Category Archives: Motoring News

Essex Police Pay Out £40,000 Due to Misfuelling

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Essex Police have paid out £40,000 in repairs costs over the last five years due to officers filling up diesel-powered police vehicles with petrol.

To save this happening again, the force have now invested £4,000 on misfuelling prevention equipment that should prevent further misfuelling incidents.

I’ve talked about the cost of misfuelling before and back in August misfuelling prevention company DDN scored an impressive £250,000 investment on Dragons’ Den with their MPD (Misfuelling Prevention Device).

I’m not sure whether this is the device that Essex police have used – but when faced with a repair bill like this, preventative measures certainly make good sense.

P&O Ferry Offer: Dover-Calais from £24 Return & Free Wine!

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If you are planning a trip over to France before Christmas then this special offer from P&O Ferries should be right up your street. Whether you want to stock up on cheap wine or gorge on culture and French cooking, this offer represents remarkably good value.

Day trip returns (1 car and up to 9 passengers) are available from £24 including taxes and passengers will also get 6 free bottles of Kumala Red or White wine thrown in as well (over 18s only, I expect).

To ensure you don’t go hungry, P&O are also running a Buy One Get One Free offer on main meals during this time as well – meaning that you can get either breakfast or a main meal for half price if two of you are travelling.

To get an online quote or book now, click here.

This offer is valid for all bookings made before 1st December 2008 for travel before 18th December 2008.

Don’t Get Stressed, Get Cool: Tips For The Road

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The 5th November was National Stress Awareness Day, it seems. Whoever decided it should be the same day as Bonfire Night clearly had a sense of humour, anyway…

Funny coincidences notwithstanding, those good people at Europcar have produced a guide to help you avoid the perils of driving-related stress – of which there are many.

Here’s a run down of their best advice. In all seriousness, I would heartily endorse most of this. Road rage and its offspring are extremely dangerous, not to mention bad for your blood pressure. Although written for cars, these tips apply just as much to driving vans – which are bigger, heavier and require correspondingly more car than cars.

So sit back, knock 5mph off your speed, put some decent tunes on and chill out. You’ll get there happier and safer and probably just as fast. You’ll also save money on fuel:

  • Ensure you’ve had adequate rest before setting off on your journey – and that everyone has gone to the loo!  There’s nothing worse than getting caught short.
  • Don’t exceed the speed limit and notice how much calmer you feel
  • Ensure your seating position is comfortable
  • Turn off your phone – then you won’t be tempted to answer it if it rings
  • Work out your route, as getting lost will increase the risk of stress. Europcar offers Sat Nav units to rent from all its branches
  • Department for Transport advise driver to take a 15-minute break every two hours on a long journey
  • Say thank you and apologise if you make a mistake
  • Sing along to favourite songs or listen to an audio book
  • Consider renting a larger car for long journeys to give everyone room

Breathing and relaxation in a traffic jam:

  • Inhale through your nose for a count of five, then exhale for a count of eight. Stretch your hands out in front of you with fingers interlaced and palms facing outward. Hold the stretch for five seconds
  • Curl your toes and tighten for a count of 10. Release
  • Flex your foot (arching toes upward) and hold for a count of 10. Release and extend feet, hold for 10 and release.
  • Move up through your body tensing each area for 10 and then releasing.
  • When you reach the hands, tense and release, first with fingers splayed outward and extended, then with the hands balled into a fist.
  • Scrunch face and then release. Prepare for funny looks from other drivers

Drivers Still Shunning Seatbelts – and Dying

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In 2007, 34% of the 1,432 people killed in car crashes were not wearing a seatbelt, according to government research.

In other words, around a third of drivers who are killed in crashes aren’t wearing a seatbelt.

According to the Department for Transport, nearly 300 lives would probably have been saved by wearing a seatbelt in 2007. You are twice as likely to die in a crash if you are not wearing a seatbelt.

Just in case you are not convinced, here’s the latest TV advert from the Department for Transport’s Think! seatbelt safety campaign. You may not want to watch this if you are eating:

According to the Institute of Advanced Motorists, seatbelt wearing rates are lower among young drivers than older drivers. That means that young drivers (who have grown up with seatbelts always being required) are deliberately deciding that they don’t need to bother.

This is madness.

