Mobile speed trap

Richard Brunstrom loves blogging. He’s the North Wales Chief Constable who spends his days off nabbing drivers for whatever he can pin on them. His favourite is to book motorists for going a few miles an hour over an unrealistically low limit, and once declared that “drifting over the speed limit is no different from drifting a knife into someone”.

I’d beg to differ; I reckon sticking a knife in someone is guaranteed to get results. But breaking the speed limit is something most of us do every time we get behind the wheel; usually with no harm done. I’m not saying that anarchy on the roads is okay – merely claiming the Mad Mullah’s comparison doesn’t bear even the slightest analysis.

Brunstrom is on a high right now, declaring in his latest blog that persecuting drivers is saving lives. He claims that his hard-line stance has seen casualties tumble on his patch – so what a pity that this statement also doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. He starts by playing the usual game of lumping deaths in with serious injuries; while the latter have fallen thanks to some deft reclassifying, it’s harder to brush a fatality under the carpet.

By the start of December 2006 there had already been 42 deaths on North Wales roads – equal to the tally for the whole of 2005. Look solely at the deaths over the past few years and you can see that the tens of thousands of fines, acres of red paint and hundreds of reduced speed limits have produced no tangible benefit whatsoever. There have been no reductions in fatalities, but there have been some sharp increases in the five years since Arrive Alive was launched – that’s Brunstrom’s beloved speed camera partnership.

I’d argue that speed cameras are not necessarily saving lives – and it’s time for a new strategy. Before you write in to disagree, here’s one thought. Twenty more people died on English roads in 2005 than in 2004 – despite thousands of reduced speed limits over the past decade, with increasingly hard-line enforcement in that time. Does that sound like a policy that’s working to you?

Richard Dredge's batmobile

I had some classic car-owning friends round for dinner the other evening; why is it that on these occasions, the conversation seems to revolve exclusively around cars and the question always arises of what we hanker after? They were fans of the Rover P6 and I’ve owned my Triumph Vitesse for 14 years, so we started discussing what we’d replace our steeds with.

With a budget of £6000, should I go for something pre-war but usable, such as a Morris Eight? Or perhaps something more recent would be in order – but it would have to be pre-1973 for the free road tax. That really opens up the field, because Sixties and Seventies cars are frequently so under-valued. A Lancia Fulvia would be something rather different, but then a Rover P5B could be just what the doctor ordered (and he frequently did, for himself, when the cars were new).

Or I could go almost modern; having written a feature on the Renault GTA a few years back, they’ve always struck me as unfeasibly good value. Six grand nets you a superb example and they seem to have no real downsides.

Of course I don’t need to blow six big ones on something desirable; just half that sum will secure me a mint Peugeot 205GTi (if I can find one), or there’s the constantly overlooked Maserati Biturbo. But I’m not a gambling man, and any Maser of this vintage is just too much of a risk to take on.

So for now I’ll keep my Canley classic – but if the right opportunity presented itself you just never know. Tell me what you think I should blow six grand on and you might just start off a chain of events that I come to regret…

1940 Willys Quad prototype

Christmas comes but once a year – and that’s probably just as well because I’m not sure my blood pressure would be able to stand anything more frequent. It’s not that I find Christmas itself particularly stressful – it’s just that the annual mega-quiz at my local has hit something of a raw nerve this year.

I’m not that good at general knowledge, but when it comes to cars and pop music I’m your man. While the latter figures fairly heavily in the 100 questions, anything motoring-related rarely gets a look in. So imagine my joy when the quiz master asked us to name the first four-wheel drive production car.

I immediately thought of the 1941 Willys Jeep; after all, the 1903 Spyker was probably not what he had in mind. Then I thought about the production car bit; was it the 1948 Land Rover that he was after? Maybe neither would be classed a car, so the 1966 Jensen FF could get a look in – or there was always the Subaru Leone from 1972.

With much cajoling from me, the team opted for the Jeep, which was clearly in production well before any of the others – and it’s quite definitely a car. I’m not especially competitive, so if the Land Rover was chosen in place of the Jeep I could live with it. But it wasn’t – and neither was the Jensen or the Subaru. In fact according to the man with the mic, the first four-wheel drive production car wasn’t built until 1980. That’s right – the Audi Quattro was apparently the first production car with power going to each corner.

I don’t think I’d be quite so upset if two teams didn’t score a point apiece by getting the same wrong answer as the quiz master. Sometimes I think I just know too much – let me know about any know-alls who really know nothing.

The ultimate drink-driving sanction?

Although I don’t drink, I quite often visit our ‘local’, for company and a crossword with old friends. Last night I overhead one of the regulars being congratulated for getting ‘..a right result’.

Apparently he had been stopped earlier in the day for some minor traffic infringement and the copper concerned chose, for whatever reason, not to breathalise him: perhaps because it was still daylight. Had he done so, he would have removed another drunk driver from the roads, as the man in question, by his own admission, was ‘…well over the limit’.

But despite his close shave, the same man left the pub last night even more over the limit, got in his car and drove home. As far as I am aware, he made it home in one piece, again undetected.

