Hello


In the link below and I've just read the sticky here re cctv parking enforcement.

www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news....0


I was booked by a cctv in Newham/London on the Monday I think it was in October 2006 as I parked in a side street on yellow lines, blocking no one, did not see signs - was out shopping for Indian food in Green Street in east London Newham = CCTV operators sent me a ticket for parking five mins in a no loading unloading area. I was not blocking anyone and I was in the car as my wife and daughter bought the meal.

The Daily Mail in the above link talks as though this is new, ie cctv tickets.

Can you help as i paid rather than o back and show then the line was broken as most yellow lines are not enforceable because they have been dug up or worn away - that was my first ticket in the 20 years I've driven. Read more

In a former life (that ended only a few years ago) I was involved in reuniting owners and insurance companies with the cars which had been stolen from their drives or which as a result of a payout were now considered a loss.

I shall generalise but it went like this.........

Car stolen from outside the house/factory with the keys from inside the premises.

Audi/VW/Focus/L200/Vito/Transit are all popular examples, X5 and the like are at the top end.

Autotrader scoured for an identical spec vehicle on a dealers forecourt with a registration number visible in the picture, the 'in trade' status is a bonus. This is the clone vehicle id.

Back street garage HPI check of the clone is completed to obtain chassis number.

Stolen blank or forged V5 reg doc completed with false clone details.

Stolen blank or forged Tax Disc completed with false clone details.

Stamped in number (chassis number) may then be altered to match the clone, not always.

False Visible VIN (chassis number) obtained along with any other sticky VIN numbers, originals are replaced.

False service history may then be produced.

Clone reg plates produced.

Stolen vehicle cloned to id of vehicle on dealers forecourt complete

PAYG mobile phone obtained.

Vehicle advertised for sale, sold to unsuspecting buyer for cash at a 'good price' who sends V5 to DVLA. Buyer did not conduct a proper HPI check but was happy with the back street HPI printout.

DVLA inform appropriate local Police Force who attend, recover vehicle, examine, confirm stolen id.

Buyer loses car, all their money, car returned to original victim or to insurance company.

The original thief got maybe £250 for the car when it was first stolen, the guy at the point of sale got thousands.

Are forum members interested, shall I continue? Do you want to get involved in helping to stop this happening or at least making it difficult for the sellers ? Read more

I thought the Backroom might be interested to read my recent correspondence with my MP regarding the recently announced VED changes for 2009, and more specifically the fact that they will be applied retrospectively to cars all the way back to 2001.

Here's what I wrote to start the ball rolling:

I live in your constituency and I am writing to you in the hope that you can find some way to represent my views on how the new VED (car tax) rates have been announced in the latest budget.


Mr Darling said ?Firstly, from April 2009, I am proposing a major reform to Vehicle Excise Duty to encourage manufacturers to produce cleaner cars.", however he then went on to announce huge changes in VED rates which are to be applied retrospectively to cars produced all the way back to 2001. Surely these cars are irrelevant to his stated aim? It is fair enough to try to change peoples buying habits by changing the tax rates on new cars, but he is changing the tax rate ? in some cases to a massive degree (my car tax will DOUBLE in price next year) ? on cars which people already own, and which they have budgeted for on the basis of a known system where large changes were only applied to newer cars.


What exactly is making these rises retrospective supposed to achieve? As I see it there are three possible outcomes:

1) The owner keeps the car, paying the extra money. But surely Darlings motivation isn?t just extra money? This surely isn?t just a nice earner wrapped up in ?green credentials? paper?

2) The owner scraps the car. Superbly ecologically sound. Wasting all that energy used in the production of the car by scrapping it 10 or more years early on economical grounds. And incidentally requiring that production energy to be spent again on a new car.

3) The car gets sold on. The owner takes a massive hit in the car value thanks to Mr. Darling, but it?s still on the road, it?s still doing exactly what it was before


When the VED rates were changed previously in 2006 they were only applied to cars produced from that point on. Changing that strategy now will mean leaving a lot of people who had budgeted sensibly massively out of pocket, and is morally very dubious in my opinion.


Looking through the media, it seems that this element of the changes has been largely overlooked, so I don?t think there has yet been a large public reaction. I have however visited plenty of internet forums, some motoring based, some not ? and when this information has been pointed out to people the general reaction is of outrage. Even those whose choice of car means this will not affect them too badly personally are upset at the way this seems to have been done in a very underhanded way.


I hope that this email finds you well, and that there is some way you can forward my concerns ? which I am sure will be shared by the majority when people see the true scale. I can not confirm this is necessarily true, but I have read that somewhere in the order of 88% of all cars currently available will have their tax rate raised as a result of this ? this hardly seems like it is just aimed at ?gas guzzlers? does it?



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Me and a mate want to do one of those track days where you get to drive a supercar. We're particularly keen to have a go on a Porsche 911. Having searched on the internet I've noticed that you don't get an awful lot of driving time (4-5 laps seems to be the maximum).

Has anyone on the HJ site had a go at one of these days? Any tips? Any venues that you've found particularly good/bad?

Thanks in advance. Read more

In May I move to Phoenix for the better part of six months, and until now my plan was to simply SORN my Accord and wrap it up warm for the summer. However, with the price of petrol nowadays, I'm wondering if it's best to sell it before I go, and get a diesel with the money when I get back.

Part of the problem is that I'm not sure how much it's worth (while finding prices isn't particularly difficult, with only 28k on the clock and 8 years old it's sorta off the bottom of the graph...), and when I get back it'll need new pads and discs all round, a new timing belt, and a fluids change.

It's a Honda Accord (2000) SE Executive, with the 2.0 engine and automatic gearbox + plus all the various trimmings. No problem about going down on the comfort level provided I still have air-con. :-)

Any advice?

Oh, and one other thing - are all the 4 year old Peugeot 307s on eBay being advertised for about £4k with 1 mile on the clock con-jobs, 'cos there's a lot of them. They appear to be in West Yorkshire, so I'm wondering if they're all flood-damaged ones and being sold on the sly. Read more