I know it’s an “old chestnut” but just which is the best way to get insurance for a young driver? Recently my 17 year old nephew passed his driving test, first time incidentally, but is having the greatest difficulty getting insurance at under £5,000! He was bought a used 1.2 litre Micra but my brother has found that the insurance is going to cost more than the car and asked me if I could help. I used a good comparison site and have managed to get that reduced, but I was surprised at the wide discrepancies I found.

Motor insurance has increased as we have all found out, but for the younger driver it has gone up by as much as 70%! Much of this is down to statistics of course, but also lack of competition must come into it as I found that some companies will not entertain insuring drivers under 21 years of age as they are more likely to be involved in an accident and when they are the claims cost tend to be higher. Although gender is not supposed to come into the calculation it does seem to and using the same statistics but changing the sex showed a massive jump with young men attracting higher premiums by as much as 50%! Telematics is a way forward because using this technology, insurers can monitor the habits of the driver, acceleration, cornering braking etc. Good driving will lead to bigger discounts and lower rates. The pay as you drive scheme seems to be the way forward, certainly for young drivers, maybe all of us.

Whilst whiling away a few hours trying to get through the piles of newsprint that arrive through my door at the weekend, why are there so many sections to a weekend newspaper, an article about which motor cars gave the best value caught my eye. It took a while to sink in for me anyway and I suspect a few others will have the same problem, but Skoda came out head and shoulders above the rest of the pack for value for money. Now there cannot be anyone amongst you that does not remember the tirade of jokes that flew around when it came to Skoda cars twenty or so years ago. Such gems as “why does a Skoda have a heated rear screen”? The snappy reply of course was, “so your hands do not get cold when pushing it”!

Now of course those days are well gone with Skoda being part of the VW Empire and the cars from the Czech Republic are simply the best high-volume, brand-new, “bread and butter” cars in the world. With engines from its parent group used in both VW and Audi, two of the leading cars from Skoda have proved to be best in their class. The Yeti in the mini-MPV sector sells new for under £15,000 and the Superb in the saloon and estate market, where it more than matches the Mercedes E-class in terms of space and quality. You can get a Superb for half the price of the similarly sized E-class, unbelievably this it starts at £17,455. I am told by colleagues that this price is negotiable and a large discount is literally forced upon you, even if you do not ask!

This article certainly set me thinking, I shall be looking for a good used car for me to use with my partner and after reading this and hearing comments from some friends and colleagues, a nice low mileage Skoda come be winging its way into our driveway before too long.

What is your take on electric cars which seem to be dominating headlines lately? For me two things stand out firstly they have to be cleaner and less polluting in our major cities, but I am not convinced that they are “green” because in my mind all that is happening is that the source of pollution is being moved from the exhaust pipe to the power station! This was all brought to mind when I read that Jaguar has unveiled plans to build a £700,000 petrol-electric hybrid supercar in the UK. It will build 250 cars in partnership with Formula 1 team Williams F1. Referred to as the C-X75, it has an ultra-light chassis and two electric engines will help it accelerate from nought to 60mph in three seconds, with a top speed of 200mph, that’s some kick in the back I think that you would agree!

The partnership between Jaguar and Williams F1 is an interesting one and proves to doubters that technology gained from F1 can be turned into useful developments for the likes of you and me. To quote Williams F1 chairman Adam Parr, “In recent years, hybrid technology has been an area of acute development in Formula 1,” just one more example of F1 technology that could prove useful in other industries.

However, do electric cars shift pollution from the point of use to the point of power generation I would like to have an authoritative view on whether their use produces more or less greenhouse gases than the equivalent petrol-engined vehicle? The results could well be surprising.

I find it truly inconceivable, but it is true, that a Swindon motorist has 39 penalty points on his or her licence, which is the most in Great Britain,  but not been banned. Just how can this happen when an ordinary Joe can clock up 12 points for minor breaches of the law and expect to lose their driving license for a temporary period? During an investigation a Freedom of Information request to the DVLA showed 638 drivers in Bristol, Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire have 12 or more points.

As I understand it, a driver accumulating 12 points usually means a temporary ban for that driver unless they can prove it would cause exceptional hardship. However, should they commit further offences and the driver then accrues further penalty points within three years, the same exceptional circumstances cannot be cited again, so this person must have had a list of exceptional hardship pleas either financial or personal to hand with obviously a good solicitor! For my part I just cannot even conceive how somebody can have 20, 30, 40 points and not be disqualified. For me it’s completely unacceptable that people are clocking up to 39 points on their licence, surely they must be causing risk to other road users and I think that it’s absolutely vital that people who exceed 12 points on their licence do in fact receive a driving ban. What are your thoughts in this and other similar cases?

