New research has shown that using a hands-free phone while driving can dramatically impair driving performance.

Some 97.5 per cent of the drivers tested by the University of Utah were worse at driving when using a mobile phone.

Motorists using hands-free phones took 20 per cent longer to apply the brakes when needed and following distances increased by 30 per cent as drivers could not maintain the pace with other simulated traffic in the test.

Ellen Booth, campaigns officer for Brake, a UK road safety charity, that provides support for road crash victims and carers, said that the evidence overwhelmingly proved that using a phone while driving was dangerous.

She said it was important for politicians to begin to take notice and ban any sort of mobile phone use by drivers.

To drive in a safe manner, motorists must pay full attention to the road, she said, the only safe way to check a phone is to pull over in a sensible place first.

From tomorrow (April 1st), motorists buying new cars will be subject to a brand new first-year rate of vehicle excise duty (VED), which is designed to encourage buyers to opt for low-emission models.

All new cars in their first year of registration will have the one-off tax imposed upon them, based upon the CO2 levels they emit.

Drivers will pay the first-year rate of VED when they purchase their vehicle then new standard rates for each subsequent year, which are all calculated on emissions levels too.

Cars emitting 121g/km to 130g of CO2 will see a first-year reduction of up to £120 on current rates and, according to 2009 sales, they account for approximately 7.2 per cent of the new car sales market.

Although the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) hoped the government would scrap the new VED rates, it did make some announcements related to manufacturing, particularly in the low-carbon industry.

One of the proposed changes was for company car tax, which has been lowered by the government to five per cent for any vehicles emitting between one and 75g/km of CO2.

The government scrappage scheme, which officially ended today (March 31st), has saved around 4,000 jobs in the automotive sector, it has been claimed.

At least 330,000 cars have been sold as part of the scheme, which was implemented after the Budget 2009 to provide a short-term boost to the new car market during the economic downturn.

Business secretary Lord Mandelson said he was "pleased" to see the result the government wanted when it first introduced the initiative.

The government put around £400 million into funding for the scheme, which paid consumers £2,000 to trade in their old car, which was at least ten years old, for a new, greener model.

According to Jonathan Visscher, media manager at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the scheme was responsible for 20 per cent of average new car sales.

He said the initiative had boosted green credentials, putting more eco-friendly cars on UK roads.

Electric cars need smart grids to provide an interactive system for them when the market takes off, it has been claimed.

Investment in smart grids should give consumers greater control over energy bills too.

Matthew Knight, business development manager for Siemens Energy, transmission and distribution, said that implementing smart grids would make the system more user-friendly and cost effective for electric car owners.

He said the new system would allow users to balance the generation and demand of their usage, meaning when the costs of electricity were cheap, consumers could choose to charge up their electric vehicles.

Making electricity grids smarter, makes better use of the entire network, Mr Knight added.

Julien Groues, vice president of EMEA sales for Oracle Utilities, warned that more money needs to be invested in smart grids for the UK to seize the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions through additional investment in the expanding electric car market.

Nissan has announced that it is extending its scrappage scheme, allowing Nissan owners to trade in their old models for new ones.

Despite the government-funded scheme finishing this month, the manufacturer is offering owners of Nissan cars aged at least seven years old the opportunity to scrap their car and receive £2,000 off a brand new one.

The only models eligible for the scheme are British-built ones, which would have been manufactured at the UK’s largest car production plant in Sunderland.

Nissan’s scheme will begin on April 1st and is due to end on June 30th.
Managing director at Nissan, Paul Willcox, said he hoped the extended scheme would help the brand "sustain the positive results seen to date" and, at the same time, continue to support the UK economy.

The brand’s new all-electric model will be manufactured at the Sunderland Nissan plant, it was recently announced.

From 2013, the Sunderland plant will be responsible for the production of the LEAF for the whole of Europe.

Around £420 million has been invested by Nissan, which is expected to safeguard 2,250 jobs at the brand in the UK.

