BBC R4 "You and yours" 12:00 today covered the ongoing problem of cards being cloned at independant run filling stations. It appears to be country wide.
It is the first item on the program.
Well worth a listen as a reminder on how to combat it. Read more

Having found that sad little Hyundai Santa Fe falls into the persecuted band G VED rating (must be lowest emissions car that does) I'm wondering at what point to take a big financial hit by changing to an older 4x4 (not G rated even if higher emissions) or perhaps get it converted to run on LPG.
Does anyone know if it could be done and roughly how much it would cost? Read more

Please can anyone describe to me the location of the crankshaft sensor on 1999 1.0L (3cyl.) corsa
Read more

My grandma's Accord is covered by Saga Insurance, and one of the points on the policy is that it includes "any driver" insurance in a motoring or medical emergency, provided she is in the car at the same time. So, the question is, what exactly is a "motoring emergency".

Does this policy provide cover for me to drive my grandma around in her own car? I'm actually insured on the policy as a named driver, but it may be cheaper to remove me if I'm only going to drive the car with my grandma in it. There's nothing specific named in the policy booklet, it simply says that the insurance policy rights transfer to me when I'm behind the wheel, and that the driver must have a full driving license. Read more

ww w.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1522207.ece

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Safer cars are more dangerous for other drivers in accidents
Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

Modern cars are much safer in collisions for their occupants than older models, but their extra weight and height mean that they are more likely to kill people in other cars.

A study has found that drivers hit by a car registered from 2000-03 are 46 per cent more likely to die than if hit by a car registered from 1988-91.

The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), which conducted the study for the Department for Transport, said that the greater risk to other drivers posed by modern cars helped to explain why car occupant deaths had failed to fall significantly in the past eight years.

In 1998, 1,696 car occupants were killed, compared with 1,675 in 2005, a fall of only 1.2 per cent. Over the same period, the annual total for all road deaths fell by 6.4 per cent.

Modern cars have much better safety features, such as multiple air bags, side-impact protection and stronger frames. But these have added weight, the study says, so that the average new car is 20 per cent heavier than one built a decade ago.

Manufacturers have also increased the size of models to satisfy consumer demand for roomier cars with higher performance. Greater acceleration and higher top speed require larger, heavier engines.

For example, the new VW Beetle weighs 1.6 tonnes, double the weight of the rear-engined versions. The modern VW Golf is half a tonne heavier than the 1976 original, 2ft longer and 5in taller. It has a top speed of 146mph compared with 113mph for the Mark 1.

The increase in cars? average height means that they are more likely to override the stronger parts of another car?s shell in a side impact, increasingly the likelihood of killing occupants.

The study concludes: ?Improvements have come at a price: a more modern car tends to be more aggressive than an older car when in collision with another car.?

The average new car scores much higher in crash tests now than in 1998, but the tests measure only how well a car protects its own occupants or pedestrians, not how much damage it can inflict on another car.

Road safety groups called on the car industry yesterday to add an extra crash test to measure the risk that cars pose to occupants of other cars. The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said: ?There is a good case for an extra test which will show prospective buyers how much damage a car will do to other cars.?

Andrew Howard, head of road safety at the AA, said that the growing disparity in the size of vehicles was also increasing the severity of crashes because there was now a greater risk of a small car colliding with a larger one.

People carriers and 4x4s, the two largest categories, accounted for only 5.6 per cent of new car sales in 1996 but 12.5 per cent in 2005. Over the same period, small cars also increased their market share, from 27.9 per cent to 31.1 per cent.

The TRL study found that drivers of the smallest cars, such as Ford Fiestas or Rover Metros, are four times as likely to be killed in collisions with other cars as drivers of the largest cars, such as a Ford Galaxy or Mitsubishi Shogun.

Drivers hit by the largest cars are twice as likely to die as those hit by the smallest.
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And what do the insurers force 17 year olds to drive? Although perhaps a good driver is more likely to avoid a crash whilst driving a nimble fiesta than a lumbering obesemobile. I'm never certain if I despise obesemobiles because the beggars don't get out of my way, or is it because most of the drivers of obesemobiles are overweight, slovenly mouth-breathers? Read more