A record number of drivers were caught illegally using mobile phones during a police crackdown.
Almost 8,000 fixed penalty notices were handed out during a week-long campaign in November – the highest figure yet for a seven-day National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) crackdown on “distraction driving” and the totals for the three previous initiatives were 2,690 in May 2015, 2,276 in September 2015 and 2,323 in May 2016.
New cars will be required to undergo their first MOT test after four years instead of the current three from 2018 should a government proposal be adopted.
The current three-year period needed before a car’s first MOT was introduced in 1967, when it was reduced from 10 years. Now the government says “safer technology and improved manufacturing” have resulted in “new vehicles that stay roadworthy for longer” and the changes would come in 2018.
The global light vehicles sales in 2016 hit 93.5 million units, up 4.4% or 4 million on 2015.
While exceeding expectations, there was little surprise Toyota led the league with 8.47 M, a huge advantage over Volkswagen Group with 6.35 M, which put on a lot of sales in the second-half of the year and overtook Ford, which had been leading for part of 2016 and which ended just behind on 6.23 M.