Check that Car - News and Views

N E W S &

V I E W S

Drivers with speeding
points aren't more dangerous says Safe Speed

Research commissioned by 8 midlands camera partnerships, published today, claims
that drivers with speeding points are more crash involved.

Safe speed points out that many insurance companies - working from comprehensive
data - disagree. They do not load the premiums of drivers with speeding points.

That isn't the only problem with the claims.

• Although the claim is being made that there has been some correction for
'risk exposure' (obviously drivers who do higher mileages are more exposed to
the risk of crashes and more exposed to the risk of speeding convictions) we have
no confidence that the correction has been carried out properly. After all, for
an insurance company, you would think that speeding convictions would function
as an exposure proxy. Because of the greater exposure we DO expect those with
more convictions to be more crash involved. But if many insurance companies are
not even finding that effect, then it seems likely that mile for mile, those with
speeding convictions are LESS likely to be crash involved.

• If speeding convictions made drivers safer, then we should expect the opposite
effect to that claimed. Convicted drivers should have become safer. If convicted
drivers are more crash involved then clearly the system isn't working to make
the roads safer.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign (www.safespeed.org.uk)
said: "I believe that this research is nonsense, strongly influenced by pre-conceptions
and vested interests. Speed cameras do not identify risky drivers nor do they
make our roads safer."

"It's junk science, and junk science makes our roads more dangerous because it
tends to cause life-saving resources to be misallocated. This is the
fundamental reason that speed cameras have proved to be a road safety disaster
.
Everyone - drivers, police, highways authorities and many road safety groups -
are expending resources on the wrong safety factor. Had those same resources been
allocated efficiently, we would now be down to around 2,000 road deaths per year.
We're over 1,000 lives a year behind schedule and I am certain that speed cameras
are at the centre of the problem."

"Our speed cameras are all in the wrong places - they should be in the scrap yard."

Speeding Fines

The last audited 12 month period is the 2003/04 financial year that ended on 31 March 2004.
The total fine receipts for speeding and red light offences detected by fixed and mobile cameras was £113,549,240.
Of this amount, £91,848,844 was reinvested in road safety as payments back to the partnerships including the police, local highway authorities and magistrates’courts who operate within the safety camera programme.
The amount retained by the Treasury was £21,700,396 which is the difference

Radio mast in Liverpool has been blamed for immobilising luxury cars. Mercedes and Lexus have had their cars immobilised and alarms set off. The mobile phone company denies that the mast is the problem but its only in the vicinity of the mast that the problems arise.

STORIES IN THE HEADLINES FROM THE UK
Subject: Safe Driving Aid - Side Mirrors Adjustment
Some of the most serious preventable accidents occur because of blind
spots while driving! Now there is a remarkable simple solution
discovered by an engineer named George Platter. He presented his
method at the prestigious Society of Automotive Engineers.
The National Safety Council tested his theory and discovered, to their
amazement, that it works! The method has been fully endorsed by the
National Safety Council as described in their September/October issue
of Traffic Safety. Here’s how it works.
First, forget how we learned to adjust our outside mirrors by
plopping behind the steering wheel and turning the mirrors so that we
just saw the side of our car looking back at us in the mirrors.
Instead, adjust the driver’s side mirror by resting your head against the driver’s side window and then turning the mirror so that you just see the side of your car.
Once this is set, move to the center of the vehicle and turn the
passenger side mirror so that you can just see the side of your car
from the center of the vehicle.
That’s it. You won’t see your own car in either mirror, yet what you will see is far better. Cars behind you show up as usual in the inside rear-view mirror above the dash, but the instant the car leaves your field of vision from the rear-view mirror the outside mirror picks it up. No blind spot; no delays; no wondering where that car about to pass you has disappeared to, and no waiting a few seconds for the car that you just saw in your
rear-view mirror to show up in your outside mirrors.
All three mirrors work in harmony with one another, and the blind spot has been eliminated!

