Ford Drivers Are The Main Road Hogs

The english company Cumbria Safety Cameras has recently conducted a large research which aimed to reveal what car’s drivers violate the speed regime more often. It’s important to mention that in this case information was gathered not by the questioning of drivers. As “What Car?” magazine reports the workers of Cumbria Safety Cameras have simply used the information from the speed control cameras which are installed on many British routes.

Most experts were confident that BMW drivers exceeded the speed mostly but unexpectedly it appears that the owners of german cars are not so reckless as it seems to think they are. By some obscure reason Ford models settled down the first two places: the owners of Mondeo became the “winners” and Focus drivers took the second place. The third step of this dubious podium was occupied by Vauxhall Vectra. Volkswagen Golf and Volkswagen Passat came in fourth and fifth place.

Even if to consider makes in general the first three places would still belong to Ford, Vauxhall and Volkswagen while Peugeot, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Renault followed them.

Chrysler Sebring Among The Worst Cars

Forbes magazine has recently published a list of cars with the worst characteristics. The conclusion was based on the factory techninal qualities and independent tests. Four main parameters of cars were considered while making this list: the number of cars recalled by the producer (information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, USA), reliability rating made up by competent agency Consumer Reports, a report about the actual loss of new car’s cost from Automotive Lease Guide and, finally, safety rating based on crash tests carried out by Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The cars from the bottom of reliability rating and the ones with bad crash tests results, large number of recalls and low resale cost were included in the list. A new generation Chrysler Sebring was improved to become more spacious and more attractive for the customers, but the number of its recalls is enormous. It has been recalled six times already because of various troubles from faulty bonnet lock to defective air bags and disabled engine cooling.

What Color Is Preferable For Your Car? Part I

Street traffic is a dynamic kaleidoscope where the palette of colors changes every second. Even on a short length of road the eye of a driver catches numerous pictures painted in different colors. It is important to learn that colors influence the safety of traffic greatly.

The statistics of traffic accidents state that only dark-colored vehicles are involved in 61,3% of crashes, both dark and light-colored cars – in 32,6%, only light-colored ones – in 6,1%. The analysis of traffic accidents in Sweden showed that black cars (6% of all number) were involved in 22,4% of crashes, dark-blue, blue and dark-grey (41,3%) – in 61,2%, red ones (6,5%) – in 2,4%. The American investigators revealed that dark-colored cars were the participants of 57% of accidents occurred with the control group’s vehicles while light and bright-colored were involved in 43% of cases. Moreover, the interrogation of 147 pointsmen was conducted in Belgium and 47 of them mentioned that it in their opinion it is possible to increase the safety of street traffic with the aid of cars’ color.

According to the results of several researches the coloration of a car also affects the estimation of its speed and the distance from it. For instance, it seems that a red car is closer and moves quicker than in reality and blue and green ones vice versa. Visual illusions caused by color also include the distortion of object size perception. For example, dark-colored cars seem to be smaller than light-colored ones. Wrong object form perception is also possible and in some cases it’s hard to notice the vehicle because of its color.

All in all, color is an important element of street traffic both for drivers and pedestrians. In the second part of the article we will describe the advantages and disadvantages of each color separately.

Peugeot 308 Has Golden Steering Wheel

Peugeot 308 being put on market in Germany on September 15 was chosen the best compact family car among its rivals and received the Golden Steering Wheel award. The readers of Autobild, the german magazine, stated the value of all categories’ representatives. Among the judges were also professional drivers, racing drivers and journalists.

All the auto novelties appeared on the german market during the last 12 months were divided into four categories: small cars, compact, medium/executive and SUVs.
The winner was chosen among the five finalists in every category after the series of tests and assays. The criteria of selection were: style, design, comfort, riding grade, safety, ecological friendliness and quality. Peugeot 308 was voted the best in 9 of 15 criteria and won the fist place in its category.

Peugeot 308 also proved itself to be an ecofriendly vehicle. This was achieved by applying innovate technologies capable to reduce fuel consumption and gas blowout.

