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Shocking stats reveal mobile use while driving

AS MANY as 13% of drivers are still using hand-held mobile phones while at the wheel, according to a survey. And 4% have admitted to regularly sending or reading text messages while driving, the poll by road safety charity Brake and insurance company Direct Line showed. The number of people owning up to using hand-held mobiles at the wheel has fallen from 36% in 2006 to the current figure of 13%.

Goodwood 2011 FoS and Revival dates announced

Lord March has announced dates for both the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Goodwood Revival. The Festival of Speed will take place from 1-3 July, and the Revival will follow on 16-18 September 2011. The theme is 'racing revolutions – quantum leaps that shaped motor sport’, and some of the celebrated breakthroughs will includes 30 years since four-wheel drive started to dominate rallying, 25 years since turbocharged engines ruled in F1, and two decades since Mazda’s rotary-engined 787B took the chequered flag at Le Mans.

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.