Category Archives: Motoring News

Hammersmith Flyover Now Open For Vans

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The Hammersmith flyover (on the A4 into West London) has now reopened to van traffic, with a 2.0m (6′ 6″) width restriction in place to ensure that nothing larger tries to use the bridge.

The flyover is still restricted to one lane in either direction, however, and the general traffic chaos caused by the partial closure of this arterial route continues – avoid it if at all possible.

In case you missed it, the Hammersmith flyover, which is on the A4, was closed on 23rd December 2011 when Transport for London discovered it was about to collapse… Presumably someone will get a bonus for operating such a masterful preventative maintenance strategy.

The A4 is one of the main routes into London, not least to and from Heathrow Airport. It will remain partially closed for at least four months and although it will be open during the London Olympics, it will need to be closed again afterwards to complete the repair work.

Upcoming Events: British Superbike Championships

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I was at Oliver’s Mount race track in Scarborough recently and saw some great real road motorbike and sidecar racing. I’ve been to quite a bit of motor racing over the years and have always enjoyed it – although my all-time favourite was truck racing, which I once saw at Thruxton (just west of Andover) a few years ago.

If you have never been to any motor racing before, you’ll find that most of the UK’s circuits are rural affairs, many of which were once airfields – for obvious reasons, these have converted quite well to motor racing circuits over the years and are now firmly established in UK and global motorsport calendars (Silverstone and Brands Hatch in particular).

Anyway, my appetite has been whetted for some more two-wheeled action this summer, so I took a look at the British Superbike Championship schedule for the rest of the season.

There are only four rounds remaining this year:

  • 27-29 Aug: Cadwell Park (near Louth, Lincolnshire)
  • 9-11 Sept: Donington Park (J24 M1, 6 miles south-east of Derby)
  • 23-25 Sept: Silverstone Arena (about 12 miles south of Northampton)
  • Season finale 7-9 Oct: Brands Hatch (near Swanley & Dartford)

The BSB is the premier UK motorcycle circuit racing championship and has some seriously talented riders, many of whom have ridden or will ride in the World Superbike Championships. Superbikes are highly modified versions of regular road bikes like the Honda Fireblade and Ducati 1198, so they are real enough to identify with but exotic enough to be seriously fast.

Van & Minibus Hire

If you are entering any of these races or working in any of the catering or retail stalls at the event, it is not too late to book a hire van to transport your bike or gear to the race. Similarly, if you are planning to go to the race with a group of friends, you could hire a minibus to cut down on fuel costs and enable all but one of you to enjoy a few beers with your racing!

Increase In Drivers Running Out Of Fuel On Motorways

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Fuel gauge nearing emptyIncreasing numbers of drivers are running out of fuel on the UK’s motorways as they try to avoid using motorway service are fuel prices, according to new research from Halfords.

According to the Highways Agency, 43 cars a day typically run out of fuel on major roads – sometimes in the outside lane of a motorway. One Highways Agency traffic officer has seen first hand the carnage and danger that can result from this and recently vented his frustration on a motoring website.

He revealed that in just one day, a man who ran out of fuel was killed as he attempted to cross three busy lanes to reach his stranded car, closing a motorway for four hours. Two other men were picked up from the hard shoulder attempting to walk two miles to a service station and a woman driver with two children also had to be rescued after running out of petrol.

The anonymous officer added:

“That was only a few from today. There were probably at least two-dozen others, and that’s on a Sunday, just in the North West. Personally I’d fine them heavily.”

The interesting thing is that Halford’s research has shown that the average fill up amount is still £30 – it has not risen to keep up with the 16% rise in petrol prices that we’ve seen over the last year. This means that people are putting in less fuel than they used to each time they fill up, increasing the risk of running out of it. This is not just theorising, either – Halfords has seen a 56% increase in sales of fuel cans over the last six months.

Click here to find the cheapest petrol and diesel prices in your area

If you are driving a rental van that you are not familiar with, take extra care not to push your luck with the fuel gauge – it really is not worth the hassle, even if it does result in you leaving a little extra diesel unused when you return the van to the hire company.

False Economy

It is worth noting that although petrol and diesel prices on motorways are much higher than at supermarket garages, the difference does not really matter that much if you only put a small amount in. For example, let’s say you are nearly at your destination but the fuel needle is virtually at empty.

Put in 5 litres at a motorway garage and even if it costs 10p per litre more than you usually pay, you will only pay 50p extra – the price of a Mars Bar. It’s a lot better than risking running out of fuel and five litres will probably take you another 30 miles or more, depending on your car’s fuel consumption (1 gallon is 4.54 litres, so with 5 litres you should be able to do the same number of miles your car does to the gallon).

