For a while now it has been the law that motorists caught using a handheld phone when driving are given a fixed penalty notice. Well today the government decided to get tougher. A new law introduced today means that if caught using a handheld mobile whilst driving you could be fined £60 and given 3 penalty points on your license.

I never use my phone whilst driving as I am a firm beleiver that it is wrong. I couldn’t bare it to think that I had injured or killed someone as a result of me using a phone. This is similar to the drink driving issue in my mind. However even though the law has been in place for a few years now, there are hundreds of people that still use their mobiles when they are driving. I bet if you stood at a busy junction in your local town or city you would catch at least 20 people in half an hour. People are not getting the message.

So will the governments new, tougher measures mean that less people will be on their phones? I think not. You ask anyone that does use their phone in the car and they will tell you it is wrong and also the dangers that it can cause yet they will carry on using their mobiles whilst driving. I think that making these penalties tougher will not do an awful lot to stop people doing this. How many users would have woken this morning to think “better not use my phone today when going to work, could get three points and £60 fine”. Not many I bet.

I am not suggesting that this law should not have been past as it is hardly going to increase the amount of people that are using mobiles whilst driving. That said I think there is more than can be done. Why don’t the government take positive steps towards working with car manufacturers to make sure that all vehicles are fit with universal ‘hands free’ options so that people have no excuse not to use mobiles in cars in a more safe way. Maybe it will be to increase revenue from the £60 fines in a similar way to what many of you suggested over the traffic congestion charges that were proposed?

I don’t know about where you live (wherever you maybe) but in the north west of England over the last 5 – 6 years, an epidemic has been spreading fast. It is not a virus or a cold, and it probably won’t kill you (well not directly anyway!). Yes what I am talking about is the phenomenon of ‘chaving up’ your car. What do I mean, well lets take a look?

This seems to be a trend amongst the younger generation of out society – probably 17 -21 years of age on the whole. The idea is that you take a car (for some reason that I have yet to find out they are usually a Vauxhall Nova or Corsa) and then you spend about the entire value of the car adding ‘chavy things’ until the car looks so ridiculous that when you drive round in it everyone has no choice but to look at you and to hear you.

So what ‘chavy things’ are added then? Well the old favourite is the rear spoiler. If you are a first time ‘car chaver’ then this is probably what you will go for. It is the biggest impact for the least money and effort. The next must is the lower you car. This makes in impossible to go down those roads with the speed bumps on unless they want to rip the bottom off their cars. The third most important chav thing to do is then to add two great big exhaust pipes to the back of the car so that they look ‘mean and awesome’ (or not!). However the main purpose of these monstrosities is nose and not looks. They are no good unless they below out engine noise louder than a jet engine on the side of a 747.

My point is why on earth to these people do these things to perfectly good cars. At the ages that these guys are, they must be spending all their money on ‘chaving up’ their vehicle. In fact this is money that they probably don’t have. I know that I certainly could afford it. Look at the average ‘gear’ described above. A spoiler your looking at probably £100. Exhausts you are looking at £200 and then lowering the car could be another £200. Thats £500 already. Another than I forgot to mention is of course the alloys. As far as I know most Nova’s and Corsa do not come with alloy and therefore these need to be bought. Of course they need to be the ones that are 95% wheel and 5% tyre. A decent set of these are going to be at least £300. Therefore we are almost up to £1000 before we start on the inside. Do the parents of these folk not have anything to say. If one of my children were to tell me, at the age of 17, that they were spending £1000 of what is effectively my money, then I would not be happy. In fact it wouldn’t happen. I suppose that these folk think that it attracts the ladies to have a car that represents – well what exactly? It certainly doesn’t represent their responsible outlook on life! I don’t know any girls or woman that walk past these machines and say “wow what a fantastic motor, he must be great”. There usual reaction is something along the lines of “look at that hideous vehicle there, what an idiot”.

If there is anyone out there reading this that has ‘chaved up’ their car please don’t take it personally! It is just something that bugs me a little!

The government have announced their plans for congestion or travel charges on Britain’s roads. The idea being that road tax and fuel tax will be abolished and you will pay as you drive. This has caused uproar amongst many of the public who have signed an online petition in order to stop these proposals.

What worries (and actually annoys) me is that the public are always moaning about the state of congestion on the roads and that it is a nightmare getting around the country. They are right, but then at the same time everytime the government puts forward a suggestion to try and reverse the congestion on Britain’s roads, the public will not go along with it. What are we to do then?

It seems there are two mains reasons why this ‘Travel Tax’ needs to be enforced. Firstly due to the congestion issues outlined above. You cannot have a stress free car journey through Britain’s major towns and cities anymore. The second, and in my opinion most important reason, is the affect that the increasing number of cars is having on the environment and its contribution to climate change.

Watching ‘The Wright Stuff‘ this morning on channel five Lowry Turner was saying that the only reason that congestion was an issue was that there were too many roadworks on the roads. She was saying that the number of cars was not the issue. Surely she must understand that it is the number of cars on the road that is damaging the road surfaces and causing the roadworks to fix them. On the same program Suzie Perry (a motor sport presenter) was saying that she was completely against the idea because it is just a money making scam. She was saying that we need to make public transport an easier and cheaper option in order to get people out of their cars. This is true but where does she think the money is going to come from? The travel tax would pay for this improvement in public transport.

In order to reduce people’s use of the car it seems clear to me that public transport must be made an easier and cheaper alternative. When the government are proposing schemes such as the Travel Tax that in my opinion are needed then they must also promise the improvement in public transport. By not doing this they are treating the symptoms and not the cause. This said I would not like to see a satellite tracking system where your car is tracked wherever you go.

I don’t know whether you have heard of this website called You Tube (it has just been bought by Google for millions!) but I was looking on there the other day. It is basically a video sharing site were you upload video content and then everybody else can view it.

I was looking around the other night and started searching for content of F1 and came across lots of excellent videos about F1 motor racing when I came across this very thought provoking clip on all the drivers that have lost their lives whilst racing in the formula one circuit. Take a look at the video below:

There are three that had me almost in tears. The first being Williamson’s car. Someone else in the race stopped their car to help but couldn’t assist as the car burns and burns and the poor chap ends up walking away in tears. Just think of the emotion that must have been going through his mind at the time. The second being the marshall that ran across the track to help another driver and was hit by a car, both he and the driver that hit him died. The final one of course being Ayrton Senna, I remember that as a kid in 1994 and couldn’t believe what had happened. It finally came over that the sport is real and very dangerous. Well done to the person that put this excellent movie onto You Tube. A fitting tribute to the guys that lost their lives.