The need to be wearing a seatbelt will come out of the blue. It may be your fault, it may be the other driver’s – but you cannot possibly guarantee to avoid it.

As Neil Greg, of the IAM says, “When you wear a seatbelt you ‘switch on’ three decades of engineering research and allow your car to give you the full protection it was designed to deliver. It is probably the single most important safety feature in a modern car.”

The fact that seatbelts are required by law is almost incidental – they are such a powerful safety feature that to decide not to use your seatbelt is just incredibly stupid. And selfish.

Seatbelts can make the difference between being killed and walking away from a crash.

What else matters?

UK Fuel Prices Falling – Diesel Down 9p/litre From July

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Good news for drivers – fuel prices are still falling.

According to FleetNews.co.uk, the average UK diesel price is down almost 9p per litre from late July. Here are the figures:

Diesel (UK average):

17th September 2008: 124.2p/litre

23rd July 2008: 133.2p/litre

Premium Unleaded (UK average):

17th September 2008: 112.9p/litre

23rd July 208: 119.5p/litre

For more figures and detailed regional breakdowns of current and past fuel prices, click here to visit the Fuel Prices section of the Fleet News website.

Misfuelling Prevention Dragon Style – DDN Scores Record Investment

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Misfuelling – putting petrol into a diesel vehicle – is a surprisingly common mistake. According to the RAC, more than 50,000 of its members alone managed to fill up with the wrong fuel in 2007.

The consequences can be very expensive, so it’s no surprise that the automotive business has started trying to reduce the ease with which misfuelling can take place. One of the companies leading the way is DDN Ltd, the manufacturer of the Misfuelling Prevention Device.

DDN appeared on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den on the 4th August and were very successful; they secured an investment of £250,000 – the largest investment ever made on the program!

This just highlights the potential size and scale of the market for a product that prevents misfuelling. At a unit cost of around £50 for fleets, it’s a lot cheaper than having to call out a mechanic to drain a vehicle’s fuel system and refuel it – not to mention repairing the possible damage if the vehicle has been driven after misfuelling.

I originally wrote about DDN’s Misfuelling Prevention Device back in March. It claims to be idiot-proof to fit and to use and can be put in place in seconds. It’s already proving a big hit with fleet buyers and is now available to retail buyers from DDN’s rather spiffing new website.

It’s seems a great idea for owners of vehicles that typically have multiple drivers. Amongst obvious potential target buyers are car and van hire companies, families with multiple petrol and diesel vehicles, company fleets and the emergency services – who are already trialling the MPD.

I suspect that there will come a time, in a few years, when misfuelling prevention devices are factory-fitted to most new diesel vehicles. However, there are currently a huge number of unprotected diesel vehicles on the road and that number is continuing to grow day by day – so congratulations to DDN for seizing the moment and coming up with a great product.

To learn more about the DDN Misfuelling Prevention Device, click here to visit their website.

Click here to see DDN’s appearance in the Dragons’ Den again.

P.S. If anyone from DDN reads this, I would love to do an illustrated review of fitting and using the MPD with my 2001 Ford Transit – just drop me a line!

Here’s Why Increasing Road Tax Won’t Decrease CO2 Emissions

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I live in the centre of a medium-sized town. I can walk, in 5 or so minutes, to a daily market, a wide variety of shops and several takeaways and restaurants.

Needless to say, I don’t drive very much when I am at home.

Many of my neighbours, on the other hand, take a rather different view. I routinely see them driving to places I can walk to in just a few minutes – often going out and returning within 10 minutes.

Aside from being just plain lazy, there are a number of more serious downsides to using a vehicle in this way, as highlighted by some new research published this week by the IAM:

  • The first two miles of a journey can use double the usual amount of fuel, thanks to a cold engine and inefficient urban driving.
  • Repeated cold starts and short journeys cause disproportionate wear and tear to a vehicle, as it never warms up properly

Even if we accept the reality that most people don’t really care that much about the environment, there is a serious cost aspect to this (the main reason I don’t do it…).

You might think that the situation gets better once out on the open road, but there’s more bad news here, too:

  • Under-inflated tires – a common sight, despite 20% under-inflation causing a 3% increase in fuel consumption and poor handling
  • Unused roof racks and boxes – up to 20% more fuel at motorway speeds
  • Aggressive driving – up to 15% more fuel used
  • Speeding – driving at 80mph can use 15% more fuel than driving at 70mph

Everything I have described above is fairly commonplace. Yet all of that extra fuel means that the advantages of owning a car with low CO2 emissions are completely wasted, as CO2 emissions rise when fuel consumption rises.

