Disc Breaks

or should I call it "Tax Brakes"?

No, this story is about tax discs not disc brakes.

I'm not sure why George Osborne announced that he was scrapping the Tax Disc this afternoon.

Because everyone knew that it was happening this morning - along with the rest of his Autumn Statement.  The BBC had it here.  Autocar had it here.

They used this picture.  That registration number belongs to a Range-Rover.  I wonder if it was just parked outside their offices or it belongs to a member of staff there - it isn't the one that comes up if you look for a review of a Range-Rover on their site.

The BBC have also used this as an excuse to bring back their occasional (and amusing) RIP item with "R.I.P. Car Tax Disc".  These sometimes prompt amusing tributes from the readership - I await these in mild anticipation.

What the scrapping of the discs doesn't mean, though, is the scrapping of the tax.  That will continue to be collected and the Police will have access to the databases which tell them who has actually paid - although your average traffic warden or nosey neighbour won't be able to easily tell.

The tax itself is "vehicle excise duty" not "road tax".  I make this point because this comes up every time anyone mentions tax discs - it comes up a lot in the comments at the end of the main BBC article.  Cyclists generally make this point a lot.

I am an occasional cyclist myself but very much take the Jeremy Clarkson point-of-view on this:

Clarkson et le Hamster Sont Interdits

I'm surprised not many sites have got this story.  None of the major newspapers have it, just a few motoring websites.

The story is this one:

It is from a Clarkson article so it will be in The Sun or The Sunday Times.

 

It will be hidden behind a paywall online but I wouldn't want to read either publication anyway since they are part of the odious Murdoch empire.

 

The gist of this is that Clarkson & Richard Hammond have been fined for speeding in France and banned from driving there for three months.

 

Being me, I am suspicious that if this happened, that it was just a publicity stunt for the DVD they were filming that will be out "just in time for Christmas" - the DVD that gets mentioned in the stories of the incident.

 

If it was though, it hasn't worked - yet.  Maybe it's just that nobody at The Mail has noticed it up to now.

 

They were doing 140kph in a 90kph zone that they claim to have thought was a 130kph zone.

 

There's no mention of James May - I guess Capitaine Lente would not have made that mistake.

Mutually Beneficial

The BBC should become the UK's biggest mutual company to make it more accountable to licence fee payers - so says former culture secretary Dame Tessa Jowell.  The BBC report it here.

Mutual companies do not have external shareholders but all members of the company are considered owners. Money is reinvested back into the company rather than paid out as dividends.

I would like to be a member of the BBC.

If I was a member of the BBC, I might have had a say in the disposal of the F1 rights which led me to declare that I'd had it with the BBC.

I might also have a say in commissioning a new motoring show for BBC2.

But, I hear you say, BBC2 already has a brilliant motoring show called "Top Gear."

I agree - it does.  In fact Top Gear is my favourite show of any genre on television - it's even better than QI.

But I also want a show that is a bit more about the cars themselves - and accessories and racing and motoring law - and the sort of things you might read about on a car blog named after a small car from British Leyland.  I've been watching a couple of the old Top Gears from the '80s and '90s on Youtube and I want a show like that.  Or like Channel 4's Driven before they made it juvenile.

It would have to be on the BBC for two reasons:

1. Impartiality - they mustn't be afraid of upsetting motoring manufacturers who could sponsor them - allegedly Toyota refused to let Jeremy Clarkson test-drive any more of their cars after he called the Corolla "dull" in a review.
2. Profitability - I don't believe that enough people watch ordinary car programmes to make then viable commercially.  This leads to daft competitions that cost £1.50 to enter and added contrived "entertainment" like they put in the otherwise enjoyable Classic Car Rescue - this can be really cringeworthy to watch but seems to draw in the viewers.

The new show would be called "Second Gear" (or "Fourth Gear" if they showed it on BBC Four) and would need some decent presenters.  Definitely not the ones from "I Want That Car" - my review of which has garnered a very large number of hits for some reason - no comments, just hits.

I liked the old Top Gear presenters, Sue Baker, Chris Goffey and William Woollard so wouldn't object to any of them coming back although dare I say they are probably a bit long in the tooth nowadays?  William Woollard's style with a foot on the bumper of the car he was discussing has led to an Internet craze which had passed me by until I read this from the Metro newspaper (no relation).

But the lineup I'd probably plump for would be former Driven host Mike Brewer as the front man assuming I could prise him away from The Discovery Channel. I've got a leather jacket just like that by the way: 

Maybe Jason Dawe (Used Car Roadshow and series 1 of the revamped Top Gear before they decided James May would be a better fit) for the more serious, practical items:

Tom Ford (ex of Fifth Gear and still of TopGear Magazine) for road tests: 

And Sabine Schmitz for the racy stuff:

A half an hour show every Thursday evening.  Just before "Dave Allen at Large."  Sorted.

