Virtual Car Broker

Happy, er, bit between Christmas and New Year. I watched Top Gear last night: that’s got to be the best episode they’ve made. Watching Jeremy Clarkson haring through the Vietnam streets in a purple suit on a scooter was the business. Watching him fall off said scooter was even better. Why? For the same reason I secretly enjoyed watching Ewan McGregor fall off his bike time and again – I just love watching anyone other than myself making an idiot of themselves on a bike. And it doesn’t happen often enough in my opinion.

Top Gear: the boys were on top form in Vietnam this week

But here’s the crux of the matter: why is it that everyone else gets back on their bike and carries on, bruising and scratches aside, and yet every time I’ve crashed a bike, it’s been unrideable? It’s got to be the way I lay it down, because none of my mishaps has been at high speed, and yet the bike has always ended up in several more pieces than I was expecting.

Greetings from a well-known chain of budget hotels, somewhere on the M6. Potential Biker and I are heading north to visit friends and family and have stopped halfway up. I am a very nervous car passenger, mainly because two attempts have been made to bring my time on earth to a sudden end, first when the driver of the car I was in fell asleep (also on the M6) and later by an attempt to take a corner rather faster than the suspension of a fully-loaded Mini Metro will allow. PB has become us…

Merry Christmas one and all – is there anyone still reading this at their desks, or have you all biked off for Christmas already? Bunch of slackers.

I drove my Golf VI 2.0 turbodiesel test car into work yesterday (lovely, lovely) and followed a Gixer for most of the way. Funny, isn’t it, how I can look at Ducatis and Aprilias and sigh longingly, but actually, when a GSX-R1000 streams by, I always think there’s nothing quite like that bike, even though I don’t think it’s attractively styled.

Maybe it’s because I tend to see flash gits on Ducatis who maybe (eek, massive generalisation here that I’m going to get hammered for) buy the bike but don’t know how to ride it, whereas, VERY generally, Gixer riders always seem superbly in control of their wheels. I’m sure there are plenty of complete chumps out there on all manner of bikes, but I’ve yet to see a Gixer ridden stupidly.

Right, this is the third time I’ve tried posting this and if it doesn’t work, I’m going to cry. As a result of my now aching arms, it’s shorter than the first version, but that might be no bad thing.

As I’ve been trying to say all morning, I’m briefly returning to my last post about EU emissions targets for cars with two points (oops – just wrote two pints. Much better idea).

Here comes the sun: what’s the true cost of CO2 emissions?

The EU finally agreed today on new CO2 legislation for the car industry. No one can be surprised by the new programme for car makers: it’s been a long time in the making. New-car emissions must be reduced to 130g/km by 2015, and a further 10g/km must be cut through the use of what’s called “complementary measures” eg low rolling-resistance tyres. So that’s an overall target of 120g/km, and it’s not optional; it’s mandatory.

Climate change: what about penalising long-haul airlines?

The target has been split into step changes: 65 per cent of new cars must achieve the 130g/km target by 2012, rising to 75 per cent by 2013, 80 per cent the year after and 100 per cent in 2015.