Thousands of UK families face a flat Easter as tyre-related callouts – over one of the busiest periods on UK roads – are likely to hit one every 45 seconds, according to research by AA Tyres,.
And with more than 15 million cars on the roads over the Easter period, almost four million motorists** could be “dicing with death”, as separate research provided to the AA by TyreSafe, the not-for-profit organisation raising awareness of tyre safety, reveals that one in four cars and vans on UK roads in 2015, was driven with an illegal and dangerous tyre.
The Asphalt Industry Alliance’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance survey, which estimates the one-time cost to get roads in England and Wales back into reasonable condition is now £11.8 billion.
RAC chief engineer David Bizley said, “These findings are disappointing, but unfortunately not surprising. While around £1bn a year has been allocated by central government for local roads in England between now and 2020, their condition appears to be getting worse rather than better.”
The Renault Twizy has been chosen for car sharing scheme in the Lake District.
As part of Combria Tourism’s ‘See More’ sustainable travel programme, ten all-electric Twizys available to hire from eight local businesses and the scheme aims to encourages visitors to ‘leave their cars at home’.
Traffic congestion in the UK’s biggest cities is 14% worse than it was just five years ago, according to a major report, while across the rest of Europe, average congestion is actually 3% down over the same period.
The annual Traffic Index from TomTom shows average UK journeys in 2015 took 29% longer than they would in free-flowing conditions – up from a 25% delay in 2010 and Belfast has the worst UK traffic, even beating London and Manchester.
Two fifths of road accidents involving Brits abroad in the last five years were down to the inexperience of driving on the right hand side of the road, according to insurance4carhire.
It surveyed 1,500 British holidaymakers who have driven abroad in the last five years and found more than one in ten (13%) had been involved in a road accident and of these crashes, nearly two in five (39%) were caused by their inexperience of driving on the right hand side of the road, with the most vulnerable being under 34 years.
Ford will transfer production of its popular EcoSport SUV for European markets to Romania from India.
Ford said it will invest up to 200 million euros in its Craiova factory in southern Romania to build the subcompact SUV in the plant starting late next year and it’s factory in Chennai, India, will continue to build the EcoSport for domestic Indian sales and for many export markets.
Volkswagen’s U.S. dealers are seeking reparations from the automaker for financial damages caused by the company’s emissions violations.
Three of VW’s US dealers proposed the reparations during a meeting with senior VW AG executives in Germany last week about the company’s US strategy.