Whilst Rupert Murdoch is waiting for the culture secretary to give his verdict on whether his News Corporation should be permitted to buy BSkyB, the man himself has been not waiting around biting his nails far from it! I do not have an opinion about the man but I do know that he seems to get things done and he seems to have been passing the time plotting his next deal. This may come as a surprise to you as much as to me; apparently he has held talks with Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, to launch a consortium bid for Formula 1.

As I understand it F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, is unlikely to be interested, but who knows? However, the question I would like asked is, what does Mr Murdoch and Mr Slim think they can do better than F1 veteran Mr Ecclestone, who turned 80 last October? Mr Murdoch, another octogenarian and the younger of the two by five months, believes he has the ability to transform F1 and attract a younger fan base to the sport.

Well it certainly would be an interesting development in F1; I now find the sport a bit repetitive with the cars and drivers performing like automatons and the races now seeming to have to rely on gimmicks to give it some added interest. Do you remember Bernie Ecclestone’s suggestion that we have artificial rain descending on the track unexpectedly?

I read that Mr Murdoch would seek to widen the sport’s appeal by cross promoting and selling the sport with its other assets. He could even look to scrap the elite nature of a visit to the Grand Prix in his pursuit of a younger, digital-minded audience, I don’t know what you think, but to me F1 lost its appeal a long time ago when race cars stopped looking like cars and became roller skates. Oh dear, that’s dating me isn’t it?

Whilst looking through the financial pages I noticed that Ford Motor Company had turned in a profit of $2.78bn for the first three quarters of this year, which I read, is the seventh profitable quarter in sequence. This is a remarkable turn round for the global carmaker when in the dark days of 2008 it posted a loss of a massive $15bn.

This set me thinking of the Ford cars that I had owned and some that I had not and it is true to say that since Henry Ford’s day, which is 107 years ago, they have produced some of the best-selling models of all time. If we start at the beginning of the company, Henry began using letters of the alphabet to name his new models, and in 1908 Ford launched the Model T. It became a motoring and mass-production phenomenon, with some 15million Model T’s sold over the next 19 years.

Naturally being an American company a lot of focus was on its US brands and I remember seeing some of them when I spent some time over there when I was with the R.A.F. Names such as Thunderbird and Falcon, but my favourite, which I never owned, was the Mustang coupe, which came out in 1964 and is still in production today. Of course it is the British market that most of us will recall with fondness, for example the Ford Cortina was a model built for our market between 1962 and 1982, and was the country’s best-selling car throughout the 1970s, and went through five different marks. One that I owned with pride was the iconic Capri which was designed for the European market to rival the Ford Mustang in the US. It was produced between 1969 and 1986, the peak year for sales for being 1973, when the one-millionth Capri was built.

My family and me ran the Ford escorts for many years, and although the car was built for America too, it differed from the European version. It was the successor to Ford’s highly successful Anglia model and became the best-selling British car of the 1960s. The Escort was a huge success and continued to top the best-seller list several times in the 70s, 80s and 90s, not forgetting its highly successful rallying.

Finally how could I talk about famous Ford vehicles without mentioning the “Tranny Van”? The Ford Transit van has been the workhorse of Britain’s roads since it went on sale since 1965. The van’s combination of carrying capacity and agility made it popular with both the police and robbers! I’m sure most of us had a Ford at some time, and they have been a car which has featured at used car marts and I should add, with the Fiesta is the top selling used car in the Britain today, which was your favourite Ford then?

Like many people of my age group I have fond memories of sports cars of the past when the British motor industry was at its height before it became embroiled with employment problems and countless strikes, which led to underinvestment and the subsequent demise of many famous names. I once owned an MGB which at the time was the best selling British sports car and can recall many hours of fun driving with the hood down, in all kinds of weather by the way, on roads which were which were much quieter then. The ‘B’ soon had all the rusting problems that most British cars suffered in the post war period and the time came to move on and trade in my MG for, what I think was one of the popular Japanese cars, soon to outstrip our industry.
 
You can imagine my delight, along with many others, when I read recently that the first MG car was to roll out of the Longbridge Birmingham factory, since the new Chinese owners took over, on Wednesday April 13th six years to the week since the iconic plant closed with the loss of 6,500 jobs. Hearing this great news turned my mind back many years and along with many other people I can recall the problems at Longbridge which beset the British motor industry, when after decades of upheaval and industrial unrest, Rover Group was sold to BMW in 1994. It was spun back out as MG Rover six years later, only to collapse into administration another five years after that, dealing a severe blow to the local economy and ripping the heart out of British car production.