The other thing that’s worth remembering is that none of us has perfect judgement and sometimes we do cut fuelling a bit fine – if you are on a motorway and find yourself short of fuel, put yourself in the inside lane and drive at the same speed as the lorries (56mph). This will improve your fuel consumption significantly, reducing your chances of running out of fuel before the next filling station.

Running On Empty Likely To Suck Dirt Into Your Engine

The other problem with driving a car with an almost-empty fuel tank is that most cars’ petrol tanks have a bit of gunk and dirt at the bottom. Normally, this does not cause any problems as clean fuel from above it is sucked into the fuel pump. However, if you are running on fumes, then the dregs of your tank – dirt and all – will be sucked into your engine’s fuel system, increasing the chance of a problem or breakdown.

Bill Collins, Technical Manager at Halfords Autocentres, explains:

“Leaving fill ups until the warning light is glowing not only leaves you at risk of being stranded but of also damaging your engine. Most fuel tanks contain some contaminants and these are at risk of being ingested if the tank is allowed to run dry. Blocked fuel pipes, damaged injectors and burnt out fuel pumps can lead to unnecessary repair bills, with modern diesel engines being most vulnerable.”

The Highways Agency standard fee for recovering cars that have run out of fuel on the motorway is £170. It’s a bit more than the £1 or £2 extra you might spend if you fill up properly before you set off on your journey.

16% Of Drivers Think Amber Means Green

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Traffic light at amberA new survey by Thrifty Car & Van Rental has found that 38% of drivers rarely stop at amber lights while 16% treat amber traffic lights as if they were green – and drive straight through with no intention of trying to stop.

A massive 80% of those surveyed admitted that they did sometimes try to run amber lights, despite the fact that failure to stop at an amber light is an offence, unless it is unsafe to do so. According to Thrifty’s survey, the worst offenders are in Chelmsford, followed by Leeds, Coventry, Liverpool and Brighton.

This survey reminds me of something I was once told in a presentation by a traffic police officer. You may have noticed that not all amber lights are the same length – I often notice that on motorway roundabouts, the amber period is much shorter than at town centre lights, for example.

Apparently, amber periods have been lengthened over the years to try and improve safety. Unfortunately, this seems to have had the side effect of encouraging people to drive through amber lights because there is such a long pause before the lights go to red.

Anyone who has driven on the continent will have noticed that in most European countries, traffic lights often go from green to red almost instantly, with minimal amber periods. This makes it almost impossible to run an amber light – you will almost certainly end up driving through the red light, instead. This does seem a good idea to me, as does another continental idea, that of flashing amber lights in all directions at quiet times.

This is an idea the Department for Transport has been looking into, although so far has not decided to adopt. What happens is that at quiet times, all the traffic lights at a junction will flash amber, warning drivers that they can proceed but must take care to ensure that nothing is coming the other way. This is similar to what happens when a set of traffic lights stops working in the UK – people still manage to get across the junction – often faster than usual, in my experience. The only time that traffic lights really seem to help is at very busy junctions, where gridlock would result without them.

Rise In Drink Driving Following Spending Cuts

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The number of positive or refused* breath tests administered to drivers by UK police has risen by 8% this year, according to the latest figures released by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). This coincides with a massive cut in government funding for anti-drink drive campaigns – funding has been reduced from £3.4m in 2009/10 to just £550,000 in the current financial year.

The latest figures relate to June’s summer drink driving campaign, during which a total of 88,629 drivers were breathalysed by police. Of the drivers tested, 6.06% (5,373) tested positive – a similar figure to the UK figures in the recent Europe-wide TISPOL crackdown, which also took place during June.

These figures are bad enough, but what is worse is that the anti drink-drive message seems to be failing to reach younger drivers. The number of drivers aged under 25 who tested positive in June was 15% higher than in June 2010 – more than double the overall increase in positive tests.

Breath testing is standard procedure for drivers who have been involved in collisions that are attended by police, and the number of positive tests following collisions was 11.27% higher than in June 2010. The total number of accidents recorded was 16% higher than in June 2010, highlighting the link between drink driving and collisions and showing that a cut in anti-drink drive campaign spending could well result in a far higher costs.

It is worth emphasising that the UK blood alcohol limit of 0.08% is one of the highest drink-drive limits in the western world. As far as I know, all other European countries have lower limits – Ireland, one of the few other countries with a limit of 0.08%, is lowering its limit to 0.05% later this year, to bring it into line with most other European countries.

Just to recap, the UK drink drive limit can be expressed in three ways, all of which are equivalent:

  • 0.08% blood alcohol level
  • 80 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood
  • 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath (this is the measure used by police breathalysers)

Cutting spending on anti-drink drive campaigning is likely to prove a terrible false economy. The human and monetary cost to families, businesses and the emergency services is almost certain to far exceed a few million pounds saved by the government.

If you are hiring a van to drive to Europe, remember that most European countries have a lower limit than the UK and in Scandinavian countries the limit is virtually zero.

