SMART MOTORWAYS HALTED BY GOVERNMENT
The roll out of new smart motorways will be halted for five years, as the Government wants to use that time to collate more data on the safety of the existing sections. Those schemes that are already being built will continue, however. In the meantime, £900 million has been pledged to improving the safety of existing smart motorways. For more on this story, click the Autocar article here.
FUEL DUTY LOSS ESTIMATED AT £5 BILLION THANKS TO EVS
The RAC Foundation has estimated that the Government could lose £5 billion in revenue from fuel duty, with the rise in EV adoption, by 2030. This brings up the thorny problem of how will that be recouped, especially as car owners already feel they are over burdened with costs. To learn more, click here for the YesAuto link.
LONDON MAYOR CONSIDERING A DAILY CAR CHARGE
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has commissioned a City Hall report into achieving the net zero target for London of 2030. One of the recommendations is for a daily charge of £2 per car, except the zero emission vehicles, as well as charging those from outside entering Greater London. This would increase the scope and area of existing schemes. The claim is this is needed for clean air reasons. In order to find out more, click the BBC News article here.
POTHOLE DAMAGE AT THREE YEAR HIGH
The RAC attended an astonishing 27 call-outs related to pothole damage each day in 2021. This is a three year high. The RAC has called on the Government to properly invest in maintaining roads to a safe and acceptable standard, as well as fresh thinking as current practices and funding levels are inadequate. Further information can be found by clicking this Motoring Research article link here.
SCOTLAND PUSHING FOR CAR USE REDUCTION
The Scottish Transport Minister, Graeme Day, has published a ‘road map’ for reducing the need to use cars. This has been criticised for having little in terms of actionable steps. To read more about this, click the YesAuto article here.
This stance is being echoed in the UK Government, with Transport Minister Trudy Harrison, stating we need to move away from private car ownership late last year. You can read her comments and more by clicking the AMOnline link here.
RENAULT GROUP SALES SLIDE AGAIN
For the third year running, sales fell for Renault Group, two of the last three years are fairly easy to explain though. Last year, further disruption from Covid and the semi conductor chip shortages are being blamed. Some bright news is that Alpine, Dacia and Lada made gains. For more on this story,