PARKING PROBLEM: A motorist sued a would-be suicide who jumped out of a building and landed on his car. Driver Chung Kai-chiu filed a court claim demanding HK$25,700 ($3,300) for a new car. But the woman who jumped argues that she shouldn’t have to pay-because the car was illegally parked. "I have lived in that building for 10-odd years and I know very well there was no parking space on that street. The car was illegally parked there," she told a court. The case was adjourned until April, the South China Morning Post reported. The judge urged the pair to settle the case-not out of sympathy for the woman who jumped, but because she had no money

The owner of a Landrover was fined 1345 pounds for parking for 4 minutes on private land in Huddersfield

A wheel clamper while busy clamping some poor soul in Stafford got a parking ticket

Lamb stew: The M50 in Gloucester was shut after a lorry crashed on a bridge and spilt sheep carcasses on to the carriageway

Birthday bash: Scottish socialite Lady Morton, from Edinburgh, crashed for the first time in 70 years in a Nissan Micra just given to her as a surprise 100th birthday gift

Lots to offer: Fed up at not being able to park outside her house, Edith Murphy of Birstall, Leicestershire, paid £202,000 for land which was made into a 70-space free car park

Pucker prize: A fireman from Chelmsford, Essex, won a Mercedes in a contest to see who could kiss an A-class the longest. Keith Flynn smootched with it for two days!

THIS WEEKS BEST OF THE MOTORING NEWS & VIEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

MALAYSIA Baffled motorist booked for driving at 480mph
A Malaysian motorist has been booked for apparently speeding at 480mph in his car
The 59-year-old is considering mounting a legal challenge as his Toyota only has a top speed of 100mph. Traffic police insist the measurement is accurate.

NEW ZEALAND: A Palmerston man was caught driving at twice the legal drink limit - after beeping his horn in fun at police

FRANCE: Brief council has put plastic owls in trees to scare away ather birds after residents’ cars were covered in droppings

GERMANY: A bungling Berlin thief got trapped in a Porsche he had planned to steal

AUSTRALIA: Sydney art student Janet Archer is offering to paint nudes on car hub-caps for £10 to help pay for driving lessons

SPAIN: A sign on a crushed motor outside a Madrid supermarket reminds able-bodied drivers not to park in disabled bays!

BEST OF THE PREVIOUS WEEKS

Short cut: An 87-year-old spent 30 hours on the road after getting lost during a drive to a local hairdressers, said Somerset Police

Driving range: Andrew Watt, 15, won a Land Rover Freelander in a golf tournament - but the Dorset schoolboy is of course too young to drive it!

Taking liberties: A spy camera on the A12 in Essex used to track drivers for a Government survey has been ditched following a barrage of protests from civil liberty groups

Expensive lesson: It took George Francis 11 years and £7500 to pass his driving test. But after five weks the Suffolk-based driver has been banned for a year after crashing his Peugeot 307 following "a bit of sherry"

NORWAY: A three-year-old boy from Ramstad drove his mum’s car 300 metres home after she’d left the keys in the lock.

HUNGARY: Police had to take the bus to the scene of a bank robbery in Pecs when their patrol car ran out of petrol.By the time the officers arrived, the crooks had got away!

GERMANY: During his sermon Catholic priest Hans Muller appealed for the sinner who had dented his beloved BMW - parked outside the church - to confess.No one did.

NEW ZEALAND: A woman reversed into her neighbours house trying to park her car.The 89-year-old then crashed into her own garage at a retirement village in Levin.

USA: A Californian who sat in the middle of the road to protest at police towing away his vehicle was run over by a stolen car!!

GERMANY: Hans Acker’s stolen Mitsubishi FTO was returned valeted by thieves in Hamburg - presumably to remove fingerprints.

SINGAPORE: Fifty city taxies are being fitted with screens on their roofs which flash the latest news headlines to pedestrians.

HOLLAND: Stuntman Piet Maas crashed over a cliff near Enschede while filming a road safety commercial. He escaped uninjured.

AUSTRALIA: Geelong Police are hunting a prankster who wallpapered a motorist’s Ford Escort, leaving scratches all over the paintwork.

BHUTAN: A man waiting in his car on the Himalayan state’s main road was charged by a bull.The animal’s horns smashed the Hyundai’s wing and ripped off the door morror.

Houston, USA : A thief who stopped to ask an off-duty cop for directions was arrested : He was driving the officers car which had been stolen earlier in the day !

Ghent, BELGIUM : A local baker has sculptured a statue of a child’s head out of roadside rubbish in protest at speeding drivers.

Hamburg, GERMANY : The local police chief initiated a competition to select the most considerate drivers - then found the winner was driving whilst banned !

Manila, PHILIPPINES : Two motorists ended up in hospital after a dispute over a parking space turned into a vicious knife-fight.

Sign of the times : Residents have put up home-made speed camera signs in Haughton, Staffs., because, they say, their local council refused to pay for the real thing !