Sports Car Focus ST Introduced By Ford

A new sports hatchback Focus ST will soon be put on the market by Ford company. As “Auto Express”, the british magazine, reports it will be equipped with the 2,5 litre and 222 hp turbine engine, just the same as in the previous ST generation, but its exterior will differ. The elements of Mondeo design can be noticed in its lamps, and the outline of its air scopes is adopted from Verve concept. Three- and five-door Focus ST will be available for sale in March, 2008.

Simultaneously a limited series of the sports car Ford Focus ST500 will appear in Great Britain. Each of 500 vehicles is modified only in outward appearance. Black metallic with grey bars imitates the colouration of Ford GT40 which has recently won in Le Mans 24 Hours, sport seats from Recaro are installed in the saloon. Among the technical features of the sports car are xenon lamps, antidazzle driving mirrors and rain sensors.

The 15 Millionth Passat Born In Emden

The Volkswagen company has recently celebrated the output of the 15 millionth copy of Passat model which was produced on the german factory in Emden. The jubilee Passat is a blue-coloured estate car equipped with 105 hp turbodiesel BlueMotion with 1,9 litre volume. On a ceremonial meeting this vehicle was solemnly presented to its new owner – Mrs. Sybille Beckenbauer.

The production of the first generation of Volkswagen Passat started in 1973 and the factory in Emden began the assembly of this car four years later. Since that time more than 9 million of Volkswagen cars have been produced by this plant and 5,9 million of them were Passat vehicles. Nowadays Volkswagen is putting out the sixth generation of Passat model. This cars are produced worldwide on 13 different assembly enterprises.

Jaguar XJ Voted The Best Luxury Car

The jury of the competent auto magazine “What Car?” consisted of the most qualified experts of the field has voted Jaguar XJ the best luxury car in 2007. The jury highly appreciated its light aluminium body, high-powered V6 engine with the automatic gearbox and splendid compartment. “Jaguar XJ is an excellent car and unprecedently advantageous purchase. Swift, comfortable, economical – it can be considered a perfect evidence of Jaguar’s workers high skills, they can be proud of themselves”, – stated the jury.

Its victory in Auto Trader Used Car Awards premium was secured by the readers of the magazine and also by the audience of the Used Car Roadshow on ITV4 channel. The spectators were asked to name their favourite cars. Since it appeared in 2003 XJ family was supplemented with new extended wheelbase modification, special limited XJR Portfolio series, iron-clad XJ and also recently represented Jaguar XJ 2008 with the renewed design.

Next Year Hit: Volkswagen Scirocco

Volkswagen Iroc concept, represented this year at Paris Autosalon, will soon be realized in the serial model Scirocco. Shorlty after the premiere of the conceptual Iroc, Volkswagen chairman Martin Winterkorn sent the project for revision and the terms of the serial model appearance were put off.

Production of the novelty will start at the beginning of next year on the factory in Portugal where cabriolet Eos will be assembled as well. As far as both these models are worked out on the same platform, it’s quite possible to expect a new “open” version of Scirocco with folding roof appear soon. The line of engines proposed for the Scirocco model by the german engineers starts with 1,4 litre turbine engine and ends with 3,2 litre V6 set already used in Golf R32.

New Amazing BMW Models Announced

The BMW company has recently announced the program of its development till 2020. According to it, several important novelties will be launched within the next few years. Among them is a solid offroader BMW X1, another crossover – a rival of Mercedes R-Class, and also a large luxuriuous coupe with four doors based on the concept-car BMW CS recently represented at Shanghai autoshow.

Novelties are expected also among other BMW models. For instance, a new compact offroader will be soon added to Mini line. Rolls-Royce is going to output a very expensive coupe based on Phantom and also another, more reasonable model which is expected to compete with Bentley production.

Elite Taxis Help To Avoid Taxes

A large number of elite cars registered as taxi vehicles has appeared recently in London. The British are registering their supercars as taxis to avoid the paying of ecological tax. The price for such registration is just 170 dollars plus 56 dollars for the special license with one year period of validity.

At the same time owners of the luxury cars spend 15 dollars per day at an average. What is more, in 2008 the authorities of the city are going to increase the ecological tax to 25 dollars. For the time being among the supertaxis are: one Aston Martin DB7, 31 Bentley, 18 BMW X5, three Maybach, 8 Rolls-Royce Phantom, two Maserati Quattroporte and one Jaguar XK.