In part one we began to look at some of the ways in which you can keep yourself and other road users safe during the cold winter months and the festive season. Driving at night is never fun, but we gave you several tips to help you to feel safer and more confident on journeys after dark. The festive season often means busier roads and more congestion than usual; we gave you a few helpful tips to avoid road rage and get to your destination safely. Continue reading
It may only be October, but with just less than nine weeks until Christmas it’s time to start preparing for the festive season. No, we’re not talking about buying gifts and planning parties; we’re talking about how to keep yourself, your family, and other road users safe on the roads this Christmas. Continue reading
Peugeot Hybrid Air launched at Geneva
One of the most interesting unveilings at this year’s Geneva Motor Show was the new Peugeot Hybrid Air – a car that promises to really shake things up in the automotive industry.
While the Hybrid Air doesn’t run entirely on air (it’s actually coupled with a petrol engine), Peugeot say that their new compressed air hybrid is set to overtake its electric-powered rivals, like the Toyota Prius, when it gets its official release in 2016.
Peugeot claim their new car is ‘an innovative full-hybrid gasoline solution. An important step towards the 21/100 km car by 2020’. And looking at some of the figures, it’s easy to see why they’re so excited about it.
With no need to include an electric motor, or find space for a lithium-ion battery, the car will be cheaper to buy (estimates are currently around the £17,000 mark), and it’ll also create extra savings with an impressive fuel economy of about 81 miles per gallon.
Peugeot also say their new hybrid is capable of achieving a 45% saving in consumption in city driving, and offer a 90% increase in range when compared to conventional engines.
You can read more about how the innovative new hybrid engine works on Peugeot’s website, where they give a more detailed account about its inner workings and projected fuel savings.
Is driving getting cheaper?
To reach the proposed target of CO2 emissions, the European Commission has recently proposed a new 95g/km CO2 limit in a bid to reach an overall CO2 reduction of 60% by 2050.
While the limit is set to increase the price of a new car purchase by approximately £860, research conducted by Cambridge Econometrics and Ricardo-AEA (a leading international energy and environmental company) has shown that motorists could stand to recover this £860 in less than three years.
The new CO2 limit actually increases fuel economy by 25%, which would allow for savings of roughly £350 each year in fuel. This would mean that, over the course of a car’s serviceable life, the average motorist could save up to £3,300.
The new proposed CO2 limit might be good news for motorists, but we wonder about how the manufacturers will fare, and what effect the proposed limit could have on the automotive market.
Looking for a space?
It’s been used in a number of American cities for a while now, but the Parker app – an award-winning application that allows you to quickly spot vacant parking spaces – is being trialled by Manchester City Council.
The app works by utilising sensors which are placed in the parking spaces themselves, so that once a car moves off, the user is then alerted that a space as become available. And the Parker app also comes with the added bonus of being able to tell you where you parked, just in case you managed to forget – which happens to us all at some point!
With its complicated one-way system, Manchester city centre has always been difficult to navigate – and motorists slowing to a near standstill to check for parking spaces on every corner has only made things worse.
We’ll have to wait 6 months to see how successful the app is in reducing congestion, but we guarantee that there will be other local authorities keeping a close watch on its development.
Find out more about the Parker app.
Would you pass your test if you retook it today? Back in 2009 Kia Motors UK conducted an experiment. In a bid to raise awareness of driving standards they challenged experienced drivers to retake their driving tests to see how they would fare. Only 50% of them passed.
We might occasionally find ourselves falling prey to the occasional poor driving habit – but are we aware of just how many bad habits we’ve managed to acquire since we first passed our tests?
In our own bid to raise awareness of driving standards, here at WeBuyAnyDamagedCar we’ve put together a list of 7 of the very worst driving habits to fall into. So take note – how many of them are you guilty of?
1. Speeding
Speeding is the most common bad driving habit that people get into – and we’re pretty sure that drivers that haven’t gone over the speed limit at some point in their driving lives are in the minority.
The penalties for speeding vary greatly. If you’re caught, you’ll normally receive 3 points on your licence and a £60 fine, or you could face a court summons – and if you’re caught speeding in excess of 45% of the speed limit, you could risk an instant driving ban, which could last up to 120 days.
But speeding might not be intentional in all cases… We’re not quite sure how they managed it, but according to the Think Road Safety Annual Survey 2008, 43% of motorists couldn’t identify the national speed limit sign when they were shown it.
2. Not signalling
You probably won’t have noticed yourself doing this one at all. Failing to indicate seems to creep up on us slowly over the years. The longer it is that a driver has been on the roads, the more they seem to think that other motorists know instinctively where they’re going, and which turns they’re going to make.
Unfortunately this isn’t the case.
3. Texting, calling or changing music
