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Just had a call from my ex-wife. She is staying in our daughter's house while the daughter is away with husband and nippers.

A neighbour told her the car seemed to be open. One of the doors was on the latch, and they are all unlocked. It's an Audi A3 diesel, five years old or so. I don't know the car myself.

How does she lock the car without the keys or fob? Can one operate the central locking from inside and then shut the door? The car is in a side street in Holloway, not the sort of place you want to leave your car unlocked.

Can anyone suggest anything? Read more

Reduce fuel duty by 40 pence per litre

What I want is a 40 pence/litre ?average? reduction in fuel duty as a way of getting us to drive more economically. That's right; reduce the cost of fuel to encourage us to use less of it.

Cash back Motoring

This is how the ?reduction? in fuel duty would work. The pump price stays the same but 40 pence/litre of the fuel duty is set aside to fund an annual rebate of 5 pence for every mile you travel. This will be paid out on a vehicle by vehicle basis. You go to an MOT test centre and get an official mileage reading each year, which tells the Government how many miles your car has travelled, multiply that by 5 pence and that?s how much you will be refunded; cover 10,000 miles and get a cheque for £500.

This encourages us to drive economically because the price you pay for your fuel is determined by your average mpg.

Take a motorist who bought 1,000 litres of fuel in one year at a total cost of £1,000; the four scenarios below show the effect the distance he travelled had on the price he paid for the fuel (after taking account of his rebate of 5 pence for every mile travelled).

He covered 4,000 miles, averaged 18.2 mpg (4 miles/l), and got back £200, so his net fuel cost was £800. On average he paid 80 pence/litre.

He covered 8,000 miles, averaged 36.4 mpg (8 miles/l), and got back £400, so his net fuel cost was £600. On average he paid 60 pence/litre.

He covered 12,000 miles, averaged 54.6 mpg (12 miles/l), and got back £600, so his net fuel cost was £400. On average he paid 40 pence/litre.

He covered 20,000 miles, averaged 91.0 mpg (20 miles/l), and got back £1,000, so his net fuel cost was £0. On average he paid zero pence/litre; he got his fuel for free!

As your mpg increases the net price you pay per litre decreases, a strong incentive to drive more economically.

For more information go to markthake.org.uk/5-pence-the-scheme/

My Aim

My aim is to get this idea to as wide an audience as possible, the best way to do this would be through the mainstream media, but I?m not connected so I can?t do that directly. Instead what I have done is create a petition on the 10 Downing Street website; my plan is, with your help, to get enough people to sign the petition to push it to the top of the list and hope that that will get the press?s attention.

There are approximately 30 million motorists in the UK, that?s roughly 70% of the electorate and with a General Election in less than 12 months if enough of us want this scheme there is a chance we could get it, so please sign the petition.

The Petition - petitions.number10.gov.uk/FivePencePerMile/

I took the rules on writing e-petitions a little too literally so the wording of the petition may not be that user friendly, my apologies for that.

Currently to get the top position in the list will take more than 70,000 signatures, a tall order but there are 30 million UK license holders and every car owner will be better off under this scheme.

Background

At present Fuel Duty on petrol and diesel stands at 54.19 pence/litre + VAT @ 15%, which comes to 62.3185 pence/litre. The government has been raising fuel duty routinely for the last two decades (the fuel price escalator) with the aim of getting motorists to drive more economically. However, Government stats prove that the average mpg is largely unchanged at 31 mpg for petrol cars and 37 mpg for diesel over that period; so the policy has failed.

As a stealth tax Fuel Duty has been very successful; the Government estimates it will bring in approximately £25.7 billion for the 2008/09 tax year and then there is the VAT to add on top of that, it?s equivalent to taking £1,000 from every UK driving license holder and if you spend £135 per month on fuel that?s exactly what they are taking off of you.
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hi everyone.i have a problem with my focus,it drives very badly split second loss of power,stalling,very jerky ride,thiugh some days it drives much better.been advises plugs,plug leads and coil pack.all changed but problem getting worse.no fault codes coming up.any ideas please as we are disabled on low income and cannot afford to keep paying out for partd and labour that does not cure the psoblem,have had fords all my life but doubt ill have another.thanks for reading this and any help appreciated. Read more