The government-funded scrappage scheme, which is due to end this month, has been worthwhile and has boosted green credentials, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

Since it began last May, the scheme has been responsible for contributing around 30 per cent of buoyancy to the motor market, accounting for 20 per cent of average sales, the SMMT’s media manager, Jonathan Visscher, said.

Once the initiative ends, the car market is predicted to perform about ten per cent lower.

A few critics have said that the scheme missed opportunities to provide direct green incentives to customers.

However, there are more environmentally-friendly cars on the roads because of the initiative as the new cars bought emit fewer emissions and have better fuel economy, Mr Visscher said.

More than £100 million has been spent in total by the government to fund the scheme.

It was implemented primarily to provide a short-term boost to the flagging new car sales market during the recession.

Some 400,000 cars have been traded in and scrapped through the government scheme.

Drivers are being told to check their tyre pressures before they start to travel over the Easter weekend.

Protyre, which is the leading independent tyre distribution network in the UK, has offered advice on everything drivers should check before setting off on their journey.

Motorists should check the pressures on their tyres against the manufacturer’s recommended pressures.

They should make sure they remove any foreign objects from the tread of the tyre and make sure all the tyres have a tread of at least 2.5mm.

All the dirt should be cleaned from around the valves and motorists should ensure all the tyres have valve caps fitted on them.

If the front tyres appear to be unevenly or excessively worn, then it is best to have the steering alignment checked, or the tyres balanced if there are signs of wobble, patchy wear or vibration.

Drivers have also recently been warned about the risks of not checking the oil levels in their cars.

Last week, Global Lubricants advised motorists to regularly check oil levels to ensure they do not incur high repair costs.

An electric prototype of a new greener London taxi is ready for trials.

The Mercedes Vito plug-in hybrid taxi has been designed and built by several different British technology companies over the past six months.

It can carry up to six people more than 120 kilometres on one single six-hour long charge and meets all the requirements of the London Carriage Office.

Using a new 70 kW version of Zytek’s electric drivetrain, the Vito has been converted to a front-wheel drive so that the battery pack could be installed under the floor of the vehicle, maximising space in the taxi.

Steve Tremble, sales and marketing director at Zytek, said the taxis may well be on roads in the capital by 2012, when the London Olympic Games take place, as the technologies used in it are all market-ready.

The UK government recently announced a £30 billion investment in low-carbon transport, in a bid to reduce the carbon emissions in cities around the country.

As part of the investment, low-carbon buses will be introduced to cities to try and improve the air quality in them.

The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has published a new Road Safety Manifesto for the upcoming election and is urging politicians from all parties to support it.

In the manifesto, driver and rider improvement on UK roads is being promoted and it is designed to reduce the number of road deaths and injuries every year.

A couple of radical ideas proposed in the manifesto are for new incentives to be introduced for chief constables to prove high-profile policing and tax breaks for companies that offer further driver training
to their staff drivers.

The IAM, a charity that supports the raising of driving and riding standards as well as campaigning for increased on-road skills, believes that visible policing is often overlooked as a deterrent to reckless driving and it thinks that more police on the roads would encourage good driving.

Simon Best, the IAM chief executive, said it was important for there to be a "lifelong approach" to learning, possible achieved through advanced training. This would benefit road safety the most, he said.

Ford is introducing a brand new fleet of large cars and is reducing recommended list prices, making the existing seasonal promotions permanent.

The lower CO2 ratings of the new range and the lower prices are expected to increase the appeal of the new range models, which include a Mondeo, S-MAX and Galaxy, for company car drivers.

Across the UK dealer network, seasonal promotions with discounts of up to 15 per cent had already been introduced to maximise sales during March, when the 10 plate first came out.

The discounts, which were launched in February and immediately had the result of stronger sales, were meant to finish at the end of spring.

Nigel Sharp, managing director for Ford of Britain, said that company car drivers were incurring a disadvantage as there was a lot of
confusion surrounding the high list prices for the vehicles as well as the high discounts, however, the new range should dispel this.

Ford recently received government backing for its £1.5 billion investment in eco-friendly technologies, which should safeguard some of the brand’s UK jobs as well as boosting its green credentials.