Is It Just Me...

Or is the decision to absolve councils of responsibility for gritting roads looking pretty short-sighted and remarkably stupid? I'd say that this was a benefit of perfect hindsight, however a number of people pointed this out at the time, myself included...

Wonderful that our integrated transport system has coped with the strain... oh, or perhaps not.

End Of The Road For 4Car

Channel 4 has announced that a fall-off in advertising revenue is going to mean that its 4Car website is going to close at the end of the year. That's a sign of how the credit crunch has hit the motoring industry and the knock-on effect its now having.

Yet another thing that we have to thank our scumbag banking community for. (Hi to any scumbag bankers reading this!)

Eking Out That Last Gallon

Want to know the secret of getting the absolute best economy out of your car in these times of unfeasibly high petrol prices? Cornering quickly.

Now I don't mean the sort of cornering quickly that you'll see at a race track on a Sunday (or outside your local Mcdonalds drive-thru on a Saturday night) which combines late hard braking with vicious acceleration because that isn't really going to boost your mileage one bit.

The sort of cornering I'm talking about involves carrying as much as speed as possible all the way through the corner - whether it be a roundabout or road deviation - to minimise braking and acceleration either side of the said corner.

The trick is to come off the gas at a point approaching the corner where the impact of friction and drag will cause the car to slow gently to the fastest possible speed that is safe to negotiate the corner. The more speed you carry through the corner, the less you have to accelerate out of it, the better your mileage. In an ideal world you'd be cornering right on the limit of the adhesion of your tyres, but in the real world safety considerations will temper your entry speed - especially on a blind corner.

Nevertheless turning in a 5-10% improvement in your mileage should be relatively easy to do if you use this technique ruthlessly.

The Sad State Of Car Magazine

Its many years since I last bought a copy of Car Magazine, even so I was shocked to see how the once mighty tome has fallen from its once loft perch. The magazine that hosted such automotive journalism as LJK Setright, George Bishop, Phil Llewellyn and Russell Bulgin now hosts a weak selection with little of interest to say.

The magazine as a genre is dying, along with other print media - although the death throes will take at least another generation. Car Magazine, however, appears to have died many years ago.