Opinion

Adrian Hallmark’s decision to join Aston Martin later this year after six high-achieving years as CEO of Bentley is just about the only move he could have made that could universally be regarded as a huge positive. 

Hallmark has created a culture of style, excellence and high organisation at Bentley that promises to translate perfectly to Aston, now that outgoing Aston CEO Amedeo Felisa has put its impressive collection of new products on the rails. Hallmark will burnish the image, inspire the dealers, charm the clientele - and doubtless put a much-needed few quid on the share price. 

Big plaudits must surely go to big boss Lawrence Stroll, who seems to have pulled off a minor miracle in a) attracting Hallmark, b) arranging for him to leave the Volkswagen Group amid praise, not rancour, and c) managing to get him working on his vital new tasks within a few months. Just the fact of his appointment will lift the whole company. 

It’s genuinely difficult to imagine what move could have been more effective than this at showing off Aston’s seriousness about the future - or convincing us that the exalted targets Stroll & Co set some time ago, which seemed unattainable, can truly be hit.

Well, this is a little embarrassing. 

When I previously suggested that all drivers should be regularly reminded of their responsibilities on the road, reader Phil Townsend wrote to suggest that I ought not to be overtaking cars doing 60mph on dual carriageways in my Ford Ranger Raptor because its speed limit is also 60mph on such roads, owing to it being a light commercial vehicle.

Light commercial vehicles – vans and so on – have different speed limits to cars, as you may know, and indeed as I knew. They’re the same as cars for speed limits up to 50mph, but as for national speed limit roads, they’re limited to 50mph on single carriageways (not 60mph), 60mph on dual carriageways (not 70mph) and then revert to 70mph on motorways.

There are exceptions to this rule. Car-derived vans, such as the Toyota Corolla Commercial that is also currently on the Autocar fleet, have the same speed limits as cars. So do double-cab pick-up trucks, which are classed as dual-purpose vehicles.

I don’t have the Raptor’s V5C document, but I knew that’s what it was. Except it wasn’t. Because here’s the thing: dual-purpose vehicles are only such if their unladen weight is less than 2040kg, and the Raptor’s weight of 2454kg is somewhat over that.

I need to go through the spec sheets for all of the UK’s current double-cab pick-ups, because I suspect that not many are under that limit.

On this point, it doesn’t matter that HMRC doesn’t treat the Raptor as a van, owing to its sub-1000kg payload.

To qualify as a car-derived van, a vehicle must weigh less than 2000kg when fully loaded. So while the Corolla Commercial complies, the Land Rover Defender Commercial does not.

Also, the speed limit rule for car-derived vans works only for vans spawned from cars, rather than vans that have spawned passenger versions.

So the Corolla Commercial has car speed limits but the Citroën Berlingo is still defined as a van and therefore subject to lower speed limits (although I read that later variants might have ‘car-derived van’ on their V5Cs, and this isn’t something that applies to the passenger variants anyway, so don’t fret about the 10mph if you have one of those).

This can all be quite confusing, I think, and is certainly model-specific: Isuzu D-Maxes can qualify as dual-purpose vehicles, more road-focused pick-ups might not and no single-cab pick-up is allowed to.

This wouldn’t have mattered too much in the past, I suspect. What would a few MPH either way on a speed limit have mattered on the occasional road where indeed you could reach it? Basic speed cameras would go off only if triggered at a certain speed and traffic police would be more interested in how you drove.

But given the increase in average speed cameras, whose automatic numberplate-recognition systems know each individual vehicle’s registered limits, it now pays to absolutely know what applies. Especially as drivers of commercial vehicles sometimes aren’t treated as leniently as car drivers in court, because they (like me) should know better.

I wonder, though, if there’s an argument for raising the weight thresholds for vehicles to be classed as car-derived vans and dual-purpose vehicles. A medium-sized estate car could very easily have a laden weight of more than 2000kg.Add a significant amount of electrification and it absolutely will.

Legislation has forced cars to become bigger and heavier than ever, yet they have also become better at stopping and feature more active safety systems than ever.

These clauses were obviously created with good reason: so that entirely capable vehicles could keep up with the traffic flow. It would be a shame to find that no vehicles comply with them.

To my relief, it looks like the answer to the question “is it just me?” is no.

Too many cars in recent times have had me despairing at the number of controls that have migrated away from physical buttons and onto touchscreens.

In some cases this is slightly annoying; in others I believe it’s borderline dangerous. Now the influential car safety rating organisation Euro NCAP has decided that, from 2026, it will award five-star ratings only to cars that retain physical controls for key features.

To qualify, a car must have buttons, stalks or dials for its indicators, windscreen wipers, hazard warning lights, horn and SOS function. This list of items is welcome but not as exhaustive as I would like.

You would have to be some kind of psychopath to not want those controls immediately available where they always are, wouldn’t you?

Given that only a few car makers have moved any wiper activity from physical controls and, to my knowledge, only Tesla has made the baffling and idiotic decision to put indicators on smooth, unfeelable and moving buttons (on a steering-wheel spoke in the latest Tesla Model 3), this decision ought to prevent more mission creep but largely sets the limits at where we are now.

I would prefer Euro NCAP to ask that things that are becoming common be undone.

The Volvo EX30, for example, which last year drove me to distraction by having no physical controls for its door mirrors, wiper sensitivity, climate control (excluding a roof-mounted and not feelably delineated demister button), lights (including the foglight) or driver assistance systems, nor a quickly turnable/pushable volume control, could still qualify for five Euro NCAP stars. I wanted to burn it.

The Model 3, which has no stalks at all, is worse. I don’t think Tesla’s latest indicator buttons, presumably developed somewhere roundabouts don’t exist, should disqualify it from a five-star NCAP rating. In fact, I think they should disqualify it from being sold here at all.

Last week, Edmund King, president of the AA, said something I think a lot of us feel: “I’ve tried not to be a Luddite.”

I think we all have. Nobody wants to be the grumpy old git in the corner, moaning about how great things used to be, to be called ‘old man yells at cloud’ or ‘boomer’.

Cars are generally better than they used to be, but getting rid of stalks and dials and buttons isn’t better, it’s just cheaper. It's time everybody admitted it – and stopped it. 

As expected, there was no financial support to incentivise the uptake of electric cars in the chancellor’s budget this week. And with a general election now being tipped for as early as May, it’s extremely unlikely that any support will be forthcoming this side of autumn – if ever. 

Several car makers have reacted furiously, the underlying sentiment being that EVs have been pushed to buyers at a set percentage whether they want them or not and car makers are the ones on the hook if they don’t reach that threshold.

As a reminder, the UK needs to get EVs to 22% of car sales this year but has been stalled at 16% for several months now. Private demand is particularly poor (business buyers remain incentivised through favourable company car tax rates), accounting for fewer than 20% of EV sales. 

Calls for incentives have become ever louder, and rather than cash grants, as have been offered previously by the Treasury, a series of other measures have been proposed by many in the car industry.

Most prominent are the calls for halving VAT on new EV sales to 10% to mirror other green technologies in other industries looking for law-carbon solutions; and cutting VAT on public charging from 20% to 5% to match the VAT rate of domestic electricity. 

Other measures proposed have been extending favourable VED rates for EVs that currently end at the end of the next financial year; longer-term commitments to low BIK tax rates to support fleet buyers in making long-term decisions; and removing insurance tax on EV policies.

Alas, chancellor Jeremy Hunt did nothing of the sort, instead opting just to continue the freeze on fuel duty. Mike Hawes, chief of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, called the budget "a missed opportunity to deliver fairer tax for a fair transition".

Fiat UK boss Damien Dally went further, saying that the lack of action meant that the government was "sleepwalking into an electric vehicle crisis”. 

“Without any government financial incentive,” Dally said, “there’s no reason for the consumer to make the switch [to EVs]".

Vauxhall boss James Taylor added: “Whilst there are strong incentives for company car drivers to make the switch to electric, including for those choosing luxury vehicles, the private buyer who wants a more attainable small or family car receives nothing." 

It's very hard not to have sympathy with car makers' plight, particularly when they face a £15,000 penalty for every car sold that doesn't comply with the legislation. 

As Taylor noted, it's the mainstream, lower-priced models and car makers being hit most by this, as private demand simply isn't there, and why would people choose a costlier and less proven technology during a cost of living crisis?

However, one car company boss in the UK, speaking anonymously to Autocar Business, had sympathy with the Treasury’s plight in being hesitant to support the sale of new EVs, because it would be unnecessarily incentivising the 16% of buyers who would be buying an EV anyway. The trick is making sure any measures target that gap that exists between 16% and 22%.

Those who speak in favour of the VAT cut believe it to be cost-neutral to the Treasury, saying the purchase of an EV would always replace that of an ICE car, and given that the cost of an ICE car is less than that of an EV, a VAT rate of 20% on an ICE car and of 10% on an EV would balance out when the final bill comes in. This seems logical.

Perhaps the government, should it remain in power, already has its eye on softening its targets down the line should the industry fall short of them, having left it to go it alone.

A key clause in the ZEV mandate is a review in 2026, and given that most of the technicalities within it – trading, banking, borrowing and delaying details – work on a rolling three-year basis from 2024 to 2026, they can can be kicked down the road before anyone is made to pay a fine.

Still, it's a high-stakes game against the car industry for the government, which is ultimately on the hook (more so than the industry) for having a legislated target of its own to be net-zero on carbon emissions by 2050.

In the middle of all this are private car buyers, who after the budget have no more incentive to buy a new EV than before. A missed opportunity all round. 

On the whole, I don’t like telling people what to do. Where governments have a clear choice about whether to interfere in people’s lives or not, I usually think they shouldn’t.

Overreach is tiresome and we will probably get along just fine without it, so unless it’s really obvious that something needs intervention, governments should just facilitate what we reasonably want to do and otherwise leave us alone. I suppose I don’t trust ‘them’ not to mess things up.

I’ve always felt this way about driving. Yes, perhaps it’s daft that you can pass a driving test at 17 and barely think about your licence again until your grandchildren notice that you keep nerfing the garage door and in the meantime you can pick a car off the shelf that weighs 2.2 tonnes and goes from 0-60mph in 2.0sec without any additional training.

But despite that, the UK still has the fifth-safest roads in the world, narrowly behind Japan and only marginally bettered by Norway, Sweden and Iceland, so we must be doing all right. Leave it alone.

Then I took three long and utterly miserable drives last week. It was half-term, which never helps standards, but still, on a Friday evening and over a weekend, I’ve never been so annoyed by the amount of dismal lane choices, poor speed choices, hopeless signalling and clear distraction.

After that, I was driven around by, well, let’s call him a family friend to keep him anonymous. He drives a lot, but it has been decades since his last instruction. At six roundabouts, he didn’t manage to once signal correctly, and he often drove at the same speed whether on an A-road or in town – too slow on one, too fast in the other.

And the more I pay attention to it, the worse I think our driving standards are getting.

Bad driving, particularly when it comes to choosing lanes on motorways, is an epidemic. We’re a nation of ditherers and dimwits who think that so long as we don’t get nabbed by speed cameras, we must be doing things right. We’re not.

In a car, negotiating lines of cars steadfastly refusing to leave the middle lane and signalling appallingly at roundabouts is irritating. If you’re trying to drive a lorry among these people, it must be infuriating to the point of self-combustion.

And so, with a heavy heart, I think life would be improved by… ugh… intervention. A scheme. A policy. Interference. I’m not suggesting that we should all have to take another full driving test, but I do think some kind of mandatory update or refresher training to remind drivers of their responsibilities would be helpful.

Unhelpfully, I don’t know what it would look like, how frequently it would have to be taken or what would happen if you were to get it wrong. But if every few years you had to pay attention, do a little homework and then demonstrate you understood road rules, I genuinely think it would be useful.

It could be done online at home or, for those who can’t, in a library. A gentle reminder.

It’s not like this sort of thing is unusual; every so often, my employer reminds me about everything from media law to how to sit in a chair properly. And training works; those who take speed awareness courses are less likely to speed again and have a significantly reduced chance of being in a collision than those who take penalty points after being caught speeding.

I hate the idea that those of us who know what we’re doing are judged by the lowest common denominator, and I’m still not sure I believe in this idea myself.

Which is probably handy, because given that your council and mine can’t fix our roads, I don’t suppose they have time to worry about how we drive on them.