What do you call a gathering on Smart Cars a “smattering of smart cars” maybe but the 10th anniversary of this kooky little car saw nearly 1500 smart cars at Mercedes Benz World in Weybridge.

Along with competitions for the “Most Modified, Best Kept and Best Dressed smart there was also the chance to test drive the smart fortwo, the first model which can be charged via a standard 13 amp socket. There was also a surprise dance from the Smart UK team who provided the entertainment to the track Car Wash.

Gary Savage Mercedes Benz Managing Director stated ” The record attendance of this year’s smart festival underlines the fact that even 10 years after its UK launch the smart continues to attract more and more people to its unique driving and ownership experience.”

Last winter was very cold and very long and played havoc with our roads with excessive rain and then freezing this is the perfect recipe for road erosion and then you have to add in the trenches from the utility companies you have a big problem.

Nine out ten local authorities have indeed reported that the short fall on funding for the repair of these damaged roads pose a real safety issue, one man already losing his life by being hit by a lorry avoiding a pothole.

The good news was this year was the fact the backlog was being caught up on and it was reported the “estimated time to clear the carriageway maintenance backlog has fallen by 1.5 years” bad news the backlog still stands at over 11 years. We are all aware that cut backs are going to effect every department which is going to do nothing to improve the situation.

How potholes are dealt with differently from area to area for instance in Kent they have crews and claim to have repaired over 130000 potholes since the winter, however there method has been witnessed as simply filling the hole with asphalt, which of course is simply washed away by the next heavy rain, whereas in Yorkshire they use a high pressure air system to clean the hole and then a bitumen emulsion is sprayed in which seals against further water damage the last stage is a bitumen emulsion mixed with aggregate is then fired into the hole at high speed which allows it to compact quick enough to be ready for traffic straight away, so the whole procedure is not only effective but quick.

You can’t help but wonder why when the old way costs around £70 per repair compared to the velocity repair comes in at about £15 why this has not be rolled out accross the country and when you take into account the compensation that has been paid out from accidents and damage, to have a more effective and efficent system seems nothing short of just common sense.

One thing is for sure with reducing budgets all local councils must be wishing for a favourable winter.

Some gadgets are great you look at some and wonder how did I ever exist without that like parking sensors,but some are just the result of maybe someone having too much time on their hands, take for instance the Openmeter which comes on the Mini Convertible and has the very useful job of of letting the driver know by means of a small dial how long the roof has been down!

So if you have £120 spare and can’t think of anything better to do with it you could have one.

This idea is brilliant reducing the need for a driver to take their eye away from the road, this technology comes from military planes, BMW on the new 7 series are now developing a colour version but you could argue that as fighter pilots make do with single colour is it necessary and further would colour be more of a distraction.

There is a danger that manufacturers will look to get as much information on to HUD in the name of driver safety, but there has to be a limit where all this data on the windscreen could become more of a hindrance than a help.

Maybe a little over promising but not much, from 1st August this year any Vauxhall registered from then will get the 100000 mile warranty on powertrain, steering, brakes and electrical equipment.

The owner must take their vehicle to any Vauxhall dealer for a free annual inspection to remain eligible and at the present it will only apply to the original owner and cannot be passed on,however Vauxhall are looking at launching a product that subsequent owners could purchase to gain the same warranty deal.

The new smaller cheaper and more efficient model will be revealed next March, the smaller model will feature maybe 2 seats or it could be a three seat version in the T.25  City Car style.

The new model will retain the the front wheel drive and front engine as this will reduce the development cost as this is crucial to keep as low as possible when you factor in the strict EU crash protection regulations, as they are looking at starting prices at £10000.

Volkswagen and their Golf Blue Motion walked away with the much prized “Green Car of the Year Award”  and added to this is was also awarded the best Green Small Family Car beating the other 8 in that class.

The Ford Focus 1.6 Tdci 90 Style won the used green car award with the Renault Nissan Alliance winning the Editor’s Award for bringing cars like the Renault Fluence and Nissan Leaf to the market at affordable prices.

This is a full list of the winners:-

Supermini: Fiat 500 1.2 Pop

SmallFamily Car VW Golf 1.6 TDi 105 BlueMotion

Family Cars VW Passat 1.6 TDI 105 BlueMotion

Exectutive Car BMW 320d Efficient Dynamics

MPV Peugeot 5008 1.6 HDi 110 Active

Crossover Nissan Qashqai 1.5 DCi Visia Pure Drive 2wd

Sports Car Honda CR-Z 1.5 i VTEC Sport 3dr

Luxury Car Jaguar XJ 3.0D Luxury

Used Green Car Ford Focus 1.6 TDCi 90 Style

Editor’s Award Renault Nissan Alliance

Overall Winner VW Golf 1.6 TDI 105 BlueMotion

More and more teachers are finding car leasing is providing them with the ability to have a brand new car every two or three years at an affordable price.

With leasing starting at £140 per month including vat and road tax this in some cases works out far cheaper than a getting a loan and buying and when you add in that a lease car is delivered and collected from your front door it removes so much of the hassle.

Personal car leasing in USA is really popular and accounts for over 20% of the new car sales here in the UK we are just beginning to catch on.If nothing more a quick comparison when looking for a new car is probably worthwhile.

The very near future could see “Black Boxes” for cars which would allow for recording accidents, video, photographs etc.. which could be sent direct to police and insurance companies, this would not only speed up payments for example but would also reduce if not eliminate completely fraudulent insurance claims including the increasing number of deliberate “induced accidents”.

Moving on from there the inventors Intel are looking for the intelligent car to be able to read road signs and understand them and could allow the car to take over and pull over to a safe place if the drivers has failed to read a sign correctly. Further cars will be able to talk to each other waring of accidents, tail backs and road works other possibilities could be being able to remotely warming the cars on cold mornings and being able to directly report potholes to the appropriate department.

Ford have announced its intention to substantially cut prices, in a bid to stop “customer confusion”, for a while now their prices have been considerable higher than the competition with Ford blaming this on factors such a the weak pound, these factors do not  however seemed to effected the rest of the market to the same extent, with the VW Polo coming in at £9790 in comparison with the Fiesta Studio retailing at £11656.

The result of these price differences has been that the dealers have come in with huge discount offers but Ford feels that this has led to the client being confused, thus their decision to cut the prices and remove the discounting, with Ford’s UK Managing Director Nigel Sharp stating “Ford want to make the whole purchase process more transparent”.

No date has been fixed for this price move but a good guess would be before the September plate update and the models included will be the Ka Focus Fiesta and Kuga.