We all have to sincerely hope that the birth of the new MG, which is the forerunner of a number of new models to be built at the factory, will herald a new dawn for the people of the Birmingham area, in much the same way that Nissan has done in Sunderland.

It seems that you cannot drive anywhere in the country without hitting, or if you are wise and it will not endanger other road users, avoiding the multitude of potholes on our roads. In his budget yesterday, the Chancellor George Osborne, pledged £100 million of help to repair the potholes in our roads, but will they spend the extra or will it disappear into the coffers of the councils?

On the subject of potholes, something caught my eye in a newspaper is that you can report potholes in a street or road near you. This is fixmystreet.com which will report the problem to the authority which is responsible. Another site is Potholes.co.uk which has started a new campaign which allows motorists fed up of potholes to help name and shame the worst roads in Britain. Any motorist fed up with the number of potholes they encounter when out on the road can take part, naming and shaming the road they think could be the worst in Britain. They can do this by submitting a new road to the database at the Potholes.co.uk website or nominating one that’s already been highlighted. There are two categories to choose from: Major road for motorways, A-roads and B-roads, and Minor Roads for local roads, naturally excluding private or un-adopted roads, closing date for this is 5pm on March 28th happy hunting!

None of us can be sure what the Chancellor George Osborne has in store for us when he announces his budget proposals but even if he does something about fuel for our cars, it is still going to remain very high for a number of years to come, so how can we reduce the amount we are having to pay to keep our cars on the road?

I bought a fuel efficient car just recently, but even so the cost of filling this up is now getting to a point where I am have to look for savings elsewhere. Whether you drive a two-seat hybrid or a three-ton SUV, chances are you can squeeze a bit more distance out of each gallon of fuel. I picked up some tips from a friend who has a number of used car outlets and I happily pass these on to you.

One of the best ways to save fuel is to simply reduce your speed. As speed increases, fuel economy decreases exponentially. You will find that our journey will not take that much longer, believe me! Check your tyre pressures; if these are underinflated your MPG will go up considerably, buy a reliable tyre gauge and check your tyres at least once a month. I now avoid violent acceleration; nothing uses fuel more than this, and also have a look well down the road for potential slowdowns. If you accelerate to speed then have to brake right away, that’s wasted fuel. Do you really need that aircon running, I have been a culprit of setting the climate control to suit me, but I really do not need it and it uses precious fuel. If you’re the type who takes a leisurely attitude towards car cleanliness, and I am definitely guilty of that, periodically go through your car and see what can be tossed out or brought into the house. It doesn’t take much to acquire an extra 40 or 50 lbs. of stuff, and the more weight your car has to lug around, the more fuel it burns. I hope that some of this helps you to get that bit farther down the road from each litre of petrol or diesel, happy motoring!

What with the cost of filling your pride and joy at the fuel pump seeming going up every time you visit the service station, it’s not just the pain at the pumps you have to worry about, your insurance renewal quote is also likely to provoke misery; motoring is becoming a very expensive pastime. What really gripes me and I’m sure you as well, is that as an honest driver I’m paying for ambulance chasing lawyers, which has led to a dramatic rise in personal injury claims in the past few years, with the number of claims now far outstripping the number of accidents. What I have read is that for an insurance premium of say £450 a year, a staggering £220 is added to cover the cost of whiplash claims, genuine or otherwise, legal fees tax and really annoying, fraud. Did you know that insurance companies also sell on addresses and phone numbers to personal injury lawyers?

Of course if you are a driver from the “fairer” sex, because of a European Court of Justice ruling, insurance companies will not be able to use gender to set insurance premiums meaning that many women could pay as much as 25 per cent more for insurance. For the younger driver however, there is hope on the horizon through a device which uses telematics. With this type of tracking technology, information is gathered from a small device fixed to your car. Specialist insurers then use this to reward motorists with good driving habits. A driver who drives long distance at high speed, for example, will be charged a higher rate than a driver who drives short distances at slower speeds.

But there are other ways to reduce costs and beat rising premiums. You should never just accept the renewal premium sent to you, always shop around and see if this is indeed competitive, or whether you can get the same cover cheaper. Another and simpler way is to increase the voluntary and/or compulsory excess charge; this is the amount you pay before the insurer has to cough up in the event of you submitting a claim.  If you are prepared to increase this slightly, you can get a reduced premium. One thing seems pretty certain though, that is that our motoring, for business or pleasure, is not set to become cheaper in the foreseeable future.