It’s that sinking moment – when, suddenly, your day starts swiftly heading south.
We’ve all been there: when you see that oh-so-deserved end-of-the-day beer before dinner slowly sinking away as you sail past the motorway exit road and just ahead is one long tailback…
Congestion, traffic jams, hold-ups – call them what you will, they are wasteful, inefficient and frustrating. But spare a thought for those commuters in Yorkshire where they spend a mind-numbing 86 hours sitting in their cars going exactly…nowhere. That’s more than in London’s notorious rush hour (74 hours) while around Birmingham it’s 73 hours.
Apparently the Leeds-Bradford congestion hot-spot has taken it to seventh worst in Europe, according to TomTom’s real time analysis of journey times. Poland’s Warsaw is the most congested city.
If you’re driving an automatic diesel Passat in those Yorkshire traffic jams, the cost of standing still is over £40 in wasted company car tax for a 40% tax payer. That’s before the cost of fuel; or loss of productivity; or increased blood pressure…
Daft. And wasteful.
Amelioration programmes are in place around the UK. In Birmingham there are managed motorways already (opening the hard shoulder to traffic in peak hours); and a highly congested Kent section of the M25 orbital car park between junction 5 and 7 where the M25 meets the M23 intersection is also going to be managed now. And for the blighted commuters of Leeds, news that the government has given the green light to the trolleybus scheme.
All this helps of course – but does it get to the heart of the issue? No, of course it doesn’t.
Better in-car telematics would help avoid congestion more efficiently, that’s for sure.
But fundamentally we need to control traffic flows – and that means spreading the time people go to work and more importantly, encouraging home working, which is the best way to get cars off the road.
Does that sound counter intuitive coming from a car leasing company? No, not really.
If we’re going to pay company car tax on our fleet cars, and businesses are going to invest in cars, they must be used efficiently. And that doesn’t mean sitting in a traffic jam.
Innovation is the key to how we approach business travel. Doing the same old means more of us will end up contributing to even greater congestion. That’s not a vision of the future I want to embrace. Or endorse.
Clever thinking, smart commuting, profitable business – that’s where we need to be heading.
But, before all that, where’s that beer of mine?
It’s that sinking moment – when, suddenly, your day starts swiftly heading south. We’ve all been there: when you see that oh-so-deserved end-of-the-day beer before dinner slowly sinking away as you sail past the motorway exit road and just ahead is one long tailback… Congestion, traffic jams, hold-ups – call them what you will, they … Continued
Occasionally, we’re fortunate enough for car makers to send along to our offices the odd model for assessment. Which is very kind of them. The rush for the keys is not so pleasant among staff but I usually find that an assertion of my seniority works very well. As does keeping a firm grip on … Continued
One social media wag suggested that it was just as well the fuel duty hike was delayed – it would save on ministerial fuel necessary for all the recent government U-turns… Was the Chancellor going to do anything else? I doubt it. In a tricky place, somewhere between a rock and a hard place, the … Continued
Getting your team onside is always crucial to success don’t you think? Just look at what’s been happening in the Euro 2012 qualification rounds. Holland, one of the top four favourites to win, have gone out without scoring a point. Tales from within the Dutch camp suggest dissatisfaction in the side, deep fissures dividing both … Continued
Le Mans. It’s a bit like Marmite: you either love it or loathe it. Actually, I suspect all motorsport is rather like Marmite. Personally, it doesn’t do it for me. But I have friends who visit Le Mans for the famous 24 Hour race (you know the one made famous by Steve McQueen in the … Continued
Remember 2002? I have to admit, I was still in shorts at the time but my fellow directors tell me about it… Sorry. That was uncalled for. Anyway, 2002: a freeze frame in the company car tax time line. It was that seminal moment when we moved from the sub-£20k company car special, when tax … Continued
No doubt many of you will be looking at your payslips and suddenly realising the impact of the Chancellor’s change to the company car tax rules on your take home pay. “Thanks George,” you probably muttered. Or, perhaps, something even a little stronger… But amongst all the rumblings of driver discontent, and the commentary about … Continued
Threatened tanker strikes, Jerry can gaffes, queues at fuel stations as drivers rushed to fill up, changing government advice…and that’s before we even had a strike. What a strange, frothed up concoction the recent fuel ‘crisis’ was. Despite the ephemeral basis for the run on fuel, drivers’ fears of being caught short of fuel was … Continued
Well now, the Chancellor gave us plenty to think about for company cars in his Budget. There’s extra cost – fuel goes up 3p per litre in August (proving that my sneaking suspicion aired in my last blog was, shall we say, wide of the mark). There’s stretching new company car tax targets if drivers … Continued
The Budget. It’s the one moment in the year when UK PLC suddenly concentrates on the economy – usually for a ‘what’s-in-it-for-me’ reason. Mmmm. OK, me too, actually. No harm in that of course. But what should we make of this year’s Budget? The Chancellor will be presenting the Budget on Wednesday 21 March and … Continued