*Drivers only refuse a breath test when they are expect it will be highly positive and would rather take the penalty for refusing a test than reveal how drunk they are. Refusing a breath test is an offence, the penalties are similar to those for drink driving.

One Million Drivers Breathalysed in European Police Crackdown

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Almost one million drivers were stopped and tested for drink and drugs offences in the latest Europe-wide crackdown on drink and drug driving by TISPOL, the European Traffic Police Network.

The crackdown ran for one week from June 6th – 12th and twenty-eight countries took part, including countries from outside the EU such as Switzerland and Norway.

In the UK, just 19,064 drivers were stopped but 1,053 (5.5%) of these were found to be over the alcohol limit and 278 (1.5%) were found to be committing drugs offences.

Here are the figures for the UK and some of our immediate European neighbours. It is hard to read too much into these figures, as we don’t know whether each police force used the same criteria to decide how to stop and test drivers. On the other hand, they all prove clearly that drink and drug driving remains a serious issue in Europe:

  • UK: 19,064 stopped, 1,053 (5.5%) alcohol offences & 278 drug offences
  • Germany: 77,311 stopped, 1,056 (1.4%) alcohol offences & 497 drug offences
  • France: 143,146 stopped, 3,386 (2.4%) alcohol offences & 377 drug offences
  • Spain: 114,846 stopped, 2,370 (2.1%) alcohol offences & 1 drug offence
  • Netherlands: 19,864 stopped, 264 (1.3%) alcohol offences & 0 drug offences
  • Ireland: 1,538 stopped, 205 (13.3%) alcohol offences & 9 drug offences

It’s interesting to note how many more people were stopped in Germany, France and Spain than in the UK, despite these countries having similar-sized populations to the UK. The larger sample sizes may suggest more random stops than the UK – which might explain why their alcohol offence levels were so much lower. On the other hand, perhaps more Brits drink-drive…

Equally, in the Netherlands, almost exactly the same number of drivers were stopped, but British police found four times as many drivers over the alcohol limit as the Dutch police. Are British drivers really four times more likely to drink drive, or were the British police stops more targeted and less random than those of the Dutch police?

It’s impossible to read too much into these figures except that to note that drink driving especially remains a significant problem throughout Europe. The Irish contribution does deserve some comment, however – Irish police only managed to stop 1,538 people, of whom 205 (13%) were over the drink-drive limit. Wow – either the Irish police are amazingly good at targeted stops or Irish drivers have a drinking problem…

Driving Abroad? Alcohol Limits Are Often Lower Than UK

One thing that these figures don’t show is that many countries have lower blood alcohol limits for driving than the UK. Norway, for example, has a limit of 0.02% blood alcohol content – just a quarter of the UK’s generous 0.08% limit. (The UK’s limit is one of the highest in the world – only a handful of other countries have limits as high as 0.08%.)

Similarly, most other EU countries have a limit of 0.05% – Germany, France and Spain, for example.

If you are driving a van (or car) abroad, make sure you are prepared and know the local rules before you go and always err on the side of caution. Missing out on a few drinks is a lot easier than dealing with the consequences of being over the limit. Remember, if you are in an collision anywhere in Europe and the police are called, you will usually be breathalysed as part of standard procedure, even if the collision was not your fault.

The AA’s website has an excellent country-specific guide to driving in Europe – click here.

Shell FuelSave Three Months On – What’s Changed?

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Back in July, I wrote an article announcing the launch of Shell FuelSave petrol and diesel – two new fuels that would replace Shell’s regular unleaded and diesel throughout the UK. I’d been to the press launch and the piece I wrote was fairly positive, I thought.

What I didn’t expect was to be met by a barrage of negative comments from drivers who felt that using FuelSave fuels had caused problems with their cars. My original article on FuelSave has had more comments than any other on this site – 65 comments, at the last count. Somehow, this website became the focus for anyone who thought they were having car problems caused by FuelSave petrol or diesel.

It has now been more than three months since FuelSave was launched and I hope that the dust has now settled. It is clear that the vast majority of people who use the fuel do not experience problems – given the size of Shell’s forecourt network, if lots of drivers were having problems it would have hit the mainstream news by now (remember the contaminated supermarket fuel fiasco a few years ago?)

Does anyone still feel that their car is being affected by FuelSave? If you are a regular Shell customer, have you noticed any change in fuel consumption?

(I’d only expect to see a small improvement at best, as even Shell’s best-case claimed figure of 1 litre per 50 litres only equates to a 2% improvement – the equivalent of going from 40mpg to 40.8mpg. However, anyone who does a lot of driving might have noticed a slight change, especially if your car has a computer that calculates fuel consumption.)

I would be very interested to hear anything at all about people’s experience with FuelSave – whether good, bad or indifferent.

