Automotive restoration after accidents

With the coalition government already known to be keen to raise the motorway speed limit from 70mph to 80, it appears that the Labour Party is falling into line, though with a more flexible approach.

Though there are rumours that the new transport secretary Justine Greening is not as enthusiastic about the rise as her predecessor Philip Hammond, the government is seemingly committed to make the change happen and news that Labour is also broadly supportive will make a new law s passage through the Houses of Parliament much easier.

Maria Eagle, Labour s transport spokesman, said that the party would agree to a rise to an 80mph limit, provided that it was not a blanket rise, but was part of a variable speed limit with increases as well as decreases depending on the conditions of the road at that particular time.

She said that she was also concerned about the de facto limit rising to 90, as normally a motorist escapes prosecution if travelling below 10% plus 2mph above the official limit and she wants ministers to explain how the proposed new law would actually be enforced.

News of Labour s conditional support will be a blow to those who have consistently been opposed to the speed limit rise, including Friends of the Earth, who say it will make the roads less safe, burn more fuel and will make the country more dependent than ever on imported oil.

Are you in favour of a motorway speed limit rise across the board, do you favour Labour s more varied approach or do you oppose a speed limit increase altogether? We would be interested to hear your views.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9096303/Labour-ready-to-back-80mph-motorway-limit.html

The Institute of Highway Engineers (IHE) says that, though the winter still has some way to go, structural damage to the nation s road network has so far been avoided through a strategy of pre-salting roads and rapidly correcting any minor defects.

The IHE says that, though salting is often seen purely as a safety matter, it can also be used as a maintenance measure as the Quarmby Report, an independent review into the transport system s response to severe winter weather, makes clear.

The organisation says that pre-salting can help prevent the break-up of the underlying road structure and that, by using it in this way, the highways engineers have saved the authorities the need for costly structural repairs. It also calls on local authorities to plough some of their resources into keeping the roads safe for their users, by taking action such as replacing worn white lines and upgrading road surfaces.

So, after a couple of winters which have seen more potholes than ever before, hopefully the work of the IHE will keep more of them at bay this winter.

Perhaps the most interesting fact among those which have just been published for the annual Christmas and New Year crackdown on drink and drug drivers, is that there has been a 36% increase in the number of field impairment tests which determine whether a driver is under the influence of drugs.

According to deputy chief constable Suzette Davenport from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), this shows the extent to which forces throughout the country are taking the issue of drug-driving increasingly seriously.

The campaign took place in the month between 1 December and 1 January and involved officers from 43 forces in England and Wales, with intelligence led testing being used for the first time. Almost 157,000 drivers were stopped and tested and more than 7,100 were found to be under the influence of either alcohol or drugs. There was a higher rate of offending among those under the age of 25, 5.7%, compared to the 4% rate of those over that age, while the figures also showed, perhaps not surprisingly, that those under the influence were more likely to be involved in a collision.

DCC Davenport said that 7% of those who were tested following an accident were found to have been drinking or taking drugs compared to 4.1% for routine tests. She also praised those who had driven responsibly over the holiday period and reinforced the message that there is no safe limit on alcohol, so, the only way to ensure that you are driving safely is to not drink alcohol at all .

With additional new measures being proposed to identify and catch those who get behind the wheel after having taken illegal drugs, it seems that the police are taking seriously a matter which, for too long, has trailed behind that of drink-driving.

Almost 30,000 Mini s in the UK are involved in a worldwide recall of 235,000 cars because of fears of a fire risk.

The models affected are the Cooper S and John Cooper Works which were built between 2006 and last year which have a fault with electric water pumps which has resulted in four instances when fire has broken out, including one in the UK.

BMW, which owns Mini, will write to affected customers within the next few weeks to inform them that the water pump will have to be replaced in a procedure which is free and will take about an hour.

The company said in a statement that an electro-migration can occur at the circuit board installed in the additional water pump under high operating temperatures, which can result in the failure of that pump or even, in some cases, fire. Over 200,000 Minis are built every year at the company s plant in Oxford.