Shelter shambles : A £5,000 bus shelter was built on a route that no longer has buses. The 208 service through Thurcroft, South Yorks, was axed 10 days before the shelter went up.

GERMANY : Farmers in Kempten are being threatened with prosecution for negligence after two motor-cyclists skidded on cow pats in the road -

SOMALIA : Following years of political instability, a Government department has issued the first proper car registration for a decade to a driver in the capital, Mogadishu.

THAILAND : After being run over by an HGV, a turtle has been fitted with a fibreglass shell which will fall off when its own regrows !!

USA : Onlookers did not get rich quick when a security van crashed in Virginia scattering coins on the road.The shaken driver stood guard with a gun until police arrived.

GERMANY : Kladen garage boss Hans Muller was so angry when a driver fled without paying for fuel that he chased the thief for more than 200 miles to get the cash.

HOLLAND : Motorists in Oosteroult race past speed cameras at night with their number plates covered. A Police spokesperson said: " It’s spy camera terrorism ! "

SPAIN : Traffic cop Emondo Ramirez has been suspended for blowing his whistle too enthusiastically after residents in Granada complained about the incessant din.

MALAYSIA : Two women were banned from taking driving tests in Penang because officials said their clothes were too tight !!

DEL BOY RIDES AGAIN ! : The Reliant Robin is making a comeback.Les Collier, who runs a fibreglass comany based in Suffolk, has bought the rights to the car and plans to launch five new models. The cars will cost from around £10k and he hopes to make and sell around 250 cars a year at his factory in Beccles.

STEAK & KIDNEY ASTON : A car salesman discovered there’s no such thing as a free lunchwhen his meal cost him the price of a limited edition Aston Martin DB7.He was duped by a bogus buyer into stopping for pub grub while test driving the £64k model in Glasgow recently.The thief excused himself from the table and drove off while the hapless salesman finished his lunch !

A FRESH APPROACH : Police in Fife have unveiled an initiative that urges motorists to report suspected drink-drivers.Officers will be handing out air-fresheners with Crimestoppers’ telephone number printed on them.The scheme is to be introduced right across the county if successful.

007 PAY DAY : James Bond’s moon buggy from the film ’Diamends Are Forever’ is up for auction.It’s expected to fetch more than the £157k paid for the Aston Martin DB5 that featured in the ’GoldenEye’ movie.

CREDIT BOOM REACHES BENTLEY: Bentley has advertised credit sales for the first time this week, for a trifling £1750.00 a month plus(in very small print) £52k deposit & final payment of £67k !!

IDEA OF THE WEEK : Motorists who used to speed through the village of Orsett, Essex, at 80mph are keeping to the limit after residents built a scarecrow policeman, with fluorescent jacket, hat and imitation gun -

INCENTIVE OF THE WEEK : A waitress was delighted when she thought she had won a ’Toyota’ as a top-selling employee of the Hooters restaurant in Panama City, Florida -She was led blindfold into the car park to receive her prize, which turned out to be a ’toy Yoda’, a character from Star Wars.She did not enjoy the joke and is now suing the resaurant !

ON THE ROAD AGAIN : A legendary name in British sports-car history returns as the first of a new generation of Jensens roll off the Liverpool production line this week : The 160mph Jensen S-V8 follows in the tracks of the late, lamented 1970’s Interceptor models.

WHAT PRICE A ROLLS-ROYCE CHAUFFEUR : Chaffeur Parker proved at an auction of Thunderbirds memorabilia that value has nothing to do with breeding - While the puppet of his mistress, the hoity-toity Lady Penelope, went for £16,000, proletariate puppet Parker was snatched up by a Japanese businessman for £38,000 !

RACIEST DRIVERS OF THE WEEK : A survey by Yell.com has found that six in ten drivers of Volvo cars have enjoyed intimate relations in their robust vehicles - bringing a whole new meaning to the term safe sex - -

ROYAL RENAULT : The Queen carried out a Royal visit on a Channel Island in a borrowed Scenic.Alderney lacks a car ferry, so her Rolls-Royce was left on the mainland - We wonder if Renault will be applying for a Royal Warrant, there’s a spare one from Harrods knocking around !!

ROUND THE BEND : A brand new cycle lane which cost £11,000 is to be removed after bikers complained it isn’t straight enough.Workmen painted the new path around bins and signs in Sheerness, Kent.