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'Defective tyre' prosecutions top 10,000

MORE THAN 170 motorists were convicted every week in 2012 for driving on defective or even dangerous tyres. The figures, obtained by tyre safety charity TyreSafe as part of its efforts to improve awareness during Tyre Safety Month, show that 10,228 drivers were taken to court over their tyres. As rain becomes a more regular fixture for most motorists up and down the country, following an unusually dry summer, tyre tread depth and pressure become even more important.

Insurance group lists its Top Safety Picks

After increasing its standards for 2011 models, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that 66 vehicles--more than double the 2010 total--rate as best in the industry at protecting passengers from front, side, rollover and rear crashes. Only 27 vehicles qualified last year after the group, funded by the insurance industry, required that vehicles pass a roof-strength test to earn a good rating, claiming that stronger roofs would reduce the risk of serious or fatal injury by 50 percent in a rollover accident. The most mentioned carmakers on the 2011 list are Hyundai/Kia and Volkswagen/Audi, both with nine vehicles to get the Top Safety Pick designation.

The no-show cars: a reader rant on mad concepts

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical.