New research has uncovered the worrying eyesight of Britain’s drivers. More than a fifth (21 percent) say road signs appear blurry when driving.

The research, by specialist eye hospital group Optegra, also revealed that 27 percent find it hard to see when driving at night. That may sound obvious, but our ability to deal with varying levels of light, such as when cars and streetlights pass through our field of vision, is vitally important. Four in 10 said they experience distracting levels of glare from other cars’ lights in the dark.

In addition, 28 percent of the drivers admitted they wished they could see better when driving. And 17 percent said they did not feel safe driving because of the quality of their eyesight.

Short-sighted youth

Interestingly, it’s a major issue with young drivers. One in five British drivers had to buy glasses or contact lenses in order to pass their test.

Incredibly, as many as 44 percent of 16-24 year-olds say road signs appear blurry. Over half said they are majorly affected by light glare at night – and 39 percent said they don’t feel safe driving because of their eyesight.

“This concerning data really worries me – that so many drivers are citing problems with their vision when driving,” said Optegra eye surgeon, Shafiq Rehman.

“It is so, so vital that all drivers see well. As we have heard in the news recently, accidents can so easily happen”.

What are the DVLA ‘standards of vision for driving’?

As quoted directly from the DVLA site, ‘you must be able to read (with glasses or contact lenses, if necessary) a car number plate made after 1 September 2001 from 20 metres’.

‘You must also meet the minimum eyesight standard for driving by having a visual acuity of at least decimal 0.5 (6/12) measured on the Snellen scale (with glasses or contact lenses, if necessary) using both eyes together or, if you have sight in one eye only, in that eye.

‘You must also have an adequate field of vision – your optician can tell you about this and do a test.

‘At the start of your practical driving test you have to correctly read a number plate on a parked vehicle. If you can’t, you’ll fail your driving test and the test won’t continue. The DVLA will be told and your licence will be revoked.’

Chevrolet has announced four special edition versions of the Corvette sports car, with designs created by the Corvette Racing team.

General Motors is no stranger to creating special Corvettes, but these cars are slightly different than normal. The quartet of offerings has seen Corvette Racing drivers select their personal pick of exterior and interior options, intended to reflect their individual tastes.

Suitably, Chevrolet is using this weekend’s 24 Hours of Daytona race to show off the Drivers Series range of cars. The endurance event will see two Corvette Racing C7.R cars competing in the GTLM class, with Tommy Milner, Oliver Gavin, Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia onboard.

High-speed graphic designs

Rather than limiting the Drivers Series cars to just one Corvette model, the design packages can be applied to 2019 1LT, 2LT, 3LT, and Grand Sport cars. It’s simply a case of picking which colour scheme appeals the most, or who your favourite Corvette driver is, from the four options:

Tommy Milner Edition: Two-times Le Mans winner Milner picked Elkhart Lake Blue paintwork with silver stripes and red hash marks, body-color mirrors, black wheels with red stripe and red brake calipers. The interior features Jet Black Suede (or leather), with red seat belts.

Oliver Gavin Edition: British driver Gavin plumped for Shadow Gray exterior with Torch Red center stripe and Torch Red hash marks, plus Carbon Flash mirrors, black wheels with red stripe, red brake calipers. Inside is finished in Adrenaline Red, with red seat belts.

Jan Magnussen Edition: Great Dane Jan Magnussen opted for Arctic White paint with Crystal Red stripes and gray hash marks, body-color mirrors, black wheels with red stripe and red brake calipers. Like the others here, the interior is Jet Black, but has red seat belts.

Antonio Garcia Edition: Racing Yellow exterior with stinger stripe, red hash marks, Carbon Flash mirrors, black wheels with red stripe and red brake calipers are the selections of Señor Garcia. Predictably, the interior is Jet Black interior, but 3LT trim nets yellow stitching.

Racing legends

Specifying anew Corvette as a Drivers Series car will add $4,995 (£3,780) to the basic price of 1LT and 2LT trims, and $5,995 (£4,540 for the 3LT trimmed ‘Vette.

Standard equipment includes Brembo brakes, an electronically controlled limited-slip differential, uprated suspension, and bodywork tweaks. Corvettes with the Drivers Series package will be able to order from spring 2019, with no mention of limits on how many can be built.

Demand may well depend on whether Corvette Racing can take a 100th IMSA sports car victory at Daytona this weekend. We just hope that the other two Corvette Racing drivers, Mike Rockenfeller and Marcel Fassler, are not too upset about not being asked to design their own cars.

March 2019 promises to be a challenging month. As the country braces itself for Brexit, motorists are being warned to prepare themselves for ‘MOTmageddon’.

OK, we’re the first outlet to use that entirely made-up word, but owners of cars approaching their third birthday are advised to book the MOT early to avoid disappointment. MOTmageddon is coming.

• The cars most and least likely to pass an MOT

The warning comes from Coachworks Consulting, an independent automotive consultancy, which says that a record number of cars will require their first MOT over the next 12 months, including a bevvy of MOT virgins in March.

Almost 2.7 million cars were registered in 2016, each one requiring an MOT before December.

And it’s not just motorists who need to be prepared. Dealers and workshops are advised to prepare for the record demand for MOTs or risk losing business to rival operators and fast-fit outlets.

“An unprecedented swell of MOTs will hit workshops from March and franchised dealers have a one-off opportunity to retain customers they sold a record number of cars to three years ago,” said Karl Davis, managing director of Coachworks Consulting.

“Dealers need to be contacting customers as early as possible about their first MOT and not just wait for the due date. If they fail to do this then customers will go to fast-fits and independent garages. And if they have a good experience they won’t come back,” he continued.

Sunday best

Around 519,000 new cars were registered in March 2016 alone, which is why the consultancy firm says franchised workshops should expect to conduct an average of 50 extra MOT tests per site, per month.

Not that we see anything wrong with booking an MOT at an independent garage. While £54.85 is the maximum fee a garage can charge for a test, the parts and labour costs are likely to be cheaper at an independent workshop.

A cheaper MOT might seem attractive on paper, but customers should look at the bigger picture.

To ensure you’re prepared for MOTmageddon, check out our 10 things to check before your car’s MOT test and be advised that you stand a better chance of passing first time if you book the test on a Sunday.

If you’re a premium passenger with British Airways and risk missing your connecting flight, the airline will drive you along the runway directly to the aircraft. 

The service is called the BA premium transfer drive – and it’s now going low-emissions by taking on a fleet of new hybrid London taxis.

Customers are met at the steps of the aircraft and driven straight to their next flight by the BA chauffeurs. “It’s great to see the reaction of customers when they’re met by a London taxi at the side of the aircraft,” said BA’s Daljit Hayre.

“They’ve told us how much they appreciate this gesture, plus they love the space in the vehicle for their hand baggage.”

The aim is to reduce airside emissions, said BA environment manager Andy Kershaw. BA wans to cut both carbon emissions “and those emissions that impact air quality and our local communities”. The new EV taxis join a fleet of electric aircraft pushback vehicles.

Built by the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC), the BA taxis boast wi-fi, 12v charging points and a panoramic roof that’s “great for plane spotting”. Air conditioning is also standard.

Oh, and unlike a normal London taxi ride, this one’s free, adds BA…

Almost 110,000 vehicles were seized by police during 2018, being confiscated where drivers failed to have valid insurance. 

Whilst cars being seized for no insurance has become commonplace, the increase in cars leased or bought on finance causes greater problems. Without the help of HPI Crushwatch, finance companies could see millions of pounds of assets turned into metal cubes.

Working with police forces and vehicle financing houses, the Crushwatch scheme helps reunite seized vehicles with their legal owners. Last year, vehicles worth almost £122 million were handed back in one piece.

Supercar superheroes

Of the 13,000 seized vehicles found to belong to finance companies, a plethora of supercars and luxury motors were amongst those recovered.

A £306,200 Lamborghini Aventador was the single most valuable car saved from sale or scrapping. Sant’Agata products proved popular for those with no insurance, making up half of the top ten most valuable vehicles found by Crushwatch:

Repeat offenders the most popular

Of greatest concern is that the value of leased or financed cars seized has risen by £28 million compared to 2017. A total of £122 million marks the highest amount ever recovered in the ten years Crushwatch has been in operation, pointing to a worrying trend.

Whilst supercars might attract the most attention, the most common vehicles found by the scheme represent a picture of everyday modern road traffic:

A new windscreen treatment announced by Halfords could mean the end of icy windscreens – and give your windscreen wipers a few well-earned days off.

Duxback is a six-monthly treatment that covers your windscreen in a hydrophobic coating. It makes rain run off at speeds above 40mph and bead at speeds below that, rather than spreading across your screen and impeding your vision. Like water off a duck’s back, so to speak.

An additional benefit is that it makes ice much easier to remove from your windscreen. No more battling with a scraper or credit card on a frosty morning. 

Similar treatments were originally developed for commercial aircraft to keep cockpit glass clear, and it wasn’t long before the same benefits were proposed for the road. From Halfords, both windscreen/front window and whole-car treatments are available

During testing by TÜV Thüringen, the new treatment improves visibility by an average of 35 percent in rainy weather. Compared to using wipers, the driver’s ability to spot small objects in wet conditions is improved by 25 percent. That’s equivalent to a reaction time improvement of 58 feet at 40mph.

