TOPS NEWS – September 2005
After 46 years, the penalty for feeding parking meters in
London’s Westminster has been scrapped.
Motorists may return within the stipulated 2-4 hours and top-up payment
without incurring the previous £100 fine.
BMW is planning to build the first ‘baby’ Rolls-Royce in the
hope of boosting sales. Price £160,000. In 2004 only 800 Rolls-Royce were sold.
A Californian company has converted two Toyota Priuses to
get 276 mpg on lithium ion batteries.
Police arrested two men after stopping a truck loaded with
cars purchased by Brazil's biggest bank robbers. Police also found one million
reais (local currency) hidden in car seats.
China Bicycle, the largest
bike exporter and manufacturer of 3 million bikes p.a. has gone into
bankruptcy. In Beijing, 1,000 new cars
take to the streets each day.
Scottish Widows has been fined
£430,000 for installing speed humps on an industrial estate in Croydon where a
garage repairing high performance cars claimed they could not get in or out.
A criminal investigation has been launched by the US Justice
Department over allegations that in recent years Mercedes-Benz's senior
executives may have been aware of bribes being paid to officials in countries
around the world.
Colin Southwell was fined £100 for driving his van
in a bus lane at 9.47 a.m. and £100 for staying too long at a meter at 9.48
a.m.
In 2004 fifty-nine policemen were caught speeding in police cars
without flashing blue lights in Derbyshire.
They were not fined.
The number of people killed on the UK’s road last year
was 3221 - the lowest figure since records began in 1926.
Paul Charters who helps decide where speed cameras should be placed has
been fined for careless driving.
Two RAC call centres at Darlington and Morecambeare to be closed with a loss of
330 jobs.
In London 146,000 vehicles were immobilised in 2003/4 - a 43% rise over the
previous year which generated £9m in fines.
Smart cars and sometimes Mini Coopers driving through a safari park
in Merseyside have been chased by confused lions who think they are prey
because of their size.
Giles Donovan had his Mercedes towed away after his resident’s parking
permit was covered up by an advertising flier.
He had to pay £225 to release it.
The Labour government has dropped its toll scheme for
foreign lorries using UK roads.
The country’s favourite road is the B3306 in Cornwall between St
Just and St Ives. 2nd is the
A592 in the Lake District and 3rd the A817 near Loch Lomond in
Scotland.
It is an offence to leave a motor vehicle unattended
with its engine running, but new proposed rules will penalise any stationary
vehicle with its engine running, even with a driver or passenger, including
lorries unloading etc.
Under Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002, cars
can be seized if they are being driven “anti-socially”. This includes excessive
speeding. 71 warning notices have been
issued since last summer. If the car is
impounded owners are charged £105 to get their vehicle back – it can be crushed
after 21 days if the fine is not paid.
Government discussions continue over the possibility of
charging every driver a variable fee per mile travelled. At the same time they are having talks about
raising train prices during peak times.
And - the government is funding a £1.9m study for cars to have their
speed controlled by a computer (ISA) which would apply the brakes. The driver could override the system but the
computer would measure how frequently that was done. ISA could become compulsory in buses and taxis and in cars where
drivers persistently break the limit.
Commercial versions are also being developed.
The Home Office has issued figures showing that
collisions involving police vehicles are running at more than 50 per day or
18,000+ per year.
It is an offence to run out of fuel in Germany and
Spain. People who wear glasses must
carry a spare pair in Spain. In
Luxembourg it is compulsory to flash your headlights before overtaking and
illegal to use the horn at night in Cyprus.
In France’s main cities 4x4s left parked on the roadside
overnight are being targeted by activists ‘Dégonflés’ who let down the tyres
using a bicycle pump. The police say that it is not a crime as
there is no damage.
LTI Coventry is hoping to sell its £24,995 TXII taxi cab to Russia,
China, Thailand and Mexico, also to Kuwait where the cab will be heat-resistant
with increased air-conditioning and reflective windows. In Nigeria the cabs are being used as
executive limousines with leather upholstery and DVD players.
The Swiss have replaced some police horses with 34 roller skating police to save
costs and speed up chases.
Thousands of motorists in Gloucestershire have been sent
£5 Halford vouchers to spend on car security devices as part of a drive to cut
rising levels of car crime.
A Swedish company is offering insurance against
parking fines and speeding tickets.
Motorists paid £114m in speed camera fines to April 2004 of which £22m went into
Treasury coffers.
The world's largest luxury £1m camping van, has been
custom built for an oil Sheik. The
Desert Challenger holds 4,000 litres of water, 2,500 litres of diesel and does
5 mpg.
The French Government
is
selling its share of motorways for €13 billion but will continue to
control toll charges after
privatisation. The three
operators ASF, APRR and Sanef run 8,175
km of motorways (the biggest network in Europe); employ 18,000 people,
registered 1 billion transactions last year and had a combined turnover of €6.1
billion.
Simon Hope of
H&H Auctions has withdrawn from the International Historic Motorsport Show
at Stoneleigh as it no longer meets H&H’s criteria.
TOPS NEWS is an abridged version of one
section of the TOPS magazine sent to members.
Trisha Pilkington