 

Oh, and can we have "Gardener's World" followed by "One Man and His Dog" on a Friday again please?

Driven to Drink

Is it really 10 years since Alastair Stewart was sacked as presenter of Police Camera Action after being caught drink-driving?

Yes.

Nobody should drink-drive - but most people convicted will quietly go to Court, get fined and banned and quietly go away without anyone really noticing.

Some people though, like Alistair, may just attract a bit of attention.

The woman in this story for example.  She is a lawyer, who, according to her own firm's Website, "has a vast knowledge in relation to the offence of Drink Driving. She has won many cases using the many procedural defences available that can arise if the police fail to deal with clients at the roadside and/or in the police station correctly."  I've cut-and-pasted that directly from the site because I wouldn't be surprised if they change that bit soon.

Maybe she should have defended herself.

Or paid for this bloke.  Yes, I know that's a Wikipedia link but, today at least, everything seems to check out in it.  Nick Freeman - aka Mr.Loophole ("Mr Whiplash" would be funnier) is fairly famous for getting celebrities (including Jeremy Clarkson & Tiff Needell) cleared of motoring offences - often on technicalities.  I'm put off lawyers at the best of times - possibly because of the annoying multitude of injury lawyer adverts encouraging people to sue for the stupidest of things - there's one where a workman says "my company gave me the wrong sort of ladder" - well you should know the difference you moron.  I also object to my motor insurance premium increasing to pay for fictitious whiplash claims - I could have made one myself last year when I was rear-ended but I won't because I'm basically honest.

So, what's the moral of all this?

Don't drink and drive.

Unless you're somewhere safe and outside the jurisdiction of the law.

Cheers!

Wilmslow Motor Show Sponsored by Etihad

I used to live in Cheshire.

Until they moved it.

Cheshire is one of Jeremy Clarkson's least-favourite counties - mainly because that is where a lot of Premiership footballers and their WAGs live.

Wilmslow is a town in Cheshire that is popular with such people.

Today I took my WAG and children along there for the second ever Wilmslow Motor Show Sponsored by Etihad.  They have their own Website.

Being Wilmslow, it had to be posh cars.  There were lots of Aston Martins - mostly new ones - but also this lovely example of a DB5:

There were three examples of the BAC Mono there - not a name that would go down well in America.  These cars look a lot better in real life:

There were a series of cars with their bonnets open.  From the tiny bonnet on this MG SV: 

To the huge bonnet on this Mustang: 

To the gigantic bonnet on this (admittedly rear-engined) Ford GT: 

Dave Newsham's BTCC Toyota Avensis was there: 

 Actually, that isn't true.

Despite this photographic evidence to the contrary.

This is actually Ollie Jackson's car with Dave Newsham's name and number on it.  I spoke to a member of the Speedworks crew who was there with the car.  He told me that the team were still working on the Newsham car after the damage it sustained a fortnight ago in Knockhill.

The Police (The Constabulary, not Sting and his mates) were also there letting children sit in one of their cars.  They also had a wrecked Renault Megane in which a 21 Year-old lad had died.  A woman was there handing out leaflets and telling us the story of what happened.  It was night, he was not speeding, he was very slightly over the drink-drive limit, weather conditions were fair, he lost control going around a bend and hit a tree.  A Doctor travelling in a car in front saw the headlights disappear and went back to see what had happened - he declared him dead at the scene which is why the car wasn't cut open.  The lad's parents donated the car to the Police and it was now being used to highlight how driving inexperience can lead to serious accidents.  It was about this point when the woman revealed that we were looking at her son's car.

Wow.

Sort of makes you think after looking at Lambo's, AMGs, Loti, Nobles, TVRs, Bentleys and the like.

Deer, Oh Dear!

This is a couple of stories from America.

I'll get the "Oh Dear!" bit over with first because that is the saddest bit.

This is a corruption of a Smart Car on display at the The L.A.Auto Show.

It is called the Smart forjeremy. The story is in Car+Driver here.

Unfortunately, the Jeremy it is for is not Jeremy Clarkson - I would truly love to see his take on a Smart. No, this Jeremy is Jeremy Scott - a fashion designer I have never heard of who has designed fashion for people I have heard of - like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Apparently, those things at the back that make it look like an Indian Chief's head-dress are supposed to be wings.

They light up.

Oh yes, and the car is electric-powered.

Anyhoo. The better story from The States today is from Fox and is about this device - no, it's not a see-through i-Phone, it's a deer deterrent called "The Deer Deter". So why would you want to deter a deer - they're quite cute aren't they?

Indeed they are, but if you were a highway with fast moving traffic going along you, you wouldn't want these cute creatures getting splattered and generally causing accidents by wandering onto your tarmac when there's a car coming now would you?