“We want to make the roads safer for drivers in poor wet weather,” says Andy Randall from Halfords Autocentres.

“Poor visibility doesn’t just make driving in the rain unpleasant and more tiring, but failing to see a hazard quickly slows your reaction time. This can add several car-lengths to your stopping distance and make the difference between avoiding a collision and not.”

At £25 per application or £50 per year, we’ll leave it up to you on whether such a treatment is worth it. For the whole-car treatment, it’s £60 a go or £120 for a year.

Yes, it could make driving safer and save your wipers some wear and tear. Nevertheless, that’s a fee many would rather put towards road tax or a tank of fuel.

In cities across the UK and Europe, there are low emissions zones and diesel ban schemes already in place. These require drivers of some vehicles to pay a fee, while certain vehicles aren’t allowed access at all.

Helpfully, auto parts and accessories provider Kfzteile24 has compiled an up-to-date interactive map on Google – embedded below – showing the relevant restrictions across the continent.

Driving bans in the UK and France

While outright bans aren’t as widespread as some might think, the belt can only tighten in the coming years. For now, there are only three locations in the UK where any form of outright ban is in place.

In the case of Reading, there is a driving ban on particular streets between 7am and 11am, and between 4pm and 6pm. In Leicester and Glasgow, buses that pre-date Euro 5 emissions standards are banned.

London is perhaps the most forthright of the UK’s cities for emissions regulation, yet it still hasn’t banned any sort of vehicle. When the Ultra Low Emission Zone begins in April 2019, you’ll need to pay a fee if you’re driving into what is also the Congestion Charge Zone. This applies at any time of day, but only to diesel cars that pre-date Euro 6, petrol cars that pre-date Euro 4 and trucks that pre-date Euro 6.

By 2021, that will extend to inner London and, by January 2025, the city wants emissions-free vehicles only within the greater London area.

The ULEZ standard will be taking hold in Edinburgh from 2020, with vehicles that don’t meet it potentially being banned.

The French cities of Paris, Lille and Rennes have more severe driving bans that could pertain to private drivers. Paris runs a car-free Sunday, among a whole host of banned commercial vehicles for certain times through the week.

Lille has an emergency driving ban for when NOx levels are too high, as does Rennes, applying to cars that pre-date Euro 2 emissions regulations.

The Dacia Sandero five-door supermini has, for years, held the title of cheapest new car you can buy in Britain.

For 2019, it retains the honour, with a starting list price of £6,995 for the basic Access trim – but Dacia has honed the rest of the range to offer better value for customers seeking a bargain without shunning every luxury.

• How to find the cheapest petrol and diesel near you
• Dacia’s ‘EasyJet approach takes it to 5 million sales

The key new variant is called Essential. Priced from £7,795, it adds just £800 to the price of the entry-level Sandero, but adds on essential extras.

The biggest addition with Essential is air conditioning. It duly claims the title of cheapest new car on sale in Britain with standard air con.

Other extras include electric front windows, DAB radio with Bluetooth connectivity, 15-inch wheels and body-coloured bumpers (yes, the base Sandero retains its ugly black plastic bumpers and trim-less wheels).

Dacia offers the Sandero Essential with the slothful SCe 75 engine, the far superior TCe 90 turbo petrol for £1,000 more, and a somewhat pointless Blue dCi 95 diesel for a whopping £1,600 more.

Only the fact its CO2 dips below 100g/km, and economy of up to 62.7mpg is claimed, works in the new-generation Blue dCi 95 diesel’s favour.

The top-line Sandero is Comfort, priced from £8,795 with the SCe 75 and £9,795 with a TCe 90. Equipment additions include touchscreen MediaNav infotainment with sat nav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, cruise control, rear parking sensors, electric door mirrors and electric rear windows.

Dacia’s related Logan MCV follows a similar grade structure to the Sandero: it’s still Britain’s cheapest new estate car, priced from £8,495.

Ordering for both is open now with Logan MCV deliveries starting in February, and the 2019 Sandero due in the UK from March.

2019 Dacia Sandero prices

• Access SCe 75: £6,995
• Essential SCe 75: £7,795
• Essential TCe 90: £8,795
• Essential Blue dCi 95: £10,395
• Comfort SCe 75: £8,795
• Comfort TCe 90: £9,795
• Comfort Blue dCi 95: £11,395

2019 Dacia Logan MCV prices

• Access SCe 75: £8,495
• Essential SCe 75: £9,295
• Essential TCe 90: £10,295
• Essential Blue dCi 95: £11,895
• Comfort SCe 75: £10,295
• Comfort TCe 90: £11,295
• Comfort Blue dCi 95: £12,895

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