Frankly, I wouldn’t have cared if he had driven into a tree and hurt himself, or, better still, had been captured and made to pay the price. Good riddance, I would say. But what really hacks me off is the fact that someone else, maybe more than one ‘someone else’, might have had to pay a different kind of price for his extraordinary selfishness.

“What about a cab, Billy?’ one of his friends suggested. “I’m a better driver when I’m pissed than they are when they’re sober,” he reassured the bar at large, and off he went. Meanwhile the landlord turned a blind eye.

Maybe the time has come to enforce a ‘Duty of Care’ responsibility on publicans, possibly under Section 89 of the Road Traffic Act, which I recall has something to do with aiding and abetting reckless or dangerous driving. Or maybe there should be an anonymous whistle-blowing telephone number, along the lines of Crimestoppers, which would enable a few drunk drivers to be ‘grassed up’ before they’d even attempted to drive home. Or a reception committee in an unmarked car could be deployed at random: maybe that could be another job for community support officers.

In the meantime, why not ensure that anyone who is arrested at the roadside for being ‘over the limit’ immediately forfeits their car? No arguments, impounded, sold, proceeds to support the local air ambulance. If uninsured drivers can have their cars impounded, sold or crushed, why not drunk drivers? I for one would consider that ‘a right result’.

Is Proton about to hit the wall?

It looks like Proton is in trouble. Its bank reserves are only a fraction of what they were a couple of years ago, and Perodua has overtaken it in the vital domestic market. I say vital because, at best, Proton exports 20,000 cars a year.

Perodua, owned by Daihatsu, for which read Toyota, is proving a more popular choice because cars from state-owned Proton are renowned for poor build-quality and even worse residual values.

Meanwhile governmental strife within Malaysia may hamper any plans to flog Proton to the highest bidder. In terms of political hot potatoes, Proton calls for oven gloves.

But why should this concern us? Because as Proton falters Lotus blossoms, and since the Hethel company is owned by Proton it could become a pawn in some kind of high-finance leverage package much the same as Volvo in Ford’s bid for a massive loan.

As an owner of a Type 49 Elise 111S, I can just about forgive the company for the Europa. I can even forgive it for the VX220 Turbo from which the Europa evolved. Moreover I can turn a blind eye to the company’s original flirtation with Proton, even though it led to a shotgun wedding.

But I shall never forgive Lotus if, when Proton hits the wall, as Proton surely must, it doesn’t leave a single stone unturned to secure British finance, British backing, British ownership. Somebody out there must be able to stump up the cash: Lotus Engineering is a major force in automotive research and development, quite apart from Lotus Cars, and we should bring them back to Britain, because they’re worth it.

A Bath University researcher

Tucked away among the scientific papers that from time to time arrive in my mail box, I’ve come across one explaining a discovery that has the right to be called a ‘breakthrough’.

Researchers at Bath University have discovered a method of storing and releasing hydrogen at room temperature, thus addressing one of the major stumbling blocks to the rapid introduction of hydrogen-powered cars – namely how to store the stuff in a convenient manner and make its use in cars a viable proposition.

I have driven fuel-cell cars and know from first-hand experience how tricky hydrogen can be. You either have to store it in liquid form in pressurised tanks at minus 250 degrees centigrade, or impregnate the gas in metal-hybride lattices at plus 300 degrees centigrade. The latter is preferable but it takes time for the lattices to reach their working temperature.

The boffins are at present working only at the atomic level, but believe that, within two to three years, they may be able to fabricate a storage device that will store and release sufficient ‘on-demand’ hydrogen at room temperature to enable the engine to be run before the main metal-hybride source is firing on all cylinders, so to speak.

Inch by inch, we move closer realising Jules Verne’s prediction that “…water will one day be used as fuel, that the hydrogen and oxygen of which it is constituted will be used, simultaneously or in isolation, to furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, more powerful than coal can ever be”.

Logan's run well for Renault

As a China-watcher, I am constantly intrigued by Volkswagen’s attempts to retain a lion’s share of the burgeoning market in that culturally diverse country.

Volkswagen is an old hand at the China game: it began building Passats in the People’s Republic as long ago as 1983. In the meantime its joint ventures with SAIC and, more recently, FAW Car, have produced a string of models with familiar names.

Nonetheless, Volkswagen is by no means content and, inspired by Renault’s success with the cheap-as-chips Logan, intends to build its own low-cost equivalent. But although the car is intended for China it may not necessarily be built in China. Code named EM (Emerging Markets – don’t you just love the depth of German imagination), the new car is expected to utilize Skoda technology and components, and will be sophisticated enough to have 3-, 4- and 5-door variants.

Meanwhile, and with potential for a Czech mate, Skoda is to start up on its own account, building and selling the Octavia in China ‘early next year’, presumably with the same comparative price advantage VW allows it to enjoy in Europe.

So there’s to be another round in the cut-price war, and how far can that be taken before quality takes a nose-dive? But if the Chinese insist on driving something really cheap and nasty, maybe some bright young tiger should start building the Rover 25 – at least it would provide other manufacturers with an example of what to avoid.