Of course you wouldn't. So you put these up along the roadside and when they are activated by a passing vehicle's headlights, they emit a noise and strobe effect that stops the deer in its tracks until the vehicle has passed.

Oh yes, and the Deer Deter is electric-powered. Solar in fact. The noise is harmless and also means it will alert blind deer.

What do you call a deer with no eyes?


NO IDEA!

Honda Uni-Cub

I'm not sure this should be in a Car Blog but Autoguide pointed me at it and it is about a Honda vehicle:It is a very funny video in a "this is laughable" sort of way.

The "thing" is controlled by leaning but can also be controlled using a little TV remote control unit that you hold in your lap. I suppose it could be fun if you got hold of someone else's remote control. It would probably also be fun to race a couple of them around a building - until you came to a set of stairs - which is where you get to the conclusion that I was reaching more and more as every second of the video passed.

WHY NOT JUST WALK!?

Really lazy people might think it is a good idea but I suspect that they would be too fat to use it. Would it benefit disabled people? Doubt it - I reckon there would be issues about staying on if you couldn't use your legs.

To be charitable, I suppose this is more of a research exercise - and it has to be admitted it is very clever how it works without tipping over but...

...if you want to drive about indoors, Jeremy has already provided us with the solution:

Film Review

This weekend, as Barry Norman would say, I have been mostly watching DVDs. We had three Blockbuster vouchers to use up before the end of March so got out three films accordingly - two of them were meant to be motoring related.

The first film, Senna, was definitely motoring-related.

Some of my favourite films have been documentaries, usually involving Morgan Spurlock or Michael Moore and this was no exception. It certainly brought back a few memories including Martin Donnelly, a driver whom I had completely forgotten the existance of. Then there was the time when Senna crashed out in the lead at Monaco in 1988 - I had also forgotten about that but had been reminded of it coincidentally just a few days ago when Jeremy Clarkson used it in his Top Gear Magazine column as an example of why speed limits should be seriously increased on Britain's roads.

Despite being a documentary, it had everything a more usual film had - a compelling story from Senna's start in F1 driving for Toleman, through to his tragic death - it also had the heroes (well, hero) and villains - to a certain extent Alain Prost but more-so Jean Marie Balestre - the forerunner to Bernie Ecclestone. Not to mention the drama of the Japanese Grand Prixs (what's the correct plural of that?) and the aftermaths of the famous incidents where Prost then Senna won World Drivers Championships after causing "accidents" that took them both out of the race.

A very dramatic, educational and emotional film - I have to admit to more than a damp eye when Roland Ratzenburger and Ayrton Senna were killed at the end - even though I knew that this was going to happen - documentaries are worse than other films - because they are based on fact. Difficult but worth the watch.

As film number 2, we were meant to be having that excellent, motoring-related film, Cars 2, but my children changed their minds and got a Scooby Doo one out instead - so I didn't watch it. Although Sarah Michelle-Geller was probably in it so maybe I should have.

The third film was Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law and an actress who reminded me of a young Joan Collins.

There weren't any cars in it.

Compass Needle

Sorry Chrysler, it's nothing personal.

I found this story this morning on my favourite Aussie car-site. It's basically saying that the new Jeep Compass has scored only 2 stars in its latest Euro NCAP ratings tests.

That's the sort of score Protons would get in the 1990s!

...and certain Chinese cars were getting less than 5 years ago.

To be fair to Chrysler/Jeep, the reason it has scored so badly is not really to do with driver and passenger safety - it's all to do with pedestrian safety. If you score badly on this, you can't have more than two stars.

Jeep reckon they will be able to get four stars in Australia where the scoring is a bit different - presumably because, due to population spread, you are less likely to hit a person and more likely to hit a sheep or a kangaroo.

ANCAP (Australasian NCAP) say they will look at the Euro results before making up their minds but it sounds like they don't do as many crash-tests, they often just use other organisations' results to make their own assessments.

But, overall, this outcome sort of backs up the stereotype of the Chelsea Tractor where parents choose to take their offspring to school in the largest vehicle possible "because they want little Tarquin to be safe". That's fine - I'm with Jeremy on this one - you can drive what you want to drive - but just be honest about it! Admit you like big cars and you feel safer in them and are not too bothered about anyone who ends up hit by them. And if it's a posh, big car, you feel you look good in them (if it's a Range Rover Sport - you probably do - unless you've blacked out the windows which means you have an ugly family).

I drive a 2.5 litre all-wheel-drive V6 Jag where a diesel Skoda Octavia estate would be a much more sensible choice - but I like the power, the drive and the badge. So I'm not going to criticise.

But, getting back to the Compass, I think it's going to have more problems than a low NCAP score. Car&Driver reviewed it and decided "Jeep's black sheep gets updated but remains unpleasant" while Autoblog also gave it a review and decided "Least Capable Jeep Still Lost In The Woods".