According to the Institute of Advanced Motorists, driving in the manner I’ve described above can mean that even small, low-emission cars like the Ford Focus ECOnetic can end up spewing out as much CO2 as well-driven larger cars, like the Ford Galaxy.

And when driving a larger vehicle – like a lorry – the cost implications can run into £’000s each year, as highlighted by this report from RoadTransport.com.

It kind of makes a nonsense of different VED (road tax) rates, doesn’t it? Maybe road tax should just be scrapped. It might be much fairer for the cost of our road usage to be based on the amount of fuel we use – and we already pay enough tax on fuel, don’t we?

Mercedes-Benz Announces Turbo Strategy To Reduce Emissions

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In my recent article “Record Diesel Prices – Will Car Drivers Move Back to Petrol“, I suggested that the current vogue for diesel cars of all sizes might be nearing an end. The premium price diesel vehicles command when new and the increased price gap between petrol and diesel mean that drivers need to do quite high mileages before diesels (with their better fuel economy) pay for themselves.

Just a couple of days later, I noticed this news release from Mercedes-Benz announcing that by 2010, all of its engines will be turbo-charged. It doesn’t specifically mention petrol engines, but since all Mercedes’ new diesel engines are already turbo-charged, this must be a reference to its petrol engines, many of which are still rather large and not turbo-charged.

Although most obviously of relevance to luxury car drivers, this is an interesting indicator of the way the market looks likely to go. I can easily see the same technology being applied to small, low-payload vans. Smaller, turbo-charged petrol engines – of the kind Saab have been using for years – offer comparable performance to larger, normally-aspirated engines and have lower emission ratings.

Reducing CO2 emissions, of course, is the primary motivator for Mercedes’ decision. Ever-tightening EU emissions rules mean that regular reductions will be required for manufacturers to escape fines in the years to come.

I look forward to seeing how different manufacturers meet this challenge.

Fuel Duty Increase Postponed – Duty Lower in Real Terms Than 1999

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The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that the 2p increase in road fuel duty planned for October will be postponed indefinitely. Fuel duty will remain at 50.35p per litre for the forseeable future.

Motorists have welcomed the move but commented that it is something of a drop in the ocean – with fuel prices already up 22.5% since the beginning of this year.

The Chancellor Alistair Darling, on the other hand, was keen to point out that fuel duty is actually 17% lower in ‘real terms’ – i.e. taking into account inflation – than it was in 1999.

Darling said that by postponing the increase in fuel duty the government was helping “motorists and businesses get through what is a difficult time for everyone.”

More interesting to me is the news that oil prices have started to fall a little – could they have peaked? Watch this space.

Record Diesel Prices – Will Car Drivers Move Back To Petrol?

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While all fuel prices have risen over the last year, none have leaped skywards with more enthusiasm than diesel prices. The average price of diesel reached 132.7 pence per litre at the end of June – a whopping 22.5% higher than at the beginning of 2008.

The reason for this is that only a certain percentage of crude oil can be refined into diesel – and in the European market, demand has grown so that pretty much all available diesel is being used. One of the reasons for this, of course, is the surge in popularity of diesel cars in recent years.

While lorry, bus and van operators have little choice but to choose diesel vehicles, it’s only over the last 3-5 years that diesel has achieved such remarkable popularity as a fuel for cars. Modern common-rail diesel engines offer strong performance and excellent fuel economy – meaning that despite a purchase price premium, many car owners have made the change.

Sentiment in the industry now seems to be suggesting that this trend might be about to reverse, however. The cost of diesel fuel is so much higher than petrol that only true high-mileage car drivers will save money by driving diesels. In addition, diesel cars typically still cost more to buy and maintain than their petrol counterparts – meaning that for many car owners, they simply don’t make financial sense anymore.

This could be good news for companies such as Audi, who have continued to develop new petrol engines offering reduced emissions and improved performance. Such engines are an obvious replacement for turbo-diesels, as are hybrids. These, however, are still more expensive than regular petrol-engined cars to buy.