To get in touch, just leave a comment below this post or on my original FuelSave post.

High-Mileage Vans Prompt Review of MOT Testing System

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Changes to the current MOT testing requirements for vans could be introduced over the next few years, following the announcement by the government of a review of all vehicle testing requirements.

One of the government’s main concerns is that low-mileage, well-maintained cars are tested too often, while high-mileage vans are tested too little, relative to the mileage they cover.

The current rules require all Class 4 and Class 7 (vans between 3t and 3.5t) vehicles to be tested annually after they reach three years old. However, high-mileage vans can have annual mileages in excess of 50,000 miles; such a van will have covered more than 150,000 miles by the time its first MOT test comes round. Until that time, there are no rules in place to ensure that such vehicles are monitored for safety issues.

I don’t believe there are inherent safety risks in high mileage vans, as long as they are properly maintained. However, it’s clear that many vans are not being properly maintained – unpublished DVLA figures obtained by Fleet News show that the first-time MOT failure rate for Class 7 vans (vans with a gross weight of between 3,000kg and 3,500kg)  reached 50% in the 2009/10 financial year*. This does seem to suggest that some van operators are not taking enough care with maintenance.

The obvious solution to this problem would be to introduce annual MOT testing from new for Class 7 vehicles. This would be in line with the regulations for lorries, buses and coaches. Whether this would help reduce accident numbers – the ultimate goal of MOT testing – is another question.

*Source – Fleet News

New Shell FuelSave Fuels Promise Improved Efficiency

Shell has just launched two new fuels to replace its standard (regular) pump fuels. Shell FuelSave Unleaded and FuelSave Diesel contain new ingredients that promise to provide fuel savings of 1 litre per 50 litre fill up (the marketing is aimed at family car drivers!).

The new fuels have been in development for five years and will replace regular unleaded, regular diesel and Diesel Extra at all Shell filling stations in the UK. Pricing will be exactly the same as the old fuels. This isn’t a premium fuel – the V-Power lineup will continue unchanged – it’s a normal fuel for normal drivers to use in all types of petrol and diesel vehicles.

Obviously the diesel fuel will be most relevant to van drivers, but for anyone who is interested, here is the technical story behind the new fuels.

FuelSave Diesel

Diesel engines are around 30% efficient – that is, 30% of the energy created by burning the fuel is used to drive the vehicle forwards. The rest is wasted in the form of heat, noise and so on.

Shell’s scientists identified irregular injector spray and slow ignition as two key factors affecting diesel engine efficiency. Shell’s existing diesel already contained detergents to help prevent dirty injectors (and hence irregular spray patterns) but what is new in FuelSave Diesel is an “Efficiency Improver” that increases the speed of fuel ignition. Shell claims that this improves combustion efficiency and helps reduce fuel consumption.

FuelSave Unleaded

As anyone who has driven both petrol and diesel-engined vehicles in winter will know, the heaters in petrol-engined vehicles always warm up faster than those in diesels. The reason for this is that petrol engines are even more inefficient than diesels – just 20%-25% of the energy created when the petrol is combusted gets turned into forward motion – petrol engines get hotter, faster, than diesels.

When it came to improving the efficiency of petrol engines, Shell’s scientists identified a different area to target – lubrication. They found that the top of the cylinder and the piston heads were often inconsistently coated with oil – resulting in greater friction. The solution they came up with was focused on improving the lubrication of the piston rings. The new unleaded formula contains a lubrication agent that coats the top of the pistons when fuel is injected into the cylinders, reducing friction and thus improving combustion efficiency.

Does It Work?

Shell has had extensive independent testing done on its new FuelSave fuels and claims that they work from the first tankfull, saving up to 1 litre of fuel per 50 litre fill. I’m going to try and test this out for myself with my Transit but it could be difficult to work out a way of doing it scientifically enough – I don’t have an accurate way of measuring fuel used (other than by brimming the tank) or the ability to drain the tank of one fuel and refill it with another. If I do manage to reach any conclusions, you can be sure I’ll post them here.

In the meantime, if you try FuelSave Diesel or Unleaded and reach any conclusions of your own, leave a comment below – I’d be really interested to hear from you. Remember that if you fill up at a Shell station from Wednesday 21st July, you’ll be filling up with FuelSave (unless you use V-Power).

Shell is also running a competition for drivers to win a year’s supply of FuelSave fuel – sorry, this has now closed.

UK & Ireland To Join Forces On Driving Bans

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From today, UK and Irish drivers who are banned from driving in each others’ countries will also be banned from driving in their home countries. For example, a UK driver who receives a ban in Ireland will now also be banned from driving in the UK.

The move is the first stage of a deal to implement the terms of the 1998 European Convention on Driving Disqualifications and should, in theory, eventually extend across the EU. I suspect that might take quite a few more years…

Source: Simple Motoring