Two different sheep references there, maybe the Australians will like it after all.

Top Gear USA

"It's like being aroused with a gun pointing at you."

BBC Three showed the first edition of Top Gear USA this weekend - or, as it's called over there, Top Gear. I knew there had to be a good reason for BBC Three existing.

It has the same basic format as the orginal (and best!) version with 3 middling aged blokes and a Stig. Their Stig seems less of a mythical creature though.

They still have "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" but they call it "Big Star, Small Car". Their big star was Buzz Aldrin but the interview was very poor - it just seemed to be them listing previous cars he had owned then showing his lap. He seemed to have some trouble finding fifth which implies they are using a manual - this flies on the face of my earlier posting, Automatic For The (American) People. I suppose that they may do what the British version does and have a second, automatic car that can be used with guests who can't use a stick-shift.

Their presenters have much stranger names than ours:

Tanner Foust seems to be their equivalent of Richard Hammond.








Rutledge Wood must be the James May equivalent because he isn't the Richard Hammondy one and he isn't the front man. Also, if you type "Rutledge Wood" into Google Images, on the third row of the results, you get a picture of James.




This leaves the one that concerns me a bit:

Adam Ferrara. He is described as a "renowned petrolhead" which always rings alarm bells for me. When it comes to presenters of car shows, I have always believed that the best ones need to have a racing or motoring journalism background - Adam is a stand-up and a comedy actor. He does have a relatively normal name though.

It's still early days yet and the banter seemed quite forced. The jury is still out. They will need time to gel and establish a pecking order. I'm guessing this must have happened because they are on Season 2 over The Pond. I'll certainly keep watching with interest.

Right-Wing Rubbish

Autoguide news pointed me this morning back to our own Daily Mail and a story about Jeremy Clarkson being racist about Lenny Henry. Being American, they had to explain who Lenny Henry is. For those who don't know, I shall also explain who Lenny Henry is.

He is a very talented comedian/writer/actor from the West Midlands of England:Who also happens to be black.

The Daily Mail is accusing Jeremy of racism due to an article he wrote about how eco-friendly TVs can be set so dim that everyone looks like "Lenny Henry in a cave"

I don't know if he was being racist or not - I know he always tries to find funny analogies for everything and if they are going to be controversial - then all the better. This is why he keeps ending up in trouble. I know that I find him very funny.

"Owning a TVR in the past was like owning a bear, I mean it was great, until it pulled your head off, which it would."

"We all know that small cars are good for us. But so is cod liver oil. And jogging."

"The Ferrari 355 is like a quail's egg dipped in celery salt and served in Julia Roberts' belly button."

I got those off a Clarkson fansite.

The Daily Mail is a horrible, right-wing, muckraking rag read by people who will gullibly take in all the propaganda it reports. But those people will agree with Jeremy who can only be described as very right of centre. So they won't have a lot of sympathy with their own newspaper here - the comments under the story seem to back this up. The story uses a VC-winning soldier who was offended by the article (good, typical Daily Mail fodder) and who also happens to be black.(Oops)

I think the result was right but for the wrong reasons - it was the old Alf Garnett effect - you're supposed to laugh at him, not with him.

So why pick on Jeremy anyway?

Could it be because he writes for different right-wing rags, The Sun and The Sunday Times? These are part of the awful Murdoch Empire and I would love to see them go the same way as "The News of the World" - it's the end of The World as we know it.

The Mail won't mention the competition, but it must have been one of these papers that Clarkson wrote the offending article in.

May, meanwhile, writes for yet another right-wing rag, The Telegraph - why do all the interesting people write for right-wing rubbish?

Oh yes - money!

Anyway, has anyone asked Lenny Henry what he thinks about all this? Maybe he isn't even aware of the story - I doubt if he bothers with The Sun or The Daily Mail or autoguide.com or Metro's Car Blog. If he does know about it, he is keeping a dignified silence - there's no mention on his Website and although there are a couple of Twitter accounts purporting to be him - I don't believe he actually is a Twitterererer.

As you may be able to guess, I'm not a fan of the right-wing press - but they are diametrically opposed to what I believe in. I'm not afraid to use the word "Socialist" - I know many Americans are - it would be suicide for an American politician to use it - but I know the difference between Socialist and Communist.

And I also envy places like Sweden where people are richer, happier, have a better standard of life and more choice. Yes, everything is more expensive there and they pay more taxes and foreign tourists will be put off, but the Swedes themselves can afford stuff because they don't have to pay extra for their public facilities and they earn more anyway.

Pity the left-wing press is crap too.

They're up for Contempt of Court over that coverage which hounded a man that they had decided at the time was a murderer but, given that someone else has been charged in the meantime, is almost certainly completely innocent.