expect the behind-the-scenes charging will be kept away from them while they are “busy” in their meetings.

When I looked it up in Car magazine I saw the first mention of what happens when you do anything other than drive the things under perfect test conditions (or if anthing other than a Cray supercomputer is operating the controls). You see, the Fortwo electric also boasts a 0-37mph time which can be measured using an hourglass rather than a stopwatch:

The go-slower gibe isn’t entirely genuine, since electric motors develop maximum torque from 0rpm and this thing leaves the line like a stabbed rat, thereafter smearing slightly more languidly to 37mph in a quoted 6.5 seconds and on to a governed 62mph. Only thing is, such performance requires the use of a kickdown function which boosts maximum power from 20 to 30 kW for up to two minutes, sending the power reserve meter into a rate of decline on a par with pushing an anvil off a cliff.

So basically, what this is saying is that if you want to go a bit faster the quoted maximum range is likely to fall substantially. This leaves you with the choice of forcing other motorists to wait for another traffic light change (and letting them pump out more greenhouse gases), or run the risk of the power giving out in the middle of a junction if you’re a bit low on juice – and you will be even when it is fully charged.

All this is is a pointless (and expensive) publicity-generating stunt involving the Lincoln Council, Lincoln University, and Cenex (“the UK’s Centre of Excellence for low carbon and fuel cell technology”).

All the higher primates can already see that this is not going to replace petrol- and diesel-driven vehicles – and particularly not with a Fortwo, which is slower and more restricted than just about every other electric car out there.

And it’s also only a two-seater.

Back in February, I mentioned that Tesco appeared to be entering the used car market because it had registered the domain name tescocars.com.

Well, according to this story they’ve now launched their website. You can link to the Tesco Car site here (or click the logo on the left) – it looks quite slick.

I reckon there will be a lot of news coming through about this when the media gets hold of it. The story suggests that dealers will be uneasy over this as Tesco has such a large customer base, and one which trusts the brand. Tesco already does finance, insurance, and breakdown cover, so these provide another pull for people looking for a car.

Precisely what Tesco is doing from a practical point of view isn’t totally clear, but someone has suggested it is not actually holding stocks of cars but acting as an agent for ex-fleet sales.

Sometimes, you read a report that you just couldn’t make up. This is so sick that it can’t be an April Fools story.

The Digital Journal reports on the death of a young woman due to the dangerous driving of Luke Burdakay. But get this:

[Burdakay]… has only 15 per cent vision [he is registered blind], has never had any driving lessons or held a driving licence but, in February he took off in his mother’s car after an argument. He was driving on the wrong side of the B1083 when he struck the car being driven by 20-year-old Laureen Hammond, who was on her way to work at a seniors’ home.

It never ceases to amaze me that people like this exist. They shouldn’t, but they do.

The impact tore the side off of the car and the young woman was thrown to the road, even though she had been wearing a seatbelt. The car then burst into flames.

Burdakay, who is 19, has been sentenced to 12 years in a young offenders institution. But when he committed this act, he was:

• in breach of court bail
• in breach of a curfew
• took the vehicle without permission
• was 1½ times the legal drink-drive limit
• didn’t stop
• hit another vehicle
• admitted attempted robbery at a fish shop earlier this year whilst wearing a balaclava and wielding a meat cleaver

Se what I mean about not being able to make it up? And you can bet he’ll be out in a few years, ready to push his pathetic existence to new lows.

In the meantime, Laureen Hammond is gone forever.

This story from etyres claims that over 40% of UK motorists are driving on illegal tyres. It blames the recession – people are trying to save money.

As anyone who can answer the Show Me Tell Me questions (required for the driving test) will know, the specification for tyres is that they should have a minimum of 1.6mm tread across the central ¾ breadth of the tyre, and all around the edges. Plus the tyre should have no cuts or bulges in the side walls.

Garages will sometimes refuse to MoT a car which has less than 3-4mm of tread on any of its tyres, because there is probably less than a year’s worth of wear left on it (and that’s what most manufacturers recommend as the minimum anyway). On top of that, scientific evidence shows that low tread results in longer stopping distances and increased skidding risk – particularly in the wet.

Over half of those who were driving on illegal tyres blamed the cost.

The “research” is rather superficial – although etyres is a bona fide site, the “research” was carried out by MyVoucherCodes. Hardly the kind of company you’d expect to be expert on tyres. For example, we don’t know how many people were driving around on illegal tyres before the recession – chances are it was similar, because the “hotspots” for illegal use are Manchester and Hull, and those are place which have always been associated with questionable driving habits (if Police! Camera! Action! and all those other cop shows are to be believed).

Also, the survey was carried out among 1,491 people from 10 locations – when you consider that there are 17 million cars registered in the UK (and substantially more than 10 large metropolitan areas, even if Hull isn’t one of them), then the survey was carried out on a tiny and highly skewed sample (a mere 0.009%) of the total population!

I suspect most people haven’t got a clue what the tyre tread depth specification is. Quite a few won’t even know that tyres wear out.

It’s obviously a problem, but how much of